Tweetable Codes

A tribute to the computer art of Frieder Nake with a maximum of 140 characters.

Supervised by Kim Albrecht, Paul Heinicker and Boris Müller
Fall Semester 2013 at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam

Tweetable Codes are three different computer-generated black and white graphics made with Processing. They are a result of the project weeks that take place at the start of the fall term. In the introduction Kim wrote: “As restrictions in poetry—like the Japanese Haiku—code can also be poetic by limitations”.

I focused on the early computer art by Frieder Nake. Unfortunately, most of the final results are not tweetable hence I tried to create a stripped down variation that is tweetable. It’s basically the same idea—just a simpler style.

Walkthrough

The Walkthrough is my personal favorite. It looks a little like the Walk Through Raster by Frieder Nake but with diagonal lines. It is based on random calculations mixed with constraints. You can download the not tweetable code and play with the parameters to create your own Walkthrough.

Tweetable Walkthrough

int s=600;int x,y;int[] z={-4,4};void setup(){size(s,s);}void draw(){x+=8;if(x>s){x=0;y+=8;}line(x,y+z[mouseY%2],x+8,y+z[int(random(2))]);}

The tweetable variation is even interactive. You need to move the mouse to change the angle of the lines.

Eight Lines

The eight different lines seem very simple at first glance, but each line has its own characteristics through its movement depending on another line. To play around you can download the source.

Tweetable Eight Lines

float r,i;int s=600;size(s,s);background(255);for(i=1;i<9;i++){strokeWeight(i);line(0,random(s),s,random(s));}

The tweetable variation is a bit boring as it just creates the eight different lines without movement.

Horizontal Jumping

This one creates random lines with two same angles. If a line does not get over the vertical middle it jumps back to zero. A rectangle appears line by line at the angle positions. Unfortunately, there is no tweetable variation for this piece but you can download the not tweetable code.

Course Website

I created a website with an overview of some projects from the Tweetable Codes week.