December 2009
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Parhelia
ParheliaGenerated in VVVV, the Parhelia set utilises external data driven [FFT & XML] textures applied to geometric mesh deformations.
Parhelia was performed at Electrovision, The Roxy Bar and Screen, London, September 2009 along with 2 other generative pieces.
A Parhelion (plural Parhelia, from “beside the sun”, also called a ‘Mock Sun’) is an atmospheric phenomenon that creates bright spots of light in the sky, often on a luminous ring or halo on either side of the sun. Parhelia are formed by plate shaped hexagonal ice crystals in high and cold cirrus clouds or – during very cold weather – by ice crystals called diamond dust drifting in the air at low level.
Parhelia‘Mauve rings around the moon; blood-orange sun;
Twinned Iris; and that rare phenomenon
The iridule—when, beautiful and strange,
In a bright sky above a mountain range
One opal cloudlet in an oval form
Reflects the rainbow of a thunderstorm’From ‘Pale Fire’ by the fictional John Shade (From Vladimir Nabokov’s novel of the same name)
CLICK HERE to view the Parhelia Flickr set
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Blogs: Mad About Design
Blogs – Mad About Design [published by Maomao, 2009]Dataisnature was recently included in a book about design blogs, ‘Blogs – Mad About Design’, edited and written by Macarena San Martin and published by Maomao, 2009.
‘Although Blogs have existed since the end of the 1990s, they flourished only in recent years. Weblogs gained popularity as a medium to tell stories and develop thoughts through dialogue. With advancements in Internet technology, creating and publishing a blog is as simple as it is to check your emails. What makes the difference is, therefore, outstanding content. Blogs, Mad about Design is a collection of the most interesting and exciting graphic design blogs.’
Blogs – Mad About Design [published by Maomao, 2009]‘The founder of this blog is an artist, designer and VJ, who uses the site to document his personal searches and explorations. Philosophical thoughts, information and links are found here related to generative, algorithmic, process based artworks, computational aesthetics and code orientated architectural modelling. These are treated from a contemporary view point, as well as a historical context.’
CLICK HERE to view Dataisnature.com
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Zero to Infinity, Dana Center, London
Zero to Infinity, Dana Center, London‘What is zero? Is infinity a number? How have mathematicians made sense of zero and infinity, and what relevance does this have for understanding the universe around us?’
In November 2008, Zero to Infinity, an event organised by the Dana Centre (Part of the London Science Museum) set out to explore and answer some of these questions. I was invited to join a panel discussion including Marcus du Sautoy (mathematician, University of Oxford), Eleanor Robson, (historian of mathematics, University of Cambridge) and Jane Wess (curator, Science Museum). I was also invited to present some generative artwork and culminate the night with a live performance.
A Flickr set documenting the event can be found HERE.
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Plantetoid II
Planetoid IIWorking on a brand new set of works for Artware 5 afforded me the opportunity to create a new print from the Daub II software I wrote. Various bespoke video streams are fed into the patch and used as ‘paint’ so that the texture of the brush is animated at around 30 fps. The brush can be orientated in 3D space allowing its dynamic surface to be pushed and pulled backwards and forwards resulting in the generative accretion of layers over time.
Planetoid II (detial)Planetoid II exists in a similar star orbit to Planetoid I, however the former being older has suffered atmospheric processing for much longer ensuring a more spherical outcome, and more evenly propagated organic surface.
An image of the final print can be viewed HERE.
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Generative Gestaltung
Generative GestaltungMy work was recently included in the Book ‘Generative Gestaltung’ [Generative Design] by Hartmut Bohnacker, Benedikt Groß, Julia Laub and Claudius Lazzeroni. With 472 pages and over 1500 colour illustrations, the book aims to teach sophisticated generative design techniques and contains a large section of Processing code examples. The first section is devoted to 30 inspirational generative works from established international artists. The book is published by Verlag Hermann Schmidt Mainz GmbH (ISBN 978-3-87439-759-9) with an English version due soon.
Talysis IIThe text in the above picture reads as follows:
‘Paul Prudence is interested in making artworks and performing real-time synaesthetic pieces that employ generative and computational systems. He is particularly interested in using digital video feedback as a recursive function simulator – a way of producing auto-catalytic (self-generating) artworks. With its strict symmetry and geometry Talysis II is evocative of the work of the Perceptual and Op-Artist movements of the 60’s. The Autotroph sequence takes similar modulative geometry and fuses it with an interest in computational models of morphogenesis (originally proposed by Alan Turing in the early 50s). Research in biology suggests one theory for morphogensis (the shape creation of living organisms) is based upon complex chemical feedback processes at a cellular level. The Autotroph sequences sets out to create computational organisms, that mimic this process, using video signals as morphogens, that can self-replicate into complex biological/crystalline forms.’
Autotroph Sequence – Generative Gestaltung‘The systems used to generate Talysis II and the Autotroph sequences are programmed simulations of the classic analogue feedback set-up where a camera points to a monitor to which its output is connected. The computational version contains a circuit of renderers (virtual monitor screens), each passing its output, a white square, to the next renderer. Using a variety of transformations of the video signal as it is conveyed around this infinite loop the circuits generate a surprising variety of species of self-similarity. The software used to program these loops is VVVV, a visual programming video synthesis tool-kit designed by Meso, Frankfurt.’
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Bridges 2009 – Talysis II
Talysis IITwo new Prints of Talysis II were show at this years Bridges Mathematical Arts Conference & Exhibition in Canada. This years exhibition took place through July at the the Banff International Research Station, Banff, and was co-ordinated by Robert Fathauer
Talysis II (real-time software) is constructed with a circuit of video renderers, each passing its output to the next renderer to produce a closed visual information loop – a software simulation of the classic analogue video feedback loop. These particular high resolution outputs where generated with unitary modulation in mind and to accentuate the hyperbolic geometric properties of the resultant form.
Talysis IICLICK HERE to view more images of Talysis II. The high resolution version of this piece was developed from a real-time screen-based version, a video of which can be found HERE
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Node 08 – Forum for Digital Arts
Node 08 – Forum for Digital ArtsApril 2008 saw the first VVVV festival held in Frankfurt and I was kindly invited to give a lecture on my work, my inspiration and an entrée into visual music and synaesthetic art. The lecture culminated in a short performance of Son Lattice (link), a piece dealing with the real-time sonification of form. I was very humbled to be included a a day of lecturers of the highest calibre including names such as Berthold Scharrer, Herbert.W.Franke, Casey Reas, Marc Fornes, Skylar Tibbits (Theverymany, Regine Debatt, and Verena Kuni. The weeks proceedings also included workshops, patcher kutcha’s, exhibitions and installations concerning the everybody’s favourite visual programming video tool kit.
You can read a full review of my experience of Node 08 HERE and view selected slides of my lecture HERE. A Flickr set of pictures documenting the event can be found HERE
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Autotrophs
Autotroph SequenceAn Autotroph (from the Greek autos = self and trophe = nutrition), is an organism that produces complex organic compounds from simple inorganic molecules using energy from light or inorganic chemical reactions.
The Autotrophs are created using simulated video feedback, they are genetic offspring’s from Talysis II.
Alan Turing, in his famous paper, was the one the first to propose a matho-chemical basis for morphogenesis (The shape creation of living organisms). He posited the idea of the generation of living forms via chemical feedback processes – often simple processes that lead to unpredictable patterns and intricate, often geometric, morphologies. I have been interested in utilising controlled video feedback to mimic these autogenic processes. The video signal, a morphogen, self-replicates itself, to create crystalline life forms similar to Radiolarians.
The Autotroph prints contain many life-forms in composite series, intimating a life-cycle, or metamorphosis between one species and another. They intentionally mimic the layouts of Hans Haeckle’s famous illustrations in ‘Kunstformen der Natur’.
Click here for a Flickr Selection of Autotrophs
Click here to view the prints which formed part of my contribution to the Artware5 exhibition of computational/generative art in Peru, 2009. -
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Hacktronic, Boston, US
Hacktronic, Boston, USIn October 2007 I performed a set of real-time generative work and deejayed a selection of electronic music at Hacktronic, the reception of a Razorfish/Avenue-A conference in Boston, US.
The 4 hour set included some new patches such as ‘W’ (shown above) which were made specially for the show. The set-up included an array of plasma screens arranged in a circular schema around the hall. The screens retain the graphic quality of the work to a much greater degree than standard projection. I enjoyed the positioning of the screens in front of clear windows allowing the urban landscape to be viewed behind.
Flickr documentation of the visit to Boston and the night
can be found HERE -
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Playgrounds AV Festival, Tilburg
Artist Talk: Playgrounds AV Festival, TilburgIn October 2009 I was invited to Tilburg to participate at Playgrounds, the yearly festival of audio-visual art and animation. I gave a lecture on my artistic practice including technical aspects, the software I use, and the historical inspirations behind my aesthetic. Areas covered included sound and non-sound responsive real-time work and semi-automatic drawing programs.
‘One area of special interest will be the ways in which sound and form can be amalgamated synthaesthetically using a variety of techniques such as simulated video feedback with real-time sound analysis. Paul Prudence will expose some of the key mathematical concepts that are inherent in his work, as well as look into some of the philosophical implications of the ‘sonification of form’ – ways in which sound can be transcoded in moving image.