Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Systematic Disorder

A perfectly flawed grid.

Understanding simplicity is such a complex problem. Ironically, I think my most clearest moments regarding simplicity occur when creating complex imagery. On the computer, it is so easy to make something complex without really thinking. Set up a simple drawing loop in the computer that runs for infinity, throw in some pixel splatting, and within seconds you get a a chaotic mash of colors and textures.

My first encounter with this phenomenon was as a child when my mother would take me to a shopping area near Seattle Center. There was a small booth where atop a motorized turntable a piece of paper would spin. Different colored paints would be squished out of squeezable ketchup and mustard dispensers and you'd sit there and watch this beautiful circular pattern instantly form. Then the motor would be cut off, and slowly the page would stop spinning and come into focus. The result was always breathtaking. "I really made that?"

I've tried my hand at spin art kits and so forth, but nothing really beats the industrial version with real paints and accompanying real mess.

Three decades later, I'm still spinning art. Setting up the programmatic turntable, mixing the digital paints, turning on the virtual motor, waiting for the imagery page to stop spinning, and see what I get. I'm hoping that in the process it will all get simpler some day. Actually, honestly it has.

Posted by maeda at August 18, 2005 05:30 PM