ANTILOG_14Dec15a

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ANTILOG_14Dec15a

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11:03 2015-12-14

* I find that many of the "problems" that people are talking about are actually not real-world problems, but abstract problems;

* That's fine with me. I happen to like thinking about abstract problems, working on them and so forth. The difference is that with real-world problems there is struggle, grief, risks (potential losses) and so forth. People get hurt. Real people.

* I think that a lot of people are mistaking abstract problems for real-world problems, and consequently wasting their time;

* I say, identify the real-world problems (and work on those first). Then, you can work on as many abstract problems as you want and do it with a clear conscience knowing that you didn't waste your time trying to solve abstract problems that had no impact whatsoever on the real, physical world;

* Granted, often one has no choice but to think or work through abstract problems, even while trying to work out solutions to real-world problems. The two are often deeply connected.

ANTILOG_14Sep15a

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ANTILOG_14Sep15a

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02:04 2015-09-14

* The "ArtOps" circles represent what I call "Art Operations" in a system I am developing (I'm only developing the theory for now). Basically, they represent "art practises", except that in this model, they are modelled as DAOs or "distributed autonomous organizations".
* The "broker_ops" are also DAOs, a.k.a. "Broker Operations". And it's the same for the "Art Exchange" which is just a kind of "Art Market", modelled as a kind of "Financial Exchange" if you will, also a DAO.
* Basically, you can just imagine each circle as an "automaton" or "finite state machine" or "abstract machine", if you want. The "ArtOps" machines need the "broker_ops" machines to interact with the "Exchange" machine.
* Many ArtOps interact with many brokers who interact with a single Art Exchange, at least that's as far as I've gotten for now.
* It's mostly a system I am modelling for a series of novels I'm writing. It's something that characters in the novel will be building, these interconnected systems of Distributed Autonomous Organizations.

"Art Operations Ecosystem" A.G. (c) 2015

ANTILOG_13Sep15a

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ANTILOG_13Sep15a

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18:25 2015-09-13

* I just started a new series I am tentatively, unofficially calling "Whitewashed". Here is the documentation which I do via a Python program that I wrote.

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Time: Sun Sep 13 12:06:46 2015

Experiment: WRITING-WITHOUT-WRITING PART II (Official)

Statement of Purpose: I am investigating new possibilities in making visual representations that resemble text, or scripts, but are actually pure nonsense. The idea is to reach an inflection point or equilibrium between meaning and non-meaning, between coherence and incoherence, between sense and nonsense. (i.e. it is a form of Asemic Writing Experiment).

Procedure: What I did was recently I bought some square canvases. I have three of them. I basically wrote on them in ink and then applied a white "WASH" over them, a relatively liquefied white wash. Then I observed how it dried, moving the actual canvas around a little to make the liquefied white paint move and do interesting things.


Notes: I'm basically testing things, experimenting. No real notes to add to it for now.

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Whitewashed (Diptych) by A.G. (c) 2015

ANTILOG_26July15a

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ANTILOG_26July15a

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23:56 2015-07-26

* I have been collecting repositories on Github on a few subjects close to my heart.
* I have been collecting repositories having to do with Noise/Texture Synthesis, Procedural Generation, Digital Signal Processing.
* I forked a lot of them just so I could have a copy handy. I plan to study the code of these repositories as I continue to learn to program in Python.
* I started another experiment in Painting. It's not in the WHITE POINT SERIES necessarily. I think it's basically just a form of Texture Synthesis in actual live Painting.

ANTILOG_05July15a

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ANTILOG_05July15a

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12:56 2015-07-05

* Yet another treatment has been applied to the First Official White Point Painting, for the White Point Project and Series ("ongoing").

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Time: Sun Jul 05 12:44:26 2015

Experiment: WHITE POINT PHASE ONE THIRD TREATMENT 003 - WASHING CANVAS

Statement of Purpose: The purpose of this current, the third, treatment was to diminish the intensity (read: saturation) of the yellow I used in the previous treatment (from yesterday when I started this painting, the first in the White Point Series). That's the purpose. The purpose is to really slowly "distress" the canvas. I begin with very thin layers of color, which I scratch and add synthetic or artificial "wear & tear" to, to give a faux-finish that looks "old" or "antique" (see. "antiquing", "relicing", "patination", etc.). The idea is to slowly and continuously shape the surface of the canvas in such a way that it looks old and "yellowed at the edges", but entirely "synthetically" (in a general process I tend to call "antisynthesis". The idea is to give it the veneer of "patina", a.k.a. the special "character" of antique furniture, to give a concrete example. You could call it a "refining" process. It is "iterated", "ambient", and "experimental". ("Serial" as well, of course!).

Procedure: Simply put, what I did was mix some white acrylic, only a few drops, into a metal pan / dish with a good deal of water. Say it was 95% water + 5% pigment/paint, or even substantially less than that. I used titanium white (or a variant thereof) and now I am just waiting for it to dry. As it dries, I meticulously observe every aspect of the surface "as-it-dries", to check out or try to spot anomalies, areas maybe missing paint. I am currently using a resin banquet table - 6 feet by 4 feet - and it's in these kinds of situations that one notices that FLOORS in apartment buildings are NOT EVEN LEVEL. The paint is slowly dripping to one side. The table and floor, the entire building, ISN'T LEVEL. So that's another reason why I have to watch and observe it quickly as it dries, because my goal / objective here was to apply a WHITE WASH on the ENTIRE SURFACE, equally everywhere.

Notes: It turns out that I had too much water in my mixture. The watered-down white paint, given that the acrylic itself is cheap and has less actual pigment than usual, what happened is that the whitewash treatment I just did is basically disappearing as it dries. But that's okay. It is still giving a DESIRABLE EFFECT, it's just VERY, VERY MINIMALISTIC. It is extremely subtle, which is fine, I will just correct that in Treatment Number Four.

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13:30 2015-07-05

* I applied a fourth treatment to the White Point Painting. (Phase One, Fourth Treatment).

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Time: Sun Jul 05 13:21:58 2015

Experiment: WHITE POINT PHASE ONE FOURTH TREATMENT - THE END OF PHASE ONE #004

Statement of Purpose: The purpose of Phase One was simply to "weather" the surface of the canvas some. I wanted to give it a textured veneer, all in infinitesimally off-white treatments/coats of paint, what can be called adding "PATINA" or a process of "patination". The Fourth Treatment of Phase One prepares us for Phase Two.

Procedure: What I did was "pat" the surface a little after it had been drying for several minutes, say 10-15-20 minutes. I patted it with a highly textured "texture sponge" as well as with some Paper Towel (the kind with a textured "pattern" on it). Then I added a little more of the whitened/yellowed paint and "texturized" that as well. In the last phase of this treatment, I ended up adding some more paint, this time a mixture I had made for a quick paint test on another surface (a small canvas, perfect for doing paint tests). I am letting it dry now and observing it closely, with an eye meticulously scanning and monitoring for details.

Notes: The First Phase basically, of the first official WHITE POINT PAINTING, is virtually over. I will be adding a transparent medium to the surface, what you might call an acrylic "varnish", which will be matte. I may then add some "granular" textures, using a product called a "No-Slip Compound". It's a product you add to a freshly painted surface to make it less SLIPPERY. It is a great compound for adding a little texture to a canvas, which is my goal here. The transparent medium/matte acrylic varnish, will not affect the COLOR of the painting in its current state. I must just remember not to use too much of the No-Slip Compound, or else I risk "UNDOING" some of my hard work so far on this painting. You just go slow and add it in layers.. it is like a powder of sorts, with a "SANDY TEXTURE".

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18:13 2015-07-05

* I made some more progress on the WHITE POINT PAINTING. Here are my notes.

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Time: Sun Jul 05 17:57:31 2015

Experiment: WHITE POINT - BEGINNING OF PHASE TWO: PREPARATIONS & INVOCATIONS, FIRST TREATMENTS

Statement of Purpose: I finished up Phase One of the first official WHITE POINT PAINTING. I am starting Phase Two. All I did was some extra DISTRESSING. All part and parcel of the iterative process. The purpose of this step is to give the surface YET MORE CHARACTER.

Procedure: I began using a "sandblock", a sand paper in the form of a small block. I used that some, to "age" the surface a little more, and then I added color and texture, all the while ensuring that I give it a good "wear & tear" and "patina" look and feel. This was the first "official" PATINA LAYER / TREATMENT. I began using contrasting colors.

Notes: This "preparation" step is going to be in two parts. I did some more stuff to the surface which I will describe in the next "REPORT".

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Time: Sun Jul 05 18:02:31 2015

Experiment: WHITE POINT - BEGINNING OF PHASE TWO: PREPARATIONS PART II, FIRST TREATMENTS #002

Statement of Purpose: At this point, I begin adding substantial amounts of color. I will often be "going over" my own work. That is, I will do something, apply a wash or some paint and the result will be that it will effectively "ERASE" something that I did earlier. That's okay because I can still make the older layers show through. All I have to do is "SCRATCH" the surface, or use SAND PAPER; there are many ways to make the older, bottommost layers shine through. That's one of the reasons I like to work with watered-down paint, so that it has some level of transparency. Plus I don't have to paint "ALL-OVER" the entire surface of the canvas, which automatically means the earlier layers will show through.

Procedure: Basically, I did a treatment comprising of the application of "YELLOWED" and slightly WHITENED "PUMPKIN ORANGE. I applied the orange with a palette knife to a good portion of the surface, say maybe 70-80% of the surface of the canvas. Then I scratched it with the palette knife as well as distressed it with an EXACTO KNIFE. I waited for it to dry and then later I used the SAND PAPER on the surface.

Notes: The idea was to add a little color, or CONTRAST. I effectively chose a tone of pale yellowed-orange.. The mixture, say, was 60-70% "pumpkin orange", the rest being white and yellow (a variant of "Cadmium Yellow" that's apparently called "bright yellow" or "canary yellow"). The color basically looks like the inside of a raw sweet potato. The darker HUE helps give the canvas character. Now there is beginning to be some CONTRAST. The only thing is, I ended up "UNDOING" a lot of the work and treatments I did before, by essentially "painting over them". That's okay. For the next treatment, I will be adding back some of the same light colors that I applied in the beginning. Then I will also be scratching and "distressing" the surface some more, hopefully revealing some of the underpainting.

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ANTILOG_04July15a

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ANTILOG_04July15a

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20:06 2015-07-04

* This is the documentation I just made for a "first treatment" I just did on a new painting in what is to be an ongoing series called "WHITE POINT". Digital images forthcoming. Stay tuned.

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Time: Sat Jul 04 19:40:14 2015

Experiment: WHITE POINT PROJECT TRUE FIRST PHASE 001

Statement of Purpose: This experiment is an experiment in the human sensory perception of the dynamic subtleties of all manners of off-white paint colors. Essentially, the idea is to trick the human eye. We do this by using colors that are infinitesimally "off-white", i.e. infinitesimally "close" to pure titanium white. It is part of a project called WHITE POINT which was inspired by a close friend and retired printer M.J. from Brooklyn, when he began teaching me the intricacies of modern color theory. He is also one of the founders and chief researchers for the Nemetics project.

Procedure: The procedure so far is very simple: I merely "primed" my canvas with a color that was a mixture of roughly 95% titanium white and 5% what might be called "canary yellow". (In this case it was cheap acrylic paint without standard pigment metadata, it was called just "bright yellow". The canvas had already been primed with three coats of Gesso (white). I added the first coat of infinitesimally off-white banana yellow, mostly white, with only a pinch of yellow. Now it is drying. I am waiting to see what comes next. The way I work is I go by "treatments" and this coat of paint is the first official "treatment" (in what I call process-painting or procedural painting.)


Notes: Like all of my other Projects, the White Point Project is an open-ended series, what I call an "ongoing series". It will contain a collection of paintings that will go on over the course of a few years. The collections of images will also have digital counterparts, digital images and ambient experimental sound designs. I will also be writing a great deal of stuff, from poetry to novelistic writings, liner notes, further documentation and so forth. This is the first official SERIOUS work in the White Point Project. Now I wait for the paint to dry.

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22:48 2015-07-04

* More treatments to the first official painting in the WHITE POINT series. Documentation made via Python script.

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Time: Sat Jul 04 22:34:38 2015

Experiment: WHITE POINT PROJECT FIRST PHASE SECOND TREATMENT - CONTINUOUS YELLOWING OF CANVAS

Statement of Purpose: For the second treatment for the first White Point Painting, I wanted to take the yellowing a little further than I did in the first step,immediately prior to this one. The goal is to go step by step and to be very disciplined and strict about following the time-tested Algorithm. I will need to do several dozen "treatments" or "layers" if you will, before I really start talking business with this painting and also with this current first series in the White Point Project. The idea right now though is to just give the painting a little "character", that is, to give the CANVAS some "personality". Priming is one thing, it's just your base coat, or baseline. It's the foundation, in this case it was standard Gesso verging on titanium white. That gives me my luminosity and brilliance, for starters. The current treatments/layers/coats, though, are meant to DISTRESS THE CANVAS. Let's proceed.

Procedure: The firstmost procedure in this step was to add some "canary yellow" or "bright yellow" (really just a variant of Cadmium yellow) with a LARGE BRUSH (medium-large, depending on what you consider large or not), using a DRY-BRUSH TECHNIQUE. I did some dry brush slowly across the entire surface, and then continued until the acrylic paint was well "imbued" into the surface. I used a very small amount of paint, just enough to say that I actually used paint and not just thin air, but no more than that. I then began to scratch the surface with a large palette knife (medium, depending on what you consider a large palette knife). I went at it with the palette knife, going very fast at times and then slower at times, varying the pressure. I got all "artsy" about it, like I was a sword-fighter fighting pirates with a rapier. Now I am letting it dry and METICULOUSLY INSPECTING the surface to see how the paint sets, how it dries, what other CHARACTERISTICS/TRAITS/QUALIA/EFFECTS might show up in the process.


Notes: This was a good second treatment. It was a two-part treatment, consisting of a) DRY-BRUSH and then b) WORK WITH THE PALETTE KNIFE. The color applied was a variant of Cadmium yellow, cheap acrylic with not much pigment. I like this cheap acrylic paint with very little real pigment - compared to professional quality acrylics - because it is nice and watery/fluid AND the fact that it has substantially less pigment is actually a BLESSING. It means that the paint doesn't actually do a very good job of COVERING THE SURFACE. I mean it works just fine for most purposes, but I like to add water to it to make it more of the consistency that you'd use for a WASH, say, or SPLATTER (a little bit less than what you'd use to wash and spatter, but still much more watery than usual, i.e. closer to watercolor than standard acrylic). Hey, to each his own taste, right?

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ANTILOG_22Mar15a

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ANTILOG_22Mar15a

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13:08 2015-03-22

* I am working on my mathematical fluency, my procedural fluency;
* To become fluent in the language of mathematics, I'm trying to learn to use terms like "intractable quantities" or "infeasibly large", "unfathomably minute", "arbitrarily closely", "almost surely", "vanishingly small", and so on;
* I have been contemplating the idea of a universal image generator;
* The image generator basically takes a format, say a 200 pixel x 200 pixel square and GENERATES ALL POSSIBLE CONFIGURATIONS of that image space;
* The number of possible images in a similar image space is astronomically large, yet FINITE;
* What you get, though, are mostly patterns of random dots; You get combinations of pixel location and color value, but the unversal generator mostly produced homogeneous "noise images";
* One could potentially categorize generated images into categories of Intelligible vs. Unintelligible;
* The majority of possible images would be in the Unintelligible category; all nearly indistinguishable from pure noise or pure noise functions;
* One could speak of "meaningful pictures" or "valid pictures";
* The space of images is infeasibly large for even the "perceptually distinguishable" images provided by the universal visual pattern generator;
* I like to think of it as a toold for making "interesting noise";
* In real practical reality, most designs reflect some internal logic rather than being completely random;
* Every finite set is computable, so the universal visual pattern generator CAN produce all possible images for a given pixel space; it will just take an inordinate amount of time;
* Note: We can view all possible functions of time as signals;
* Note: The sample space of an experiment or random trial is the set of all possible outcomes or results of that experiment;
* Therefore, the universal visual pattern generator is experimental, acting in sample space of possible outcomes of experimental process;

* We are speaking of the "universal set" of possible images;

* A finite number of things can be represented in bounded pixel space;

* One can see a given configuration of pixel space as an "encoding" of that space;

* Only an infinitely sized canvas can truly have an infinite number of possible configurations of its image space;

* The "image universe" is a noise field;

* Again, image space is predominantly filled with noise, the universe is majoritively noisy;

* See: DEPICTION, in 2D representations;

* Note: think of moral temperature reasings as scalar fields; think NOISE FIELD;

* An infinite canvas with infinite possible values for each pixel, that is the only way to achieve true infinity in image space;

* What we have essentially is a bounded scalar field;

* It's a noise field because it is predominantly noise images;

* Think of generating functions, the generating function that generates the set of possible images;

* Is the set WELL-ORDERED?;

* The set of all images in image space will contain a subset of all possible images called "Impressionist paintings", as well as "Cubist paintings" and "Pop art";

* How can we reason about the contents of the image space?;

* What is a "cubist image", what is its minimal length description?;

* If we speak only of a 200 pixel by 200 pixel image where each pixel can only take on one of two values, Black or White, then we can posit the existence of the "Completely White Canvas" vs. "The Completely Black Canvas"; Every other possible configuration of black and white pixels falls in between those two extremities;

* (TO BE CONTINUED...)

ANTILOG_20Mar15a

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ANTILOG_20Mar15a

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16:41 2015-03-20

* I am working on outlining my Serial Method;
* I want to prove once and for all how I achieve a geometric increase in efficiency in my art practise, in part via The Serial Method, a.k.a. The Switch Method ("manning the SWITCHBOARD");
* This will sound as a non sequitur, but it is at the heart of the foundation of my concept of "Construction-Land" a.k.a. "C-Land";
* Part of it has to do with "discretization of parts";
* In David Allen's Getting Things Done time management / workflow management methodology, on works on getting tasks and projects "out-of-mind" by recording them externally and then breaking them into actionable work items;
* What I do is work on countless projects, discrete part by discrete part;
* The work of art is broken into discrete parts, building blocks, and all day what I do is add blocks to various projects, building block by building block;
* I can "conceive" of the total work of art, but everyday WORK is done at the level of the PARTS;
* By working with interchangeable parts, I'm able to get an increase in productivity, in output;
* I also recycle a lot of my waste/exhaust, in the form of noise or errors or other waste/exhaust;
* (TO BE CONTINUED...)

ANTILOG_18Jan15a

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ANTILOG_18Jan15a

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20:05 2015-01-18

* I have been making more and more of my digital images, using the "evolutionary" method that I've devised over the past year or so.
* I started doing experiments using only the pixelization function as well as the "Difference" blend mode for layers. I'm making progress. I also started making images with the dimensions 1024 pixels by 1024 pixels.
* I started experimenting with a PhotoMosaic program. I find that if I use a "noise" image as the main image, and use a "population of images" of my digital designs as the fodder for the PhotoMosaic program, that I get some interesting results.
* Here is an example of one of my latest series of investigations via image processing:

* I'm also working on some new techniques that I will be experimenting with in Painting.

* I also have been studying some Linear Algebra, finalizing my "approach" document, i.e. the documentation of my "approach" with regard to Visual Design (Visual Design Methodology).

* I am looking at "additive synthesis" as well as "linear combinations" as well as the "superposition principle" as Concepts that I want to use to describe my budding evolutionary art practise.

* I wrote a piece on Medium about my evolutionary art practise called Evolving The Fittest Image.

ANTILOG_13Jan15a

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ANTILOG_13Jan15a

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20:45 2015-01-13

* I am beginning to learn the ropes of the IPython Notebook.
* I believe that to be a real "data scientist" or "mathematician" or whatever I want to call myself in my new life, post-artist, I have to use the TOOLS of the TRADE. IPython Notebook is one of those tools, in my conception of the "beginner".
* That is, I want to start with the right tools AT THE OUTSET. That's why I'm also busy learning the ins and outs of the HDF5 format. With H5 AND the IPython Notebook, I should be able to do something pretty amazing.
* For now, I don't have much going on with regard to said Notebooks. What I want to do is use HDF5 in new and interesting ways, maybe as a sort of "literary" format, where I keep lab reports fitted to the actual format. It's hierarchical and for the moment that seems "simpler" than using a relational database, at least from my perspective.
* What I would like to do, though, is to use the IPython Notebook format to teach simple mathematical concepts. I want to USE the Notebook format to TEACH HOW to use the IPython Notebook format itself, to teach simple math concepts.
* The common thread here, or "guiding principle" is that to learn science, you learn through the tools of science. To teach science, you teach through the use of the tools of science.
* That means that I am having to get my scientific METHOD down pat. That's partly why I started this ANTILOG: To document the everyday practise of "becoming-a-scientist".
* I have been an artist my whole life and it has stopped being interesting to me. To make it interesting again, I began to RESEARCH MYSELF. That is, I began to RESEARCH my own "Practise".
* What resulted was a kind of "Research Practise of Practise Research". Research-as-Practise + Practise-as-Research.
* I then started a new project called The Archives-Project that was my first test subject for my Research Practise or Art-Based Reflective Practise. I also started another project tentatively called "20 Years of Data" whose first chapter is called The Datatypes Project: Abstract Assemblage.
* It is in the latter project that I am learning mathematical concepts, objects, spaces, mathematical "entities" in the mathematical ontology (foundational) so that I can TEACH the same concepts to others.
* What happened is that a) I was always secretly in love with mathematics, but didn't dare tell anyone for fear of being publicly shamed and b) I have had enough of hearing people tell me they "suck at math".
* I think that's just false. I think math is simple, people just maybe haven't been TAUGHT the right way. There are much more complex and complicated concepts in everyday speech that arise than in simple mathematics. Besides, in math, every concept is a kind of leverage point to learning new concepts. It's a science, so you start with the basic concepts and work your way up.
* Wherever you stand on the Mathematics Ladder, you are always at some "rung". To get to the next rung of the ladder, you have to learn a few concepts. The first concepts you learn at whichever rung, are always simple. You move simple concept by simple concept, up the ladder.
* Math is simple if you take it concept by concept and go at your own pace. There's nothing too "abstract" for human thought. It only gets "too abstract" when you are in super advanced math mode, and for that we have a handful of geniuses in the world capable of operating at the HIGHEST MATH MODE. The rest of us are all "beginners" in comparison to the few real math geniuses that exist at any given time on planet earth.
* So pick up where you left off and add a concept or two. I think math isn't just beautiful, it's really good for your soul, good for the heart. It requires discipline in your thinking. You have to learn mathematical THINKING, and that is a profoundly and powerfully USEFUL thing to have, a veritable ASSET.

* With that being said, I have continued making these evolutionary art pieces in the interim, these digital images. I have written about it in one of my blogs, a piece which has actually become rather popular.

- Another Visual Experiment: The Evolutionary Art of Process-Painting