Week 77
Delhi, conversations, reactive typography experiment, key-shape grids, Ambika's screen-walk, christmas lights and digital painting experiments.
I was mostly preparing for & delivering a presentation in Delhi this week, for a project at TinkerLabs. Delhi continues to be a weird place for me – a place where I have the most number of people to meet, but the least amount of will to stay. It is dismaying that the atoms of this city amount to an overpowering feeling of rejection for me, whereas that evidently should not be the case.
However, here I stand – in & out of the city that I spent 4 years in; in a couple of days, staying only for business and no pleasure at all.
[Thoughts] The abundance of conversations
On a train ride back home here in Mumbai, I was in one of those periods of fleeting nothingness – simply observing those around me. Patterns start to become evident, the link between them being the activity that the people are engaged in – conversing.
Everyone I looked at that day, who was travelling with atleast one more person, was indulged in some kind of conversation, fighting, resolving, understanding, misunderstanding, discussing, planning, and joking. I wondered just how much life is spent merely talking to other people, exploring their experience of life.
It’s a dim, pretty system – everyone going through a contrastingly different, yet unifyingly ambiguous, experience (life). Each experience possesses a new perspective, a different version of an elusive truth. What remains is simply us, and our pursuits of other people’s truths.
Conversations are a funny concept, but probably one of the most naturally human things to do.
[Self Realisations] Judging people too fast
Before our first meeting in Delhi, I had already made harsh judgements about our clients based on their consistent tardiness. I was convinced that they weren’t passionate about the project or the cause, because no one would put in that amount of money and be so casual about it.
After the end of the first meeting, I realised I was wrong. Pratyush pointed out later that I, perhaps, judge people too much and too fast. He may be correct, I didn’t have a counter-argument.
It’s true, I have always judged people too fast. Although, in my defense, the judgements have merely been fluid inferences that are subject to change with more data. But I can also see how my first interaction suffers, based on the judgement I make of the person before the interaction develops.
I wonder whether a solution is merely to be a little more patient, waiting for more data to arrive before I draw out a conclusion. I don’t know how this is possible, my brain almost always jumps to conclusions. Must I explore possibilities a little bit more and not single-way branches?
I haven’t figured a way out yet.
[Experiments] Reactive typography
Now that my MIT Media Lab application is out of the way, I finally found the space to begin my research (almost making my peace with the non-existent, but soon-to-arrive rejection from the Media Lab).
This week, I wondered how text could change in size based on the distance that it is being viewed from.
What is interesting about this problem is that a typical personal-computer webcam is unable to track distance (or depth). Therefore, how do we get webcams to track how far eyes move becomes an interesting challenge.
I solved this by drawing out a relationship between the two pupils – if the distance is less, it means that the eyes are away from the computer, and if the distance is more, it means that the eye is closer to the computer.
I am interested in seeing what this could mean for digital posters – how can they react to the distance that they’re being viewed from, in order to disclose relevant information in their journey of reading the poster?
Can’t wait to try out more stuff with this simple hack of tracking how far the eyes are from the webcam.
[Articles] Grids, key shapes and wondering about product design
Read an interesting article about making grids with key shapes. A lot of the times when I explain optical correction, I fail to give them a framework to follow other than ‘see what looks best according to your sensibility’.
The concept of key shapes is interesting – how can grid systems include different shapes, mathematically accounting for the optical correction that a designer has to make afterwards to make them look harmonious?
I like the idea of using key-shapes as different grid points, because it ensures uniformity across different kinds of shapes. Let’s see if I can incorporate this in some of my work or teaching.
Reading articles like these makes me miss visually-intense work, something like a digital product design role. But then again, I don’t know if a single product is what I’d want to help build forever.
We’ll see.
[Talks] Screen Walk – Ambika
Watched a ‘screen-walk’ by Ambika (Computational Mama) where she talks about her creative practice, motherhood, artificial intelligence and the co-existence of all of these together.
Seeing her balance mothering & computational art has been rather inspiring – if she can find little pockets to experiment, even amidst the scheduling nightmare that a baby can be, why can’t you?
[Experiments] Christmas lights and painting changes
Had gone with Sakina to Veronica’s for Christmas dinner and had seen some fancy lights on the floor. Finally found time this week to code that out.
Also messed around with my painting algorithm project, adding a blendMode and some opacity for some dark outputs.