Self Portrait : Revisited
I thought I would try my hand at our first assignment; a self portrait. This is my second attempt.
produced by: Olivia Molitor
The Process
When looking for inspiration for the final I went through my folder and came across the first assignment; a self portrait. I thought it would be fitting to attempt one at the end of the term. My first attempt, I had no prior skills and found it extremely frustrating trying to communicate through Processing. In the end I was alright with the effort considering it had the main elements that I wanted. I had sampled the colours from different photos I had - the green from some trees in my garden, the blue from a perfect summer day, and the yellow of a sunflower. The yellow was especially important to me because when I've been led in meditation, I have been told to focus on a warm golden ball of light that was centered in my body.
For my next iteration of my self documentation, I wanted to pay homage to my past iteration. I chose to sample the same yellow colour and move the orb to floating somewhere in my head. I really tried to think about how I wanted to depict myself and I wanted to honour how I've been feeling lately; which is upside down. This course has left me feeling like I am being launched through space at an obscene speed. So, I knew I had to have movement and have my hair animated. Using an array list I was able to have multiple recursive strands growing at random - I was inspired by Grass by Michael Pinn. I like that my hair also looks like two pines trees that are constantly putting down their roots.
All in all, I found this project to be quite consuming. I spent so much time starting different projects and trying out different things - ultimately, I like the final output. My print wasn't quite to the level that I was hoping but it is a bit grainy and looks like a specific moment in time; I have shown my print to a couple of people and they have all seen different things. I like that it can be interpreted in many ways and means something else to other people.
References:
- Tree by Lior Ben-Gai
- Grass by Michael Pinn