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Contents © 2020 Golan Levin and Collaborators

Golan Levin and Collaborators

Projects

Self-Adherence (for Written Images)

2010 | by Golan Levin for the Written Images project

Self-Adherence (for Written Images)

Self-Adherence was my contribution to Martin Fuchs' unique Written Images project a book presenting contemporary generative art in which each copy of the book is computed individually from software written by leading computational artists.

The images produced by Self-Adherence are developed from a feedback process in which thousands of small elements are mutually attracted to their nearest neighbors. The elements are initially seeded onto the terrain of the canvas with non-uniform density, according to a smoothly varying noise field. After several hundred iterations, the elements resemble strands of an oily liquid in surface tension. Negative space cells enclosed between small groups of elements are colored according to their area. Self-Adherence was developed in C++ using OpenFrameworks, ANN, Triangle++, and ofxFBO. More examples of the output of Self-Adherence can be seen in this Flickr image set, or in the screencapture recording below.

Of Written Images, Fuchs writes: "The final product will be a book that presents programmed images by various artists. Each print in process will be calculated individually which makes every single book unique. Artists, designers and developers are encouraged to program image-creating applications, which will be published as four-page spreads in the book. These programs visualize internet data-streams or display self-generated content. They are able to save continuously changing images on demand. Every application will run through an auto-generative printing program which generates and compiles all images and metatexts into a printable book. The printing will be done digitally due to continuously changing data. The final result will be an unique art book; a fusion of various digital artworks in printed form." Over 70 artists submitted programs for Written Images, including Ariel Malka, Casey Reas, Lia, Marius Watz, Nervous System, Robert Hodgin, and Ryan Alexander, among others.

Martin Fuchs created the video above, showing all of the algorithmic artworks developed for the book; Self-Adherence can be seen at 0:58". In addition to contributing my work to Written Images, I also served as an external thesis advisor for the project, which formed Fuchs' Diplomarbeit at the Hochschule fr Gestaltung und Kunst Institut HyperWerk, Basel.

Images (click to enlarge)