Research Project

Research Project – The Library of Babel

Imagine a library. A pretty big library. An infinite library. A library containing all books ever created, will be created, is being created, the works of Shakespeare, the perfect biography of your life, the same biography but all instances of your name have a single letter off. Each book consists of a random collection of 25 characters, (22 letters, ) as such, most books are completely gibberish. However, it also contains every relevant, enlightening book that can ever exist, such as the book detailing the meaning of the universe and the answers to questions you’ve been searching for your whole life. This is the foundation of the Library of Babel. The library of Babel is a concept created in a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentinian author. The library is the universe, and it consists of hexagonal rooms, twenty bookshelves, five to each. In just a few pages, Borges manages to paint a vivid concept with vast philosophical and scientific implications. Somewhere in the library there exists the cure for cancer, and the book right beside it would have absolutely nothing in value. The librarians in this library, as you might imagine, are generally depressed, knowing they have pretty much no chance of finding something so beautiful and useful for their lives. Want to throw out the book consisting of complete gibberish? You would be a Purifier according to Borges, a sect of people in this library destroying any book not of value. Your goal is to find the Crimson hexagon, the all-powerful magical collection of books. You would also want to find the man who read these books, the “Man of the book”, and absorb his wisdom and knowledge.

In the website https://libraryofbabel.info/, a Brooklyn author self-learned programming to create a virtual library of babel. In it, you can peruse through the library yourself or search for any combination of 3200 characters, the size of each page. I can find what I had just wrote here verbatim, as shown below.

The search functionality adds a new dimension to the frustration the people living in the library of Babel go through. The allure of the library is the chance of finding relevant, enlightening, important information by chance, not knowing what exactly you are looking for but finding it after the fact. Searching particular texts in the library ingrains it in your mind that what you are looking for is somewhere in there, you just don’t know what it is.

The website does not create text on the fly, for that would be pointless to the concept behind the library. It also does not store every possible combination of text(29^3200) somewhere on a disk. (Note: Although that number is not literally infinite, it is so large that it might as well be infinite according to human perception) According to the author of the website, it uses a pseudo-random number generating algorithm to produce the books in a seemingly random distribution. That is, the algorithm makes it so every page is in a specific, particular spot in the library and it will always be there, but there won’t be any observable pattern browsing through them. The typical RNG of our programming languages uses the computer system time as an input as a “seed”. So in theory, the random number would have no relationship to one another because the generator would consistently take in new inputs. This website uses the location of the book, the hexagon, wall, shelf, volume, the coordinates of the book as the input to this generator. The search function is the inverse of this algorithm, where the user would enter in the “output” and be given the seed of the text. The exact location of the text is shown below, and you can find the page yourself if you searched for the seed.

The library can certainly serve as a metaphor for life. It is a representation of the nature of information as assortments of letters to communicate meaning to ourselves and others, how we make sense of the universe and our existence. In the Library, all the rooms are the same structure, and no one page is intrinsically more significant than the next. Who separates an English word from utter nonsense? Us! We prescribe meaning to one and not the other. If the universe is conceptualized as infinite as the library, we live in the crimson hexagon that we call Earth. This seemingly perfect arrangement of elements constituting everything we know about life, must then surely exist somewhere in the universe, amidst all the gibberish of planets with formulas that don’t support life. From a biological perspective, the library can contain the human genome, but usually nucleotide sequences for nothing. There are many more ways for something to not exist than exist. It is also comparable to our search for meaning within the vast randomness of the universe. In the library, just like life, we can never practically learn all there is to know about everything, at best we can hope for partial slices of knowledge.

I focused this project on the “Poem Field” series done by Stan Vanderbeek and Ken Knowlton. Vanderbeek, whose education had been in art and architecture, and Knowlton, who was a programmer, were connected through the EAT or the Experiment Art and Technology organization to collaborate on a project.

Before their collaboration in the late 1960s, Knowlton had created an 8-bit graphic programming language called BEFLIX. This was the first program of its kind, and arranged grayscale pixels into a grid to create animations.

After Vanderbeek and Knowlton met, they worked on a series of projects from 1964-1968. It is said that their collaboration was difficult, and of the work they did, only some was completed through 1971. However, the work they did finish is fantastic. Specifically, Poem Field #2 is a perfect representation of a “computer generated acid trip.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4agEv3Nkcs

Their work introduced objects to the screen in blocks that allowed for patterns to be created through its interactions with other patterns. That is to say, this animation did not focus on the movement of objects but rather the accumulation of objects on the screen.

What I found interesting is this technique of how animation is created through the layering of images rather than trying to replicate motion. Poem Field is created using overlapping collages to create animation.

Although it seems very distant, this technology is still very relevant today. Sticking with the “acid trip” theme that Poem Field #2, the kind of graphics pioneered by Vanderbeek and Knowlton are replicated today in Electronic Dance Music or EDM. EDM artists are always using crazy graphics and lighting with their music creating new techniques just like Vanderbeek and Knowlton.

I also found this excerpt by Vanderbeek to relate to the video below on how EDM DJ’s are mapping lights to their body movements and music:

“Pictures can be thought of as an array of spots of different shades of gray. The computer keeps a complete “map” of the picture as the spots are turned on and off. The programmer instructs the system to “draw” lines, arcs, lettering. He can also invoke operations on entire areas with instructions for copying, shifting, transliterating, zooming, and dissolving and filling areas. [Stan VanDerBeek. “New Talent—The Computer” in Art in America, vol. 58 (1970) p. 91.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wrc1c8g2FPk

More Information:

http://www.cinegraphic.net/article.php?story=20110806123405773

Research Project

For this project, I decided to focus on Jan Švankmajer, a surrealist Czech animator, filmmaker, and director who is probably best known for his stop-motion animation, in which he brings inanimate objects to life. His work consists of dark recreations of celebrated stories, as he brings his own fantastical twist on various tales. His story begins in the 1950s, where he went to school in Prague and studied puppetry and later, worked in a marionette theater which inspired him to enter the world of filmmaking. This is where Švankmajer really shined, when he fused his traditional puppetry with animation to bring his signature dark tones to the films he created. One of his first films, Něco z Alenky (Alice) in 1988, was inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice was a brilliant take on Lewis Carroll’s famous novel, as Švankmajer mixed his skills of puppetry and animation to produce an innocent, yet foreboding variation on the story.

Working in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, Švankmajer did not have close to the amount of freedom that artists do today with their works. The Soviet Union led an invasion into the country in 1968, which later resulted in limitations in Švankmajer’s works. Many of his films were banned by the Communist government because of their capabilities of undermining Czechoslovakian society. One of these was Leonardo’s Diary (1972), which portrayed life in the country in an abrasive manner – Švankmajer was then banned for five years. Another was the Castle of Otranto (1977-1990), which the government though could subvert people’s faith in the news. Švankmajer was then banned for eight years. Were it not for theses obstacles in his life, Švankmajer would likely have been recognized much earlier.

Some would say the pinnacle of Švankmajer’s career was Možnosti dialogu (Dimensions of Dialogue) in 1982, a short film in part created with Claymation. The film itself is split up into three parts, each one detailing objects brought to life with the wonders of stop motion. Sense of Cinema described this film as “…instructional that it is everyday objects that are confronted, devoured, spat out and homogenized, through a series of metaphors of colonization, to an endless repetition of cloning operations. This is our digital world laid out in 1982.” Švankmajer’s films are always up for interpretation, but one theme present throughout this one is his use of almost disturbing humor and an unsettling atmosphere. These are just a few of the works that reveal Švankmajer’s character and speak to his creations.

Some more information about him:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/dec/05/jan-svankmajer-puppets-politics

Dimensions of Dialogue:

Research Project

When we look at the history of computing and computer-generated models, we tend to think more in the realm of old room-sized computers that perform more science-oriented tasks for the computer scientists and engineers handling these early devices. This idea, however, is far from the reality of early computing. John Whitney, one of the first computer animators and one of the first pioneers in computer-graphics shows an interesting side to the history of animation.

Before computer-graphics, computers were used for more scientific or war-related efforts such as “to break Nazi codes” or to ease “British and American World War II defense efforts.” With the use of computer motion-control, John Whitney was able to produce a wide range of innovative visuals. Between the years 1960 to 1969, John became interested in computer generated films. One example of this interest was titled “Catalog” which was a demo created with a WWII anti-aircraft gun sight. The techniques he used in the development of his demo included geometric patterns and wave-like patterns. The choice of color in some of these images are like those used by companies nowadays such as PlayStation and the early Microsoft startup screen.

Although John Whitney’s early film proposals were rejected, the originality of his film ideas caught the attention of Jack Citron who would later program the computers, with the use of motion graphics, that he would use to make his first film. John’s later films, however, used the idea of Harmonic Progression. He experimented with different arts such as Islamic architecture which would end up as harmonic waveforms which were characterized as reverse curves.

The later part of his career involved developing the actual instruments that allowed the animations to come alive. He began to think more like a computer scientist and he started to show interest in composing visual and musical output. With the fact that most films prior to this were silent, it showed that Whitney was not only an artist but a visionary as well. After working for more than 55 years, his ability to work as both a filmmaker and computer scientist has inspired both individuals and companies. the quality of Whitney’s work when computers were not user-friendly is truly astonishing and it showed the idea that computers can be used as a medium to create art.

John Whitney’s “Catalog” :

If you’re interested in computer-graphics:

https://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs248-02/History-of-graphics/History-of-graphics.pdf

Research Project

For this research project I chose to look into generative software, that is code that is created to create. I chose to focus specifically on the artist Matthias Dörfelt, who’s work caught my attention due to its organic form. What I mean by that is that his work doesn’t look like what I’d imagine could come from a computer. It is imperfect, with a cohesiveness that doesn’t come at the price of hard geometric shapes or perfect lines, as are often associated with computers. His work transcends 0’s and 1’s and somehow his hand is so present through each piece of his collection, despite the fact that large amounts of his work are randomly generated with code. The biography of his website affirms this dichotomy between the perfection/rigidity of computers and the organic-nature/inconsistency of humanity; “In his works he often trades control in favor of surprise because he strongly believes in computation as an expressive, playful and humorous tool. Matthias will continue to explore these aspects by infusing technology with flaws, naivety and weirdness.” In order to make something perfect, imperfect, it must be “infused with flaws”.

It is a testament to his prowess as an artist that he is able to create such natural and human-like work from a computer that can only accept very specific commands; a tool that must be told exactly what to do with no room for error. I suppose a great test of fluency within a medium is when an artist is able to create beyond the apparent limitations of a medium, like a painting that appears to be three dimensional or a photograph that really creates a sense of scene, to the point where you feel you are in the photograph.

One thing I found very interesting is that although Dörfelt’s process is entirely digital, all of his artwork that is available for purchase is physical. Similar to a painter or photographer, he sells prints of his work online. Not only that, but since the work is created with elements of randomness, each piece is unique and there cannot be another like it. So when someone buys one of his prints, they are buying something semi-computer, semi-human, but fully original.

Dörfelt isn’t the only artist creating art with code. In my research I came across a project called Written Images, which received over 70 contributions from different media artists and developers. The project compiled 42 of the most creative generative software submissions, and essentially provided a “print-on-demand” service, where a book was created with artwork from these programs. This means that each book is unique, and that you are buying the only copy of the book that you receive. In the art world, rarity is proportional to value; the rarer something is, the more valuable it is to have it. This is why digital artists create limited amounts of their artwork; if it is available everywhere it’s value decreases significantly. Studying Dörfelt has opened my mind to the possibilities of creative coding, beyond just shapes and lines. This really seems like an entirely new avenue of expression, in which the computer is co-creator with the artist.

You can find more of Matthias Dörfelt’s work on his website. There are links to his social media profiles on the website.

You can also check out the written images project here.

If you’re interested in buying some of his work, you can do so here.