{"id":1657,"date":"2023-01-15T12:39:09","date_gmt":"2023-01-15T20:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/?p=1657"},"modified":"2023-03-23T07:52:49","modified_gmt":"2023-03-23T14:52:49","slug":"impossible-paint-asemic-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/2023\/01\/impossible-paint-asemic-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Impossible Paint: Asemic Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Impossible Paint: Asemic Writing\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/789414818?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"474\" height=\"474\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/genuary.art\/\">Genuary<\/a> prompt for day 14 is &#8220;asemic&#8221;, i.e. writing without meaning, which is something I&#8217;ve <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/otherthings.com\/uw\/alphabet\" target=\"_blank\">always loved<\/a>. I thought it might be fun to try doing that with my watercolor simulation. Reader, I was not disappointed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Impossible Paint: Asemic Animation\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/789417443?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"474\" height=\"474\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>When we rerun the simulation with a different random seed each time, it comes to life in a different way. It turns out the Perlin noise that drives the brush movement isn&#8217;t affected by the seed, so &#8220;what&#8221; it writes stays the same, while &#8220;how&#8221; it&#8217;s written changes. The consistency seems to deepen the illusion of intentionality, which makes me super happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Pacific Dada Images (1996)\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/118890614?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"474\" height=\"356\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This isn&#8217;t my first time tinkering with procedurally generated asemic writing. That was in 1996, when I was working at PDI in Sunnyvale. There was a small group of us who were curious about algorithmic art, and we formed a short-lived club (unofficially known as &#8220;Pacific Dada Images&#8221;) that was much in the spirit of Genuary: we&#8217;d set ourselves a challenge, go off to our desks to tinker, and then meet in the screening room to share the results. The video above came from the challenge: &#8220;you have <em>one hour<\/em> to generate <em>one minute<\/em> of footage, using any of the software in PDI&#8217;s toolset&#8221;. I generated the curves in PDI&#8217;s homegrown <code>script<\/code> programming language, and rendered them using a command line tool called <code>mp2r<\/code> (which <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.drewolbrich.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Drew Olbrich<\/a> had written for me to use on <em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/cassidy\/brick\" target=\"_blank\">Brick-a-Brac<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Genuary prompt for day 14 is &#8220;asemic&#8221;, i.e. writing without meaning, which is something I&#8217;ve always loved. I thought it might be fun to try doing that with my watercolor simulation. Reader, I was not disappointed. When we rerun the simulation with a different random seed each time, it comes to life in a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/2023\/01\/impossible-paint-asemic-writing\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Impossible Paint: Asemic Writing<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,162,9,123,15,17,60],"tags":[226,224,220,117,225],"class_list":["post-1657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alphabet","category-animation","category-art","category-fun","category-graphics","category-npar","category-personal","category-video","tag-algorithmic","tag-asemic","tag-generative","tag-watercolor","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1657"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1686,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions\/1686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}