Process > Form
Moving on from looking at forms embodying procedural design systems, the following work is a response to the platform brief - thinking about how audiences engage with and respond to my practice. I decided to focus on communicating themes that relate to my broader practice in addition to the recent algorithmic structures, as I felt this latest work did not encompass enough of the principles that have become important to my work as a whole.
One of these principles is encouraging and enabling others to engage with the material of code. If I have posited that understanding how a technology works is an important aspect in being critical of what it is and how it functions within society, then I should attempt to encourage others to deal with the building blocks of digisation more directly. I had previously attempted this within some earlier work without much success. The reality is that coding languages are very daunting and alien to individuals who are not acclimatised to them and who lack sufficient incentive to overcome these initial hurdles. With this in mind I decided to plan a creative coding workshop - a session where I could invite fellow designers to learn how to use code and accomplish a specific task - in this case the design of a digital poster - within an environment which was collaborative, informal, and able to progress at each person’s own pace.
To facilitate the workshop I created a digital poster using Open Processing - an browser-based platform that allows for creative coding in P5.js which can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection (following a simple signup), including an editor, live viewer, and a sharing gallery that functions like a very niche social media feed. The workshop structure was practice-based, with a few initial words to contextualise the working with code within the larger digital cultural rationale, followed by making of the posters, and concluding with a round table discussion about our thoughts on working and designing in this way.
Template sketch for the workshop showing the Open Processing interface.
Posters created during the workshop. Click an image to view the live sketch.
Another approach I attempted in terms of testing audience engagement is providing a space for viewers to interact with the algorithmic structures I had generated in a (perhaps) more meaningful way. I had initially intended to 3D print some of the structures, which would have been the most desirable experiment, however technical and scheduling constraints prevented this. Meanwhile I chanced upon an online 3D virtual platform called Frame VR which allows virtual spaces to be created and explored either within the browser or using VR hardware. Using this platform I created the Recurbuild - a virtual museum space where the algorithmic structures can be displayed and explored from any angle as if they were real objects. This also afforded experimentation with scale and placement - effectively curating the relationship between viewer and object and their journey through the space. In order to further contextualise the gallery, I created a series of coding sketches to provide other forms of ‘art’ to inhabit the space, including the use of classical sculpture imagery. These were also created using Open Processing, which Frame VR allows direct linking to within the space, showcasing both how contemporary digitisation allows for audiences to view digital recreations of digital images within a digital gallery space, but also how cross-platform networking allows for these different portals to intersect and interact, concurrently showing digital work in passive and active states of being.
The Recurbuild, made using FrameVR.
The various coding sketches made for the Recurbuild in Open Processing.
