Touch Designer + Arduino

Interactive Real-time Visuals

I dedicated my summer of 2019 to learning art and electronics and understanding really in what ways computer science could be applied to art, how art processes differed in this media and influenced how artists conceptualise ideas. I was introduced to applications such as TouchDesigner (a real time visual programming software) and Arduino (an open-source platform for building electronics projects) where I really learned about art’s ability to be an individual being on its own, like humans. The use of TouchDesigner allowed me to program a real time art piece based on mathematical formulas and structures. These moving pieces were very abstract and reminded me of print-making because as you can never recreate the same image again, the moving particles in the visual would never move the same way again as well. Arduino was really what took this real-time piece to another level where it seemed human-like in the way that movements in the real world such as shifts in light intensity, input of sound, or turning a dial would actually change the pattern of the visual. It felt just like how us as humans react with our five senses. I was extremely compelled by the individuality of my piece, as using computer science enabled my creation to take its own form.

Cycles, 2021

Digital interactive media through TouchDesigner (continuous)

Cycles reacts to sounds from the audience. I was inspired by the workings of a continuously running system influenced by the disturbances of outside input. By extension, I applied the concept of machine learning to present a digitally programmed system as something that is constantly evolving and has the capacity for growth and improvement. When the input exceeds a certain threshold, the running graphics fail to respond and is prompted to update and improve themselves. With each encounter of error, the threshold increases and the visuals evolve into something more organic and dynamic—an accumulation of its memories of error. The nature of this system aims to mimic the encounter of mistakes and failures in life, not as something destructive, but integral to shaping one’s identity and bringing about growth.