CTRL+ART+DEL: Four Studies in Computational Form
2024
Team
Mirza Mas’od
Syafiq Shukor
Computational Design, Data Visualisation, Generative Art, Creative Coding, Physical Computing
CTRL+ART+DEL translates diverse data into visual form: physiological biometrics, urban audio, algorithmic noise, and physical gesture. The collaborative work of Mirza Mas’od, Syafiq Shukor, and Kanupriya, exhibited at LASALLE in 2024, posits that data is not abstract but profoundly situated—produced by bodies in specific environments at specific moments.
Across four simultaneous p5.js screens and a shared table of printed outputs, the project demonstrates how representation is an act of making that situatedness visible. Whether encoding involuntary heartbeats or the acoustic hum of a train station, these studies reject detached observation, insisting instead that the creators and their environments remain intimately entangled within the framework of computation.
Study I — Pulse, Breathe, Blink · Physiological Form
The biometric data belongs to the collaborators themselves. Involuntary autonomic processes—cardiovascular rhythm, respiratory cadence, and ocular nictitation frequency—are captured and translated through four distinct p5.js algorithms: cellular automata, Turing reaction-diffusion fields, particle systems, and Perlin noise. Drawing from Armin Hofmann’s Graphic Design Manual, the visual language begins with fundamental shapes—circle, square, triangle—before building complexity through computation. The outputs are presented in an accordion-fold zine organized into three color-coded rows (cardiovascular red, respiratory blue, ocular green), with an acetate transparency overlay. The fundamental sources physically hover above their emergent transformations, making the generative progression visible within a single layered object.
Study II — Places, Spaces · Embodied Time
Study II takes the body’s rhythms into the city, investigating whether urban environments alter physiology. Three distinct field locations—a matutinal rail transit, a meridional littoral zone, and nocturnal parkland—are acoustically sampled. Recorded audio undergoes algorithmic transmutation into visual systems calibrated to pulse, breath, and blink. The morphological language is precise: red spherical particles with motion trails pulse staccato for cardiovascular rhythm; teal, diffuse blobs expand unhurried for breath; green, metronomic grid-like lenses structure the blinking cadence. A large-format poster plots these outputs along a 04:00–23:30 timeline, annotating specific urban events, presenting the potential synchronization of environmental and physiological periodicities as a legitimate research inquiry.
Study III — Proto- · Procedural Genesis
Beginning with the prefixal element denoting primordial precedence, Proto- transforms Perlin noise fields, particle systems, and fractal functions into forms resembling life. TouchDesigner powers three generative systems that produce dark smoky tendrils, monochromatic dust nebulae, and multi-spectral particle explosions. The resulting outputs are classified as nine biological specimens (A through I). A field guide catalogues them with rigorous terminology: heterogeneous particulate agglomeration, coccoid consortia, hyphal networks, and anastomosing mycelial formations. A branching lineage diagram traces evolutionary divergence from shared computational ancestors. Presented as a spare scientific monograph with a thick black spine, the zine positions these emergent noise systems not as computer code, but as catalogued organisms—discovered, not manufactured.
Study IV — Blob.io · Physical Gesture
The interface is a traditional wooden artist’s paint palette, embedded with Arduino circuitry, sitting directly on the exhibition table. Interacting with the palette generates organic, Perlin-driven blob forms in p5.js. Controls adjust brush scale, evolution speed, and cycle through nine distinct color palettes. Each gesture leaves a mark that persists and accumulates into a layered digital painting. The project extends into a complete fictional exhibition identity: blob.io: Art Of The Computer, staged at ArtScience Museum, Marina Bay Sands. Designed admission tickets showcase unique generated art on each card, printed with the date "01 SEP 2024" and the binary serial number "101010"—computer language formatted as a tangible artifact of algorithmic creativity.
Context
Boden, M. A. & Edmonds, E. A. — "What is Generative Art?," Digital Creativity 20(1–2) (2009)
Bohnacker, H. et al. — Generative Design: Visualize, Program, and Create with JavaScript in p5.js (2018)
Hofmann, A. — Graphic Design Manual: Principles and Practice (1965)
Klanten, R. et al. — Data Flow: Visualising Information in Graphic Design (2008)
Levin, G. & Brain, T. — Code as Creative Medium: A Handbook for Computational Art and Design (2021)
Lima, M. — Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information (2011)
Maeda, J. — Design by Numbers (1999)
Reas, C. & Fry, B. — Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists (2007)
Shiffman, D. — The Nature of Code: Simulating Natural Systems with Processing (2012)
Tufte, E. R. — The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (1983)
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