This week was our first family trip in many years. I mostly took a break from coding. We drove from Oregon to Victoria, BC, featuring ferry rides and rhinoceros auklets.
I read a lot during the long car rides. I am working my way through When the Machine Made Art. Even though I feel like I knew a fair bit about the history, I’m learning so much and contextualizing a lot of motivations I see in computer art.
One part that changed how I was thinking about things was how much computer art was associated with the military at the beginning. The military in the 60s was already on my mind: I started the week with a military funeral for my grandpa, who operated radios overseas for the US Air Force during the height of the Cold War. And learning that some of the first drawings came from a place called the “Ballistic Research Laboratory”! When the book started comparing computer art to Video Art in the 70s, and how Video Art could be in response to commercialization, it clicked that the reason the militiary was challenging I assume that I’m stuck thinking of computers after the 2000s, when making art on computers feels like a good way to respond to commercialization/survellience capitalism/etc.
Back in Portland, I picked up the catalog from MOMA’s Responsive Eye and also Art and Visual Perception at Powell’s. After visiting AKG’s Electric Op last winter, I’m somewhat curious about Op Art as a reflection of the new understanding of cognitive science from that time. I’m curious what things we are making today that would be similar.
Despite the trip, I did a bit of work on projects. I realize with the bird project, I get sucked into details, but I have a new silhouette and wireframe mode. I was using that to make sure my parameters allow me to create the different types of birds I want to. I added a downy woodpecker to the robin and sparrow.
For the weaving/knots project, I doodled for a while by hand and came up with a few patterns I wanted to try. I keep finding issues with the triangulation and pixelation that are distracting me from getting into it.