Future Code

What will it mean to be human in the future? To be generated not created. The future of human is code...Future Code.

“Future Code” 40″ square
Concept surface design generated from a QR code. – Winner, Special Art Award for Innovative Design (out of 600 quilts); 2017 Genessee Valley Quilt Festival, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), New York
“Pixel Ball” 40″ square
Tactile digitality: halftone textures rippling across the surface
“SinePLAY” 18″ square
Digital surface design from sine waves that explore repetition, amplitude, and flow.

Statement

In the Future Code Series, I explore the idea that human beings are generated NOT created. What does it mean to be generated? Are we as humans really headed to a society where our very being is generated by some computer program? Is it so hard to believe? In some respects our notion of “being” is already stored in many bits of data. Our DNA information, fingerprints, dental records, intelligence measure, birthplace, habits, preferences, and much more. Our human data is currently stored in virtual space on thousands of computer servers. Most we know of but some we do not.

Given my thoughts about technology and its closeness to the human being, I ponder what it will mean to be “human” in the future. To me, the future of human beings is code. Like DNA code, our human data code will define us, challenge us and help to preserve us.

The future of human is code…Future Code.

Process

Future Code represents a real foray into technology-based art in that it involves using various computer programs to generate contemporary, visually appealing designs instead of creating them. The process involves sketching designs, digitizing them and manipulating the digital images in the computer to arrive at something that aesthetically speaks to a specific theme.

Pre-AI, this series sought different ways to “design” with computer programs that visually generated images. One set of images that come to mind when one thinks of “designing by generation and not creation” is fractals. These repetitive, geometric images have been used since the 1900’s and have famous names like the Mandelbrot set and the Koch Snowflake. Future Code purposely strays from the familiar. Various programs and techniques were deployed to generate the designs. These included a QR code generator, data bending techniques, sine wave filters, pixelations, and halftones.