Robert Spann
The abstract art from the 1940s to the early 1960s interests me. I use
mathematics to produce abstract digital images with similar
characteristics. My objective is images that have (1) a sense of
movement or fluidity, (2) structure and a sense of organization but
without explicit symmetries, (3) some randomness or surprise, and (4)
a sense of balance between the left and right sides of the image.
Objectives two and three are in conflict – deliberately so. In my
opinion some tension between randomness and structure makes an image
more interesting. An image should have enough randomness to produce a
sense of surprise, but also enough structure or organization so that
the image is not just random noise.
Windswept is the result of repeatedly drawing ellipses using a
Markov type process. I start with a palette of three hues and five
variations on each hue. At each stage, the algorithm randomly
selects a hue class, a location to draw an ellipse and its size
and shape. Depending on which hue class is is chosen, the ellipse
is reflected horizontally, vertically or diagonally and a second
ellipse is drawn. An ellipse may overlap a previously drawn
ellipse. This process is subject to several additional structural
constraints including ellipses further from the center of the
image are, on average, smaller than ellipses nearer the center,
and the average size of an ellipse drawn in later stages is
smaller than in earlier stages.
Autumn Breezes starts with a palette of k=9 colors. I construct a
map from the unit square onto the set of integers [0,1..k-1] to
determine the color used for each pixel. The map is f(x,y)
+7g(x,y)+49h(x,y) mod k where f(x,y) has horizontal symmetry,
g(x,y) is symmetric with respect to a 180 degree rotation, and
h(x,y) has no global symmetries but is balanced horizontally. I
then generate a number of images by utilizing different
permutations of the positions of f,g and h (that is, which
equation is multiplied by 7 versus 1 or 49) as well as several
permutations of the positions of the k colors in my palette (that
is, which color is color 0 and so forth). The resulting images are
ranked based on their balance and color distribution.