MODULAR SYSTEMS
A modular system may be anything from a shelving unit to a suite of paintings to an urban transportation infrastructure; identical spatiotemporal structures such as waves, noise, lattices, symmetry groups, and networks emerge across scales that range from the atomic to the human to the universal. This class was a combination studio and seminar in which students both studied and produced modular systems in any media of their choosing. I gave several lecutres on contemporary new media work, sculpture, architecture, science, and film that deal generate form through a process akin to building with legos. Through defining a closed set of formal elements, a great number of possible solutions emerges. Through a five-week exercise in the processing development environment, the definition of a modular system was made more precise. The final exercise was to make a drawing in processing that could be rescaled through changing just one quantity in the code. Most of the students had little to no programming experience prior to taking the course.
Above: Installation views of final exhibition for class, Building Steam With a Grain of Salt.
Left: Christian Banks's first processing assignment, to make a composition inspired by Armin Hoffmann's Graphic Design Manual using only the command to draw a rectangle, set color, and change the size of the screen.
Left: Kristina Salinas. Study for a series of paintings derived from programs written in processing.
Below-Left: Cleve Motley's site specific public installation.
Below-Right: Terry Peterson's animation.
