king talk

From spirals, to abstract lines to jellyfish. I love to iterate from basic mathematic algorithms into different directions. Again, the math behind the whole thing starts to fade into the background while movement and aesthetics start playing the primary role.

For the ones interested, the basic formula I’ve been building all this on is the following:

x = a * exp(k*phi) * cos(phi)
y = a * exp(k*phi) * sin(phi)

wherein a is the general size of the spiral and k determines how much the spiral grows with each iteration. phi itself is the iterator, increased by a given value at every step. If you want a nerdier form of this formular, check this out.

Additionally, I am using a midi controller (this one to be exact) to influence various parameters in real time.

Oh, and yes, there’s also a Flickr set for this!

While working on my generative wireframes, I got more and more interested in how something like that would look when set in motion. Then I came up with is what you see in this video:

You might notice that it doesn’t look anything like my previous work. That is one of the aspects I love so much about generative design: you never know where you will end up. I started out with some rotating ellipses and came to a completely different result by simply changing parameters and editing tiny bits of code. There is a Flickr set with some screenshots from earlier versions.

As far as the result is concerned, it is not audio reactive. Different types of animations are triggered by pressing keys. Additionally, there’s some modifier keys that change the behaviour of various elements. Actually, the program has some more possibilities that just didn’t fit into the context of that particular video. I am looking forward to use them in future work.

Oh, and it was made with Processing.