Week 2: Procedure and Repetition

Thursday, January 14th Overview


  • Reading Discussion: 3:30-4:20

10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10 -- a collaboratively written book that examines a single line of BASIC code for the Commodore 64, as a means to consider the phenomenon of creative computing and the way computer programs exist in culture.

Discuss your reactions to the week's reading (optionally using the following prompts):

  1. What struck you about the alignment between computational forms of repetition and approaches taken in art, design, or craft?

  2. What are the aesthetic opportunities of repetitive designs? What are the potential limitations?

  3. What changes when we rely on computational methods to produce repetition in visual art and design, versus when we do it by hand?

  4. Follow with a joint group discussion.

  • Break: 4:20-4:30

  • Computational Repetition in Processing, Part 2: 4:30-5:10

Creating rhythm and variation in the grid

Creating a simple truchet tiling using transformations, loops, and basic shape primitives:
Example 1

Modifying the rhythm of the tiling using arrays:
Example 1
Example 2

References:
Moving the grid in Processing
Daniel Shiffman's explanation of processing transformations

In Class Experimentation:
Take 10 minutes to experiment with the structure and parameters of the truchet tiling examples.
Create 2 variations that produce 2 new patterns.


  • Shape Import: 4:30-5:10

Importing externally-created graphics into processing:
Example 1
Example 2 (Symmetry)

References:
Load Shape in Processing

  • Recursion: 4:30-5:10

Recursion with a seed tiling:
Example 1
Rectilinear Fractal

Additional References:
Nature of Code: Fractals
Form and Code: Recursive Tree
Recursion basics in Processing

Export PDF example
Save image example

  • Introduce week 2 assignment: 5:10-5:20


Assignment

  • Create a repeating wallpaper

  1. Using Processing, create a program that generates a wallpaper pattern.

You may choose to vary one of the example sketches, or write an entirely new program. Your only constraint is that your design must have some form of repetition including symmetrical repetition, a grid structure, or self-similarity (recursion).

You can use iteration or recursion (or a combination of the two), and your pattern can incorporate Processing shape primitives, or import bitmap or vector designs.

  1. Export 3 screenshots of your pattern at 3 different scales/ resolutions.

For example, if you are using a grid, do a 10x10 grid, a 20 x 20 grid, and a 100 x 100 grid.

  • Write a 1 paragraph description of how you arrived at the final pattern.

What choices you made about the structure of the design, etc.?

  • Upload your Processing code and screenshots of your three different wallpaper resolutions to your GitHub repository in the week2 directory. Also upload a text or markdown document with your 1 paragraph description. Please upload this material by 6:00 PM Monday evening. We will review the wallpapers in class on Tuesday, January 19th.