Our studio, Aranda\Lasch, was formed in the early 2000s to explore algorithmic systems and generative processes as a means to understand the world around us and make things within it. Whether encapsulated in physical or computational techniques, these processes act with their own degree of autonomy from our own biases and as a result, open up new ideas and sensibilities while dismantling traditional notions of authorship. They allow one to code the possibility of discovery and surprise into the creative process in a manner that can be widely shared and because of this transmissibility, algorithms frustrate the idea of a single author, inviting speculation on the shared nature of creativity. For this reason we have always understood our work to be a collaboration between each other, those who share with us and those who inspire us. 

Over the years, the studio has indulged in a number of obsessions. One is the conviction that history is a generative source with which to constantly entangle. Whether it is through stories, characters, techniques, or events, history acts as a medium active with properties that constantly reshape and transform our concept of the present. We look back to move forward, like hitching a ride. It is here that we encounter Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) and his masterpiece Melancholia I (1514) to inspire a deep dive into the process of engraving as a representational technique reinterpreted through the contemporary medium of code. By scratching metal away from a plate, an inversion of conventional drawing, engraving allowed a work of art to be reproduced and disseminated widely. In addition to the piece’s masterful delineation, its allegory resonates with us as well. In Dürer’s time melancholy was associated with insanity but also with creativity. In the engraving, the winged personification of melancholy -- the work is widely regarded to be a self-portrait of the artist -- is surrounded by the tools and elements of geometry. For Dürer, as for a handful of others who came before and after, who test the porous borders between art, science and religion, geometry is a vehicle for imagination, a shadow of the divine and a portal to the infinite. 

This work Primitives is a kindred meditation on infinity through an exploration of a novel geometric structure using algorithm and code, the tools of today's geometers and mystics, made visible through the anachronism of the engravers trade translated into pure 1’s and 0’s. Primitives grows through a single shape that can repeat and scale in specific ways that are never random, but rather tightly governed by geometric logics. It is about drawing infinity through a radical modularity; ordered but aperiodic. Unlike a regular crystal, whose molecular pattern is periodic (or repetitive in all directions), the distinctive quality of this quasicrystal is that its structural pattern never repeats the same way twice. Endless and uneven in aggregate, Primitive clusters can be described by the precise arrangement of a single modular part. As these small units aggregate together they form larger figures that themselves combine into ever larger movements, always a little bit different from any other. In this sense, quasicrystalline patterns have an infinite capacity to create and carry information. 

We are here because this is a medium for sharing in perpetuity. In the last couple of years, on the cusp of our third decade of practice, we have watched with awe and delight a renaissance in generative work as it's adopted by an entirely new generation around blockchain technologies. This inspired us to enter this new space with our own enduring questions of form and geometry, modularity and variability, historical continuity, and the thirst for endlessness. Primitives is what we selected as our primer into generative art on-chain because both the work and the medium grapple with these questions. 

Some Notes:
On the screen, Primitives is represented as a two-dimensional projection of a three-dimensional figure. Each invocation comes with a sequence of projections, or rotations, around this object. As Primitives spins, there are moments when its blocks snap into alignment with other blocks  revealing its underlying lattice and crystalline nature. Each projection can be saved as a high resolution image for printing. Primitives can also be saved in three dimensions as an .obj file for a variety of uses including the creation of a physical object through 3-d printing or fabrication. Below is a list of interface instructions:

'left' + 'right' arrow keys to rotate 
'up' + 'down' arrow keys to zoom in 
'g' regrows geometry 
'i' saves image 
'o' saves .obj

Thank you,
Aranda\Lasch
2022

Primitives

Translucent color bubbles playfully mix and morph to create organic and ephemeral blobby forms. [Shortcuts] spacebar: pause/resume, s: save screenshot, 1→5: high→low resolution. If needed, please adjust resolution or window size for optimal performance.

Bubble Blobby

Our lives are scattered across several time scales, and the meaning of every event that takes place depends on the time scale that we choose to define & observe them from. Yet we fail to fully comprehend this in our daily errands. Entretiempos is an artwork that reflects on this, based on an aesthetic that pays a tribute to the works of Sonia Delaunay, František Kupka and other painters from their era, recreated by the usage of intersecting rings that create a varied and rich space.

The work plays with the time scales by painting dynamically and letting the viewer pause the work, restart, set it to loop indefinitely, painting and vanishing in an endless cycle. And it can be set to be done at varying speeds, to appreciate what happens in between the time scales ("entre tiempos", in Spanish).

Also, there is a broader theme that I find of interest to explore from every work that I engage with. It has to do with the concept of what I call total cognitive space, or the total range of possibilities that can be expressed / achieved with a given scenario and set of conditions. In this case, I was interested in expanding my rendition of the works of Delaunay into a broader space. How does this approach scale with varying parameter ranges? Is the painting still interesting? Can it express something new? Connected to this, I am also interested in thinking about what emotions would mean for an artificial sentient being. We talk about artificial intelligence, but leave aside artificial emotions all too often. While artificial intelligences are indeed interesting, we fail to recognize the paramount importance of emotions in human behaviour. To this end, this work explores also the result of painting with machine-like precision vs. performing the artwork with a range of possible imprecisions. The perfection of the machine vs. the imperfection of the human, does it trigger different emotions in us humans? What will the reaction of a machine be whenever they develop a taste?

This work exposes features that deal with its time and space scales, background colour, background elements, the palettes used, certain colour accents that may happen (golden accents, b&w tones), the style used to draw the geometric shapes (fill, lines, outline), the degree of paint precision and other features that influence the final result. The user may download a PNG file at any arbitrary resolution at any step of the paint process using the commands provided for that. A brief list of commands is as follows. Please note that you need to click on the artwork first to make sure it will receive the typed commands:

p to pause/resume the work
r followed by y to enter the looping mode
d followed by +/- or any number from 1 to 9 to increase resolution
s followed by c to save current image
s+f to automatically save the final image when the system finishes painting
s+m to restart and save a sequence of images of the process
r+0 (zero) to reset all parameters and resolutions and restart
k at any time to define keyframes, then r+0 to restart the work and it will automatically pause at defined steps, or s+i and the work will restart and automatically save an image at every keyframe defined with k. Reload browser to reset.

There is an Easter egg hidden in every work.

For the full project description, inspiration and rationale, as well as the full list of features and controls plus a hint at the Easter Egg, please visit the project homepage at https://www.iillucid.com/entretiempos

entretiempos

Ways of knowing...
Ways of seeing…

I can trace the origin of *Pre-Process* back to a Saturday afternoon in 2003 when I was sketching—first on paper, and then with code. I began by drawing circles, then connecting their center points, and then placing the circles in motion as coded animation. At that time, I was focused on *ideas* and not *images*—specifically, on dynamic systems and the ways a set of elements relate to each other within an imagined environment. I was working through questions about how to experience these systems and what might be an ideal (or interesting) way to engage with them. 

The ideas and code from this session later became the core of much of my subsequent work: including the foundation for the *Process* series of software, prints, and installations and the more recent *Process Compendium* works. *Pre-Process* pulls these origin points back into focus, develops them with what I’ve learned in the intervening years, and puts them on the blockchain to be archived. I consider the project a Rosetta Stone for my practice. It asks fundamental questions about the relationships between process and end result, including: Where is the aesthetic focus of a generative system? Is it deep within the code or within the picture the system creates?

Ultimately, *Pre-Process* emphasizes experiencing the origin of the system and then transitioning with it as it seeks, but never finds, equilibrium. The system is built around Element 1, the first that I created for the *Process* series:

*Element 1: Form 1 + Behavior 1 + Behavior 2 + Behavior 3 + Behavior 4
Form 1: Circle
Behavior 1: Move in a straight line
Behavior 2: Constrain to surface
Behavior 3: Change direction while touching another Element
Behavior 4: Move away from an overlapping Element*

*Pre-Process* is the origin of a long journey that I’m still on. It continues to ask essential questions and to encourage me to explore possibilities. Through it, I came to realize that I was ultimately more a picture-maker than a conceptual artist, or, the way I like to think about it,  I’m a “conceptual artist” with a small ‘c.’ I want the energy to be with the system (the ideas) *and* the surface (the picture) in equal measure. More directly, the work exists *between* the instructions, the performance and interpretation of the instructions, and the resulting images.

Pre-Process

An on-chain experiment with interactive abstract art.

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