MAT 256 Visual Processes Through Algorithms
Explorations in Arts-Engineering Projects

Jerry Gibson ECE/MAT;
George Legrady MAT/Art

Salman Bakht

Project: Pixel as the Basic Unit

River Pixel Project
Wall Image
Seattle Fence

Single Pixel Movies

A project that functions as a proposition (play of the imagination)

Every Icon

A grid 32 x 32 with every combination of pixels on or off take a very long time: 16 months for every combination on the top line (4.3billion). To make every grid black would take several hundred trillion years.

New York Times Article

Blink: (interaction between nearest neighbors cells in a 2D grid) [abstract version]

Ising Reference Model (Dr. Ernst Ising)

Compressive Imaging: A New Single Pixel Camera

USA Today Article

• Discreet units: char (which are organized in a alphabetic symbolic system)
• Chars are organized into pre-defined groupings (words: which convey ideas)
• Words are organized into sentences based on rules off syntax
• Syntax defined by common usage, and changes over time
• Creative use is in how to create unexpected and innovative relationships with the rule-bound structures to achieve the play of imagination
• Function of the "play of imagination" is to arrive at unexpected relationships to allow for new insights

• Pixel organized in relationships with other pixels: x,y location coordinates
• Clusters of pixels make up the image. Pixel value complexity determined at this level (color depth1, 2,4,8,16,24, etc.)
• Pixels have color values (0-255, or r,g,b)

• Meaning is created through pixel values in relation to surrounding pixels.
• The relationships are rule-based
• Information Theory describes some of the rules (randomness, sequence, redundance, entropy, etc.)
• The relationships of pixels can be studied for emerging patterns
• Motion, movement, direction, express change and additionally provide effect, narrative, meaning

• The organization of pixels may be determined at a higher level: that of the image
• Patterns in the organization allow for other forms of re-organization: compression, 2D edge detection, watermarking, and other forms of image processing.

• In a given cluster of pixels, all of the possible combinations may be vast, but finite: John Simon artist
• What may be interesting methods of exploring transitions between order and randomness (Markov, Ising, etc.)
• What may be compelling patterns to surface based on pure experimentation?
• Have all the rules of organization been explored?