Feral File  N=12

Daniel Catts animated work 256 Kill-Screen" poses the question what if the World Wide Web was never invented and computer bulletin board systems (BBS) were the dominant interface of the internet?

There is a lineage of faces rendered with ASCII text which includes Waldemar Cordeiros print of The Woman Who is Not B.B. (A mulher que no  B.B.) from 1973. Catts contemporary work builds on the computer interface directly, embracing its dynamic movement as well as the glitches inherent to it.

The colorful text can be traced to an infamous glitch in the 256th level of the original Pac-Man game. An 8-bit integer with a fixed range of 0-255 is used to count the current level, but the 8-bit counter for the games fruit element is 1 higher. This means that the fruit counter overflows on level 256, causing the games visual output to devolve into random characters.

Layers of modern digital tools were used to construct 256 Kill-Screen," each influencing the next. Initially, a story was generated using ChatGPT (GPT-4). It was told to imagine itself as the BBC Micro (an 8-bit home computer) user guide attempting to escape from hell, using the BASIC coding language as a method to open a portal to this world. The resulting story was then converted into a Markov chain, a type of stochastic model which can be used for word prediction in a manner common to modern text messaging. The ChatGPT story is also fed into Midjourney and DALL-E 2image generators powered by artificial intelligenceto create hundreds of outputs. These outputs are converted into raw data contained in Javascript files which can be read by the artwork script. The final artwork builds on these images and displays new stories using the Markov chain while being slowly corrupted and repaired over time.

256 Kill-Screen #38

256 Kill-Screen #34

256 Kill-Screen #25

256 Kill-Screen #107

256 Kill-Screen #104

256 Kill-Screen #85

256 Kill-Screen #129

256 Kill-Screen #118

256 Kill-Screen #117

Superbloom" by Elsif captures the ephemeral floral beauty of spring on the Pacific Coast. An experiment in creating 144 individual artworks that connect together, with each piece flowing seamlessly into the next, inviting you on an endless walk through a meadow by the sea. 

Memorys nostalgia is presented as the peaceful calm of an ocean breeze flows over the flowers and grass. The art style transitions between clear geometric shapes and loose painterly strokes, which heightens the appreciation of the knowledge that Superbloom" is created with code rather than a paintbrush. The influence of traditional Chinese art shines through in the continuous landscape, the elegant movement of calligraphic brushes echoing in the implied movement across the horizon.

Elsif worked directly with the themes of the exhibition, choosing to create a continuous piece that pulls at the threads of connection and the fluid exchange of ideas.

Interactive keyboard controls:
[f] Fill the current window (press f again to get back to the original aspect ratio).
[g] Toggle the background texture.
[m] Change the margin amount.
[s] Save a PNG image of the live view, default resolution is 1500  2000 pixels.
[j] Save a JPEG image of the live view, default resolution is 1500  2000 pixels.
[1]-[3] Change the output resolution, up to 4500  6000 pixels.

URL parameters:
&aspect=[an aspect ratio between 0.25 and 4, default is 0.75]
&texture=[a roughness value greater than or equal to 0, default is 0.8]
&margin=[the amount of margin around the painting (try 20 to 150), default is 20]
&fill=[true/false, whether to fill the window]


Superbloom #114

Crosstalk is instantly recognizable as an ippsketch artwork, incorporating elements that have come to define his high effort minimalism. The grid, bold ROYGBP colors, and primary forms construct a story of interconnectedness. There are 12 distinct shapes, each symbolizing an artist from the exhibition. They are unique yet connected, some close while others are set apart. The lines underpinning the connection between forms extend out of the artwork to the outside world, hinting at the external resources and knowledge pulled into the group. The project originally had texture and light but these were stripped away in an effort to say as much as possible with as little as possible. ippsketch referenced both circuit boards and wooden bead maze toys while constructing this work, showcasing his balance of an engineers execution with a playful spirit.