Following the formative submission and the start of my Blender experiments I hit a significant block. My experimentation felt aimless.
I found myself questioning the very nature of customization. Does customization mean giving the user a thousand sliders? Or does it mean creating a system that uniquely interprets their input?
I suspect the latter, but articulating it in code is difficult. I realized that my aimlessness was actually just me trying to find the logic that connects the user to the visual.
WEEK 9
Discovery
The goal is not complex menus, but a system where customization is intrinsic to the unique data input by the user.
Creative Agency
Visiting the Art Science Museum reinforced the necessity of being critical toward automation. My system must be a tool for the user's agency, not a replacement for their creative vision.
Process Reflection
It is hard to constantly produce new physical things every week. Sometimes the work is just staring at a screen and wondering if any of this makes sense.
I visited the Art Science Museum as part of a school activity. While it was educational, I used the experience to think more critically about the role of AI in creative processes. A main takeaway was the necessity of being critical towards inevitable technologies. We often view AI and automation as purely beneficial, but in a creative context they can be reductive.
This reinforced my resolve to avoid using AI to generate the art for the user. My system needs to be a tool for their agency and not a replacement for it.
I spent time refining the Experiment 3.1 visuals based on this thought process. I tried to see how I could create variations. I made an "abstract" variation and an "error code" variation.
The error code variation used the simulation tools to create chaotic and unstable data visualizations. This demonstrated that even messy data can be turned into a unique animation.
This week was mostly about thinking and refining. It is hard to constantly produce new physical things every week. Sometimes the work is just staring at a screen and wondering if any of this makes sense.
I realized that my aimlessness was actually just me trying to find the logic that connects the user to the visual.
