Speaking in Art

Remember these slides? And burning your butt sliding down in the summer?

elsaartist — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:43:49 +0000

elsaartist — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:37:56 +0000

I like the site – it’s called GraphJam and it makes many comments about life using charts and graphs. This one is an animation that is good for the holidays.

Playful Portrait

elsaartist — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 13:23:02 +0000

This is a nice little animation from Missy because “Everyone needs a smile today.”

Click on Playful Portrait for a smile. See the Jacquie Lawson website for classy ecards.

Dreamlines: making your own dreams

elsaartist — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:50:32 +0000

Imagine seeing your dream presented to you on your computer. Watching one abstract scene sliding into another, compelling you to tease out images – unconsciously relating them to your own life. I created a dream based on a real dream I had the other day, and found myself rocking in my chair, mesmerized by the experience.

What is Dreamlines?

Cafeofdreams also sent Emily this link about dreams. This one makes you think, muse about what it might mean and how it might relate to you and your life.

You enter a few keywords that you want in the dream. Choose several – some nouns and some adjectives. While it creates your dream, a white ball swings back and forth on a black background like a pendulum, inviting you to drift down into the gentle arms of sleep.

It almost looks like Scribber the way is creates each of the dream’s scenes – they do not appear instantly, but lines of different colors and patterns criss cross the screen to create each new scene. A scene is displayed just long enough for it to settle in your mind before it is off to scrawling over it to create the next one.

This application is hypnotic, pulling you into the dream, making you wonder and attempt to identify patterns if your life. It is quite compelling. But one must wonder, who is dreaming – you or the computer?

My generated dream

I had a dream the other night that meant a lot to me – very significant. Here are the keywords I put into the Dreamlines that I pulled from my dream. While Dreamlines didn’t reproduce scenes from my dream as I saw them, it did hit on a few that gave me a similar impact.

kitten girl truck fire beauty fear

Here are some of the scenes below. Of course, you cannot see the transition between the scenes, so the impact is completely gone. These are just to show how a scene looks – somewhat like trying to make out objects through wavy glass. Some of these are scenes as soon as I could do a screen capture, and others also show parts of the transitions.

How it related to dissociation

I was surprised to find an interesting (although untended) references to us. The author states,

“The subject of this work is, many times, multiplicity. That of the particles in endless movement, that of the vast contents of the Internet, that of the users and the dreams they wish to dream.

“All this multiplicities get together on the verge of chaos, on a process that mixes randomness and strict but complex logics, very much alike the processes that take place in our heads. Even when we rest.”

Some technical stuff:

This program works by culling images from the internet based on the selected keywords. The images are never really drawn, but created by zillions of “autonomous particles”

It seems not to run in Firefox. But does in Internet Explorer. Sadness.

Dreamlines is located at http://solaas.com.ar/dreamlines

Make-a Flake: Make your own snowflake!

emilylonelygirl — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:03:21 +0000

Cafeofdreams sent Emily this link when she talked about Mandalas – it is a neat way to make a snowflake just like we did as kids. Sitting around the kitchen table with pieces of paper and scissors, cutting triangles, twisting the page and cutting again and again! Little scraps of sharp paper all over the table and the floor.

But this is much more neat. And also still fun. When you finish, tell it and it opens up the paper for you! And you can even save your snowflake for later.

Make a Flake at http://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/

Here is my first snowflake!

Alisa

The Scribbler – a generative illustration toy

elsaartist — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:50:41 +0000

I like Scribbler – it is a neat program. After you play around with a pencil, it creates a really neat picture!

You draw a picture or just scribble or spell your name or anything. Then you tell it you are done. Then you can choose colors and line widths and tell it to GO.

Then the magic starts! It turns your ugly drawing into a beautiful, abstract piece of art.

I like the final artwork, but I also love to see it construct the scribble – to watch the lines draw and redraw, overlapping and weaving in and out of one another.

http://www.zefrank.com/scribbler/

Elsa/Alisa

(Just ignore that “generative” thing in the title – it is way to technical for what this really does.)

Pelicans and Kingfisher

elsaartist — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:09:46 +0000

Im sitting on my throne, pooping on ur post

Look, I forgot free snack stored in pocket!

Hey sexy, looking for a good time?

King of all I survey