_There are no artifacts. There are only interpretations._

Glass is about the illusion of simplicity that cocoons us in our everyday existence. A glance at Glass may suggest a foam of bubbles or pebbles under clear water. But on inspection, these simple pictures dissolve. Instead of disks one finds stacked panes of translucent glass, intersecting and overlapping. There is dissonance between fine-scale chaos and the harmony of the aggregate. In Glass, two levels of reality -- panes of glass and the foam of bubbles -- are brought close together in scale, so that our oversimplified impression yields a palpable disquiet.

What appears simple is often anything but. Consider a standard wooden desk. To our eyes, it looks solid and continuous, but we know that it is made of atoms, tiny electrons orbiting nuclei. And these subatomic particles are themselves not like miniature solar systems, but creatures of quantum mechanics, stranger than we can imagine. The vast difference in scale between the atomic and the macroscopic hides this complex reality, but fundamentally it is the same phenomenon shown here.

Glass continues my exploration of emergence. While in previous work I explored how simple systems can create complex, emergent forms, here the interest is in the converse: how coherence is often deceptive, masking a complex underlying reality.

Glass draws on the aesthetic of Shin Hanga artists Hiroshi Yoshida and Kawase Hasui, and abstract expressionist Sonja Sekula. In live view, Glass has ambient motion: the shadows evolve, imperceptibly slowly.

The following variations & controls are possible. You may need to click on the canvas before they are active. For a high-resolution output, use the pixel density controls. For example, on a standard laptop, an image saved at pixel density 5 will be approximately 3200 x 4000 pixels, and therefore suitable for printing at ~ 11" x 13" at 300 dpi.

Variations (require redrawing):

f -- fit-to-screen on/off
o -- outline on/off

Controls:

s   -- save as png
spacebar  -- pause/unpause ( useful to reduce CPU load in Live mode )
b -- border on/off ( useful for printing )
1-9  -- set pixel density (default=2 on retina displays)
+/-  -- increase/decrease pixel density

Glass

The Swing protocol is a composition generator that is set to generate both bold and elegant compositions. It works on a 3×2 grid where 7 different lines and an empty shape are randomly placed on the grid on 2 layers. The background is divided into 3 rows or 2 columns that can be filled with 9 different colors or stripes with different coefficients. The paper and the margin can be filled with 6 different colors. The protocol is finely tuned so that the interaction between all the elements always delivers a swinging composition. Dutch auction starting at 2Ξ and decreasing every 5 minutes to 0.15Ξ (2 → 1 → 0.75 → 0.5 → 0.4 → 0.3 → 0.25 → 0.22 → 0.2 → 0.18 → 0.15). 25% of sales over 0.25 will be donated to Juste Ici, a non-profit organization in France, focused on making art accessible to everyone.

Swing

Recursion is a generative art project whose concept is recursion. Each variation starts with a block which is irregularly divided into smaller blocks, which are then divided into smaller blocks, which are then divided into smaller blocks, etc, based on a defined depth (to better visualize this concept, take a look at https://hevey.art/blog/recursion-concept). In this project, even the script is recursive! The script is able to generate a large number of variations and each of these variations is then able to generate its own variations (keeping the same properties) with a single click on the image.

Recursion

**"A nice place to live if you are made of pixels"**

As digital beings, we have been playing, working, making friends in a virtual world for many years. 
Metropixeland is a vibrant metropolis where our pixels can live in peace.

Enjoy a relaxing experience with nostalgic vibes.

Learn more in the project site. 

                      ~         
                        __     ~
             ~         |::| ~  ~
            __ __      |::|     
           |..| .|   __| :|     
        ___|n_|__|__|n_|__|_____

**Interaction**
**Click & Drag** mouse for camera control.
**Keys: 1,2,3** changes to different 2D projections. Any other key or mouse-click goes back to Isometric.
**Key '0' (zero)** swaps between transparent background and default sky. Useful for screenshoting and editing.

Metropixeland

ÂPEX ~ is a generative landscape art project responding to the conditions of the Anthropocene, where the lines between what is possible and what is only imagined are constantly shifting.  Simplified circles give way to hyperreal spaces. It is unclear if at any point they resemble a landscape that one could actually inhabit.

At what point do abstract shapes start to resemble believable environments? Each viewer may experience this work differently, depending on where they draw the line between realism and abstraction, natural form, reality and fantasy.

While landscape art is traditionally understood to represent natural forms, it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between the natural and manufactured. When the code runs its course and a static picture emerges, a thin barrier seems to be crossed.

The work tests out the limits between reality and hyperrealism, between abstraction and surrealism, blurring distinctions between them.

Created by Ori Ben Shabat & Ronen Tanchum

Art Blocks Presents

Glass #228

Eric De Giuli

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