Collaborative Drawing Machine
January 2024 - May 2024
Python, OpenCV, Axidraw
This piece is a collaborative drawing machine that takes as input a piece of paper with any wavy line drawn across it. The piece of paper is recorded with a webcam that uses openCV to determine the location of the line on the piece of paper. This then directs my pen plotter (axidraw) to add algorithmically generated doodles onto the hand-drawn line (like houses, trees, and boats) which turns the image into a landscape whose topology is defined by the hand drawn line.
Scribbler
July 2024 - Ongoing
vSketch, Axidraw
This piece is a speculative research project into the nature of written human language. I analyzed large samples of text to determine the consistent graphical elements and data encodings that emerge from written languages across cultures. I then built a machine that interfaces with a pen plotter, capable of writing generative asemic (without meaning) script in realistic human handwriting. This results in what appears to be pages of human-written text in an unknown language but reveals itself to be instead machine-written text written in no language at all. The eventual goal of this research project is to create a human script external to human culture.
I collaborated with friend and educational YouTube content creator PurpleMind to produce a video exploring the mechanics behind generating realistic asemic script and simulating handwriting with machines. The video, sponsored by Brilliant.org, was crafted to be accessible to viewers of all knowledge levels.
Video collaboration with educational YouTuber PurpleMind
Lightsail
September 2024 - November 2024
Shortwave laser, Galvonometer, TouchDesigner, Phosphorescent Fabric, Fan
Inspired by Haans Haacke’s Blue Sail, this piece is designed to capture the gusting irregularity of wind over time. Lightsail uses a galvanometer to project a shortwave near-ultraviolet laser onto a phosphorescent sail fluttering in the wind of a fan. Controlled by programs I designed in TouchDesigner, the galvanometer rapidly moves the point of the laser, resulting in the illusion of continuous shapes. The phosphorescent sail is excited by the high energy light of the laser, causing it to glow wherever it is struck. This results in the sail fleetingly capturing a record of its own shifting motion as the wind changes the relative positions of the laser’s point and the sail.
Lightsail installed at local Pittsburgh art show Tech25
What We Share
March 2022 - April 2022
Glitch
What We Share allows users to feel a sense of connection by physically touching the same virtual space. Linking fingers through the Share interface creates a sense of closeness with others, yet the impassible barrier of the screen remains.
Inspired by my time during quarantine, What We Share brings attention to the components of human connection that are preserved and lost through virtual space. Awareness of what is missing brings users’ attention to all that human connection can include. What We Share uses a web server hosted through Glitch.com that tracks the multitouch points from all current users. I capture this information and generate a web of attenuated connection between all touchpoints.
Flock Finder
October 2024 - November 2024
Axidraw, Webcam, YOLO8, OpenCV
In real time, Flock Finder isolates birds from their environment and captures the motion of a flock over time on a single sheet of paper. In doing so, the environment is reintroduced from the perspective of birds. A line of birds represents the peaked roof of a building. That blank spot is a noisy intersection. That spiral of birds is a thermal. Flock Finder uses birds as a sensor to remap space.
I used YOLO8 object categorization to do real-time bird detection from a high-resolution webcam pointed out of my window. When a bird is detected, the coordinates and proximity of the bird is sent to my Axidraw pen plotter which draws an abstracted bird at the appropriate position and scale on my paper.
Find here a typology of birds-from-my-window created by allowing Flock Finder to run continuously for 15 days while replacing the paper each day.
Open Processing Selection
January 2022 - Ongoing
p5.js
Jeremiah
November 2023
p5.js
Jeremiah is a procedurally animated creature that simulates the behavior of predatory insects. I used the uncannily natural feel of live-calculated motion combined with sharp starts and stops to give the sense of a predator restrained in a cage.
TDF3s
November 2023 - December 2023
Touch designer
This piece uses Touch Designer to create a real-time generative video that reacts to the type of music it picks up in the background. The program is sensitive to the amount and tone of light it receives and reactively changes the thresholds of its line detection algorithm accordingly.
Pen Plots
January 2024 - Ongoing
Vsketch, Python, P5.js, Axidraw
Through the use of pen plotters such as the Axidraw, I explore the intersection of the physical and the computational. I used techniques including edge detection, pseudo-random walk, Truchet tiling, and interleaved recursion to create this ongoing series of pieces.
Spiral Generator
February 2024 - April 2024
vSketch, Axidraw
I made use of interleaving recursive functions to create sets of branching spirals inspired by mycelia. I then created a sequential form of this algorithm that could be drawn by a pen plotter.
Ballistae
September 2021 - February 2022
Wood, metal, elastic
This project made use of my knowledge of mechanics and experience with physical media to create full sized wood and metal ballistae. The metal ballista must be staked into the ground and has a range of around 350 feet.
Look Down
November 2021
Paper, Ink
This piece is an experiment into social engineering at my university. I placed this poster into the busiest elevator on my university’s campus to prevent passengers from ignoring the oddity of standing in very close quarters with others in complete silence. The letters are penned by hand onto unlaminated paper to contrast the virtual nature of our excuse for the awkward silence.
