Circles was my final project for The Fine Art of Code, an introduction to digital, interactive artworks using the Processing programming language. The assignment was open-ended, to employ object-oriented programming in Processing to create an artwork. I was inspired by creative sketching applications and the generative, flash-based artwork of Jared Tarbell, co-founder of Etsy (complexification.net). In Circles, I sought to express aesthetic through visual grammar rather than a singularly crafted image. I wanted to create an interactive, visual artwork which, in any moment, a still piece could be captured which itself would communicate the grammar’s dynamism. The viewer interacts with the piece using mouse gestures, can toggle states through mouse clicks, and can capture still images by pressing the spacebar. In a critique at the end of the term, a guest professor commented that the experience felt like gazing into a fire, a similarly mesmerizing, subtle dance.
