An audiovisual series that explores the paradoxical nature of our over-connected world.

We are objectively moving more and more into the digital world. Increasingly connected through technology, and while it’s undoubtedly clear there are a lot of advantages to our interconnected world, it also seems to feel more dystopian. Soon we may no longer be able to realize what is objectively real. As if the more connected we become; the deeper we explore the possibilities of technology; the further we move away from the lives right in front of us. When was the last time you took time to observe a leaf falling from a tree, carried on the wind? Watched a beautiful sunray coming through a window? Listened to a gentle piano tune for a while? It feels like the whole world is collectively forgetting to enjoy moments like these. (Dis)connected tries to emulate the sentiment of those moments, while contrasting it at the same time with a darker, nostalgic undertone.

(Dis)connected is a series that invites you to take your time to really appreciate each piece. The visual artwork has soft swaying analog cables on a breeze,  with a play on light in the background, as if days are going by. Cables, for decades now have been used to connect appliances, transmitting either electricity or data. The cables in (Dis)connected are clearly connected to something and leading somewhere, but we do not know to what or where. 

The long form generative auditory work complements the soft swaying of the cables. At times the generated soundtrack is soothing, nearly meditative, at other times it becomes slightly off-tune and the sine wave changes. Forcing the viewer into the disconnected sentiment. The entire piece purposely glitches at times, disturbing both the auditory and visual state. Asking you to take a look at your own reality both in the digital and the physical realm.

For color palettes works from both traditional and crypto-native artists resembling the sentiment of (Dis)connected were incorporated. You may recognize palettes utilized by Van Gogh, Rothko, Picasso, XCopy, Grant Yun and more. There are also a handful of custom palettes that aren't related to other artists.

One of the artist inspirations for the work was Ryan D. Anderson, who creates incredible moody animations often accompanied by piano music. Ryan really has mastered the duality of soothing animation and music in a usually quite dystopian or nostalgic world.

On a technical level, where (Dis)connected is really breaking new ground is in the melodies. Most generative art series working with sound use none or fairly simple music theory. The melodies in (Dis)connected are created by first selecting one of 60 different scales (a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch) and combining them with one of 16 different chord progressions (a chord progression is a succession of chords). Every beat, the chord is matched to the scale and during the beat musical notes that fit that chord can be played as well. The number of notes varies per beat, per melody and per piece. For each piece there is a generative main melody which is repeated throughout the piece and between each main melody a new custom melody is generated. In essence creating a musical piece that can play into infinity, together with the animation, and will continuously sound slightly different. It's also worth noting that the entire work is coded in vanilla JavaScript, meaning no external libraries were used.

Most browsers don't support the auto-playing of sound. Once your piece has loaded in tap, click or press any key to start your (Dis)connected piece. As the animation can be quite heavy there is an option to set a "hq" parameter in your URL (you do this by adding "index.html?hq=false" at the end of your live URL), especially on mobile or high DPR screens (e.g.: retina screens), it is recommended setting hq to false.

(Dis)connected

Pathfinders is an interactive generative drawing project. The script sets color palettes, brush textures, a unique avatar, and assorted start screen layouts from token data. When viewing Pathfinders, left-click the starting image to erase your canvas and watch the deterministically chosen brush trail across the screen. When you are satisfied with the output, left-click again to pause, right-click and save your image, then share your results with others.

Pathfinders

## SL/CE (slice)
This artwork explores Suprematism and generative composition, attempts to fill some gap between generated and constructed artworks.
It achieves composition by slicing simple shapes into pieces by some rules and testing them against a "bad composition detector", then carefully selecting colors for shapes.

### Algorithm
Each iteration starts with selecting the simplest figure (circle, square, rectangles, trapezoid), then shape is placed on the canvas according to specific rules, cut along one or more "slice lines", after which the parts can be shifted, rotated or removed. 
The process is repeated several times for several starting figures, after which the resulting composition is obtained. 
Then an "Bad composition detector" function comes into play, and if the composition is considered "bad", the pseudo-random composition process is repeated with partially different inputs until a "good composition" is obtained, according to this evaluation function.

### Bad composition detector
Function that takes into account and evaluates the size of the figures individually, the total area occupied by the figures, distribution of the figures on the canvas, the balance of emptiness and fullness.
All of these parameters are used to find those outcomes that seem to me to work poorly. It turns out there is a piece of me in this code.

### Result
Looking at images, you can often see something in them, this effect is close to pareidolia, sometimes images works well as profiles pictures, and I am very pleased that I was able to achieve this.

### Extra
Each token is a unique generator with partially fixed parameters.
Click or tap at the bottom half of image to generate a new image.
Click or tap at the top half of image to toggle slideshow.

SL/CE

*Daisies* is a generative doodling system that draws the daisy flower shapes over and over again. The daisy doodles, with this new medium, have been changed from unconsciously drawn by hand on the paper to randomly drawn by machine on the screen.

This project is also my personal reminder of my first time making art with code when I created a simple flower shape using a circle and ellipses. Now that shape has evolved and becomes the main subject of my first on-chain generative art.

Daisies

Leaving a room doesn't free you, it only shifts you to a newly constrained space. Your freedom is bound by parameters. This is Parametric Freedom. Use arrows to control wind and gravity and space bar to stop animation. Type M or L to increase or decrease density. Would you like a PNG?  Just hit S.

Art Blocks Presents

(Dis)connected #2

Tibout Shaik

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