An exercise in visualizing water – computing style.
May 2006
As an art exercise, we were given 30 minutes and asked to proceed outside to the riverside and visualize water on our laptops. Visualize in the sense that someone viewing our attempts would say “that is water”. The use of symbols was discouraged and we were to “draw what we see”.
We were reminded of the nature of using computers for art. It is one thing to grab a drawing pad and a pencil, rush outside, and draw water … it is quite another to grab your laptop.
First Assignment
I was intrigued by the moving reflections of a single patch of water as the surface bobbed up and down and built a quick OpenGL program to try and visualize this. The gradient moves back and forth periodically. I know, blue is a rather boring, iconic color for water … but I only had 30 minutes and it was hard to read my screen in the sunshine!
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Watch the “water” in action.
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Picture
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Second Assignment
We were given another 30 minutes and asked to visualize water while adding one of two elements to the picture: sound or motion. Visualize in the sense that someone viewing our attempts would say “that is water”.
I chose to link an image with a sound to create the “idea” or water.
Image + Sound = Idea
Hopefully I achieved that with the following picture plus a “dripping” sound produced by my cheek and fingers. Neither the picture nor the sound is actually water, but they both represent symbols of water and bring it to mind.
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Picture (filtered by my Cellular Imagery filter)
