AlgoRhythms is a collection of generative audio-visual data sculptures. Each unique hash drives the combination of colors, patterns and musical scales into a music box.

AlgoRhythms

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

WaVyScApE
wave flow vibrate oscillate swing waft drift float undulate surge meander...

is it landscape?

after years of living in cities, on a trip through the alps, i’ve been immersed in a beautiful landscape. i was shocked by this vastness, depth, rhythmic beauty...
soft rolling hills that gently swing into each other, to the depths of overlying rugged ridges, followed by billowing cloud banks, this kind of loving frequency!
was it then when the theme “landscape” became a constant companion of my work? maybe.

nevertheless, it's not my ambition to create landscape illustrations. rather, through the joy of playing with code, many different abstract structures led me to this sort of linear turbulence, which can sometimes leave a pleasant impression of “familiarity”. however, an openness that stimulates the imagination has always been important to me.

softly morphing blob shapes traveling horizontally and leaving their trails behind. creating virtual three-dimensional forms, layered over each other, building up staggered fields out of random color sequences of partly pre-defined color arrays. mixed and overlaid with white and greyscale palettes.
when some remaining colorful structures shine through, sometimes, this reminds me of thawing snow in spring, when yellow and green grasses and early bloomers, or lost toys or trash suddenly appear.
sometimes it's the case that when the picture is built up randomly, by chance, a beautiful colorful structure is suddenly overlaid with gray again, an appropriate allegory to the concealing snow or wrapped gifts, or similar things, and for whom i consider the secret to remain hidden.

...

computer-based aesthetics have always had a strong fascination for me.
in the early 90s, during my 2 year residency in new york i used to go into clubs and bars around the East village.  once entered a small place with electronic music playing and animations beamed onto the wall. i couldn’t stop staring at these into-each-other-morphing structures. fractals! this was completely new to me, and i so was stunned!  …waited till the end and talked to the couple who made it. they told me something about the apple-II computer and some software, but i barely understood anything.

it was a pretty cold winter and i lived in williamsburg, so i went over the bridge and had this amazing starry city night around and inside me. i must have mumbled something like: i have to go for it, have to find out, have to start anew again…
the next days, i talked to my girlfriend, and she encouraged me to call around at computer departments. maybe someone would have a clue.

the first call i made was the institute of technology: “hold on, i’ll give you the art department,” and then there was this guy, “yeah, fractals! so you studied art in germany and want to learn something about computer graphics and fractals? come by next monday."
i showed him my catalogs from galerie-gebr-lehmann.de, “this is bauhaus!, i love bauhaus!”. he offered me an internship.

so i started working on an IBM workstation, somewhere in midtown, somewhere between the 30th and 40 floor, in front of 2 large workstations, one wall side completely glassed in, in the middle of all these thousands of block buildings. i stood extremely next to me; “where are you!?, what are you doing here!?” it exceeded my wildest dreams.


...

over the years, working with code has not only become a practical technique, but also a factor that determines the aesthetics itself. or it was even the main reason, when i started with code, using a formal language and principle that's based on algorithmic functions, representing mathematical processes and simulations. which leave behind a kind of the machine's own characteristic design language, representing our culture in its essentials. to me it also offers sort of a meta-level of looking at/into nature.

i'd call myself a code minimalist
fascinated by bauhaus, constructivism and minimalism, i developed many if not most of my processing apps exclusively with basic shapes like circles, squares and lines. sometimes i caught myself doing e.g. programming a shadow only to take it home again after all, since it seemed to be tipping over stylistically somehow.
such as. also in the "flower code" work series, where i developed the blossoms with detailed petal shapes, only to turn everything back again to only work with circles and lines, because i was horrified to realize that it immediately became naturalistic or even kinda cheesy, not what i wanted... 

holger lippmann, berlin nov. 2022
bauhaus small writing

WaVyScApE

The Caretaker awakes. After a millennia of slumber it must again usher its minions into the expanse. It must sustain. It must replenish. So it guides its horde out to the stars, visiting countless worlds to restart the cycle. For an eternity the cycle has repeated, minding and tending this garden of worlds. Now it is time for the garden to give back. This event has come to be known as *The Harvest*.

*The Harvest* depicts worlds that exist in eternal symbiosis with the Caretaker. We witness the spectacle of monumental chromatic beams as they impact the surface of these beautiful, alien bodies. The Caretaker assigns different constellations to each planet, giving rise to unique combinations of beams as they extract the much needed nectar. This project has been inspired by a life-long fascination for science fiction and space exploration. Aiming to capture a moment of awe, the beams reach to their origin, emulating a cathedral-like atmosphere in the vein of Hugh Ferriss, while borrowing inspiration from Micheal Whelan’s landscapes. All in the effort of capturing a sense of how small we are in relation to the cosmos.

*The Harvest* is built on p5js, and takes advantage of its 3d api. With the orthogonal view enabled, the algorithm uses volumetric rectangular units to create the stylised illusion of alien landscapes. Each beam has a position, color, reach and yield that is calculated and procedurally drawn over time.

The Harvest

A study in reduction based around several repeating elements. A unique hash string seeded within each token informs the composition of the work. Variables include the color of the background, the amount of times each of the elements are duplicated, the set distance between each duplicate, and the coordinates of each element. Each token is unique.

Art Blocks Curated

Elevated Deconstructions #70

luxpris

More in Art Blocks Curated

AlgoRhythms

Han x Nicolas Daniel

Pre-Process

Casey REAS

WaVyScApE

Holger Lippmann

The Harvest

Per Kristian Stoveland

Art

Company

Learn