Processing the Next Steps

I talked with Tom W. today about things that were going on in my thesis study. I explained to him what I had been working on this week and so I began to talk about the processing language I was learning and applying in my work.

I started this weekend by learning some simple processing code and applying it to certain images I took at Goosewing Beach. 

I was drawn to a particular image of a door, which I shot with the gridded piece of my bookshelf. I separated the image into swatches (81) and then began the processing expression. A simple code would extract 40 swatches of color from the image, which I implemented in the script. The collection of swatches would be harvested at random (through the scripting language).

I then placed those lines of color swatches into a document, in order to see if the colors were expressing the spirit of the image. Could one tell where or what the image was? I also wanted to find a way to combine the color expressions/experiments with the image experiments. I achieved this initial melding by combining the swatch lines and the 81 square images from the original 9" x 9" gridded image of the door.

I used each module only  once and would place it only in its specific place in the grid... for example the number 36 swatch would only be placed in the 36th square of the 9x9 grid.

An accordion book expression was created with many 9x9 panels. The swatch lines of color were used in a more loose manner. They were used as connectors. Their placement was also based on numeric order, but they were more randomly chosen.

Stretching the lines of color across spreads would inform the placement and order of the image squares. The entire composition of the accordion book started to express a rhythm with color and image working together to inform/form composition.

After working in this way for quite a while I wanted to see what the composition would reveal if I removed the images and the color swatches, but left the outline of where they were. An interesting organizing structure emerged. The order took on an entirely new form.