Week 2: Composition
Monday, October 6th Overview
Review Mini Assignment 2 / questions from the previous week
Reading Reflection check in
Composition Basics Overview- Slides
Grid Examples
"A grid system is not just a set of rules to follow... but it's also a set of rules to play off of–to break, even. Given the right grid – the right system of constraints – very good designers can create solutions that are both orderly and unexpected."
-- Khoi Vinh, New York Times, referenced from Rune Madsen's Programming Design Systems.
Grids: repeating structures of form and spacing provide a means to organize a design and partition space. Grids can establish rhythm and create a sense of flow; however, they can also be shifted, manipulated, and broken to create interest, focus, and surprise.
Examples:
Bridget Riley: English Painter who is one of the most prominent creators of OpArt. Riley's paintings use repetition and contrast to create subtle effects on the eyes of the viewer [Reas et al.]
Vera Molnar: Hungarian artist who created intricate plotter-based artwork. One of the first artists to use a plotter.
John Maeda- Morisawa 10: Series of posters created through postscript with repeating and transforming typography [Referenced from Zach Lieberman's Recreating the Past Course at SFPC].
Donald Judd: American artist who focused on the constructed object, as well as the space created by it. Many of his works can be found in Marfa, Texas at the Chinati Foundation (see also, the Donald Judd Foundation).
Agnes Martin: Born in Canada, Martin was an abstract/minimalist artist known for her geometric work incorporating grids and systemic repetition.
Kasimir Malevich: Founder of Suprematism, an art movement whose "grammar" consists of the most fundamental geometric forms (specifically the square and the circle). See also: Wassily Kandinsky and Victor Vasarely.
Piet Mondrian: Dutch abstract artist who was known for avoiding references to the real world and using only primary colors (red, yellow, blue), primary values (black, grey, white), and primary directions (horizontal and vertical).
10PRINT references Composition with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow, and Gray (1921) on page 79.
Theo Van Doesburg: Dutch artist, founder and leader of De Stijl (aka Neoplasticism, a Dutch art movement).
10PRINT references Counter-Composition VI (1925) on page 79.
Paul Klee: Bauhaus professor, whose work in the 1920s resembled Truchet’s and Doüat’s experiments. His 1925 book Pedagogical Sketchbook presents his thoughts on quantitative structure, rhythm, repetition, and variation.
10PRINT references his work Variations (Progressive Motif) from 1921 on page 79.
Sol LeWitt: American artist who created wall drawings to be executed from a set of written rules/instructions. Generally, when museums or consumers bought his work, the work at hand was the set of instructions itself (oftentimes, LeWitt himself would not execute the drawings).
See this video of the execution of LeWitt's Wall Drawing #29.
To Do before Wednesday's Class:
Reading and Reflection
Computational Scaffolding of Composition, Value, and Color for Disciplined Drawing by Ma et al.
Create a slide on the Reflection Slide Deck and add your response
Experiment with sample code in layout examples
Wednesday, October 8th Overview
Reading discussion- leaders Jintong and Jon
Questions on examples from Monday's class
Computer Vision examples for Image analysis and segmentation
Edge Detection
Contour Detection
KMeans Color Segmentation
Spatial Segmentation
Voronoi/ Point Tracking Example
Additional Examples
Kyle McDonald's p5.js CV examples
To Do before Monday's Class:
Review Assignment 1 and come to class with questions.
Mini assignment 3: modify or extend one of the example sketches in layout examples to annotate/stylize or analyze a chosen image or video clip.