A Machine to Catch Ghosts: Generative Art and Sass
Type of Presentation
Standard Length Talk
Description
Sass has the potential to be exactly that: a machine to catch ghosts. (That line comes from Jack Spicer, whose poetry I am wholeheartedly taking out of context.)
Generative art is when you create something indirectly; it is when you create a system or process that does the creating for you. A lot of Sass could be classified as generative art. When you use a grid system instead of manually defining every margin yourself, you are giving that grid system a certain input, and it will generate the styles which comprise a layout.
I would like to talk about how the random() function in Sass provides an opportunity to explore a different kind of generative art. Whereas most @mixins and @functions will generate the same output provided the same input, random() introduces chance -- unstable stylesheets -- ghosts.
The lead-in would be a brief overview of the concept and historical placement of generative art and chance art, with some examples from literature and non-digital visual art. Examples might include Raymond Queneau or Jackson Pollock.
Demonstrations, many of them interactive, would range from topics such as randomly picking a font color to wholly randomized layouts and how random() acts with different control directives. This would take up the bulk of the allotted time.
The talk would end with a wrap-up which would tie the demonstrated techniques back into coding and art in general.
I live in Brooklyn, NY, and have lived in the northeast megalopolis for my entire life. My favorite word is megalopolis. I spend my work time as a front-end developer at Vox Media; my free time is spent making art with Sass. I am especially interested in randomization and CSS animation.
A Machine to Catch Ghosts: Generative Art and Sass
Type of Presentation
Description
Sass has the potential to be exactly that: a machine to catch ghosts. (That line comes from Jack Spicer, whose poetry I am wholeheartedly taking out of context.)
Generative art is when you create something indirectly; it is when you create a system or process that does the creating for you. A lot of Sass could be classified as generative art. When you use a grid system instead of manually defining every margin yourself, you are giving that grid system a certain input, and it will generate the styles which comprise a layout.
I would like to talk about how the
random()function in Sass provides an opportunity to explore a different kind of generative art. Whereas most@mixins and@functions will generate the same output provided the same input,random()introduces chance -- unstable stylesheets -- ghosts.The lead-in would be a brief overview of the concept and historical placement of generative art and chance art, with some examples from literature and non-digital visual art. Examples might include Raymond Queneau or Jackson Pollock.
Demonstrations, many of them interactive, would range from topics such as randomly picking a font color to wholly randomized layouts and how
random()acts with different control directives. This would take up the bulk of the allotted time.The talk would end with a wrap-up which would tie the demonstrated techniques back into coding and art in general.
Here is a randomly shuffled version of this proposal.
Speaker Info
Social Media:
Bio:
I live in Brooklyn, NY, and have lived in the northeast megalopolis for my entire life. My favorite word is megalopolis. I spend my work time as a front-end developer at Vox Media; my free time is spent making art with Sass. I am especially interested in randomization and CSS animation.
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