chess = real
set up current version of chess in my studio today, just need to finish the video rendering (maybe two weeks), bigger issue is getting it seen, still working on where to show...
landmark day
big thing, chess programming is complete. yeah i had a version ready for e32 a few weeks ago, but that was "hey, this is along the lines of what i was thinking, and it's a piece, still a work in progress but it works." now is "this goes a little bit beyond what i originally set out to create" (which is of course how you want it, when you start a project, it should grow, or is there any point in pursuing it?).
and in primate reinforcement was told if there were grades, i'd have received an a. today was final class, archways into nowhere.
fatigue is inevitable. on the thirty-block walk home, with the sketchbook and t-square and textbook and newspaper in the portfolio bag, laptop plus one hardcover and one paperback in backpack, did project my feelings a bit onto this cone a few blocks from my place
it got worse, though. sometimes people leave stuff on the landings of my building. i do it too. a day or so, and then the sidewalk or the trash, but first see if anyone wants it. lamps, scarves, magazines, there's a new york post most days, i got a really nice grater once - anyway, today it was depressing, original art pieces.
thought briefly about trying to do something with them, but feel pretty much that the projects i'm involved in (chess and kisokaido mostly, plus other stuff on my brain for after they finish) are pushing me to my limits. thought about doing something with guenter again, but the walking, and i need to be doing a lot more of it, it takes time.
started researching hiroshige a bit, for all my fandom really don't know anything about him, not reading a biography yet just seeing what's on the web - anyway, he walked it, and did his work, apparently, from memory. i don't know if he sketched or what. i was taught corot could glimpse a wooded glade from a train window as it sped past, and then in his studio paint the scene exactly as it appeared.
point? after you see art abandoned, you think, try harder. and then you remember your heroes, who tried harder. and then with the mild breeze in the plaza, hearing the fountain back up the keys clicking, relaxing after a full day, you might, if you're me, be really excited, far more than exhausted, to see what might be possible, in the evolving realm of artmaking.
so close
no remaining feasibility hurdles (i don't think), just a bit of work (not too much) and some decisions (aesthetic).
finally got this part working (dynamic mask, each of the sixty-four squares will decide whether or not to show what's under it)
which was part of my original vision, enabling this (so, the squares which aren't showing one thing, are showing something else, either a different point in time of the same game, or a point in time of a different game, that's one of the decisions).
the aesthetic choices: show translucent layers? had this idea that a ghost before for positive squares and post now-time for negative squares would illustrate the light-vs-shadow worlds a bit. that's the main one, use translucencies or not? biggest sticky issue is, think really slows down speed, video not smooth already. but again, that's something that could change with a different machine. other pause = this is already a bit confusing, maybe, to the eye, a lot of things happening at once. might look really neat but might push it into what-the-hell-am-i-looking-at instead of hey-cool oh-i-get-it. quite prefer a bit of mystery, but if it doesn't need it, it's overdone and that becomes a problem. remember part of my original concept was to avoid translucencies, had been leaning on them quite heavily for the always-looks-different expression of my goal to make work which feels new to me. since the chess board is so broken up by nature, seems like that's more suitable. ok, no translucency, dilemma solved.
show two or three games at once? early idea was three. also flirted with two different times of one game. well, chess is a game with two players, two colors of squares - it's two. that idea of three, that was before making half the squares negative, and projecting onto a chess-patterned surface, those only arose into the project a ways. i think with those things going on, three falls into the "yeah confusing and yeah more complex but does it add anything no" category. another dilemma solved. actually that's both, the two different points in time of the same game, i want to show more, i think that will be a bit more. more = what? fuller. powerful. interesting. engaging. whatever. more.
ok sticking with these choices and hope to complete the programming phase tomorrow. editing (rendering actually) still under way.
the way is clearer
frustrated with some choppy (slow) dynamic video, and wondering if some visual effects were really doing the right thing, today tried some different methods of getting chess to do what i want it to do. each time i had something work a new way, it performed exactly as well (or as poorly) as before.
so, now the choice is an aesthetic one. do i want more points in time playing simultaneously, and different transparent layers, or nice smooth video and a maximum of two points in time, all flat? since my hunch is it's going to be slightly rough anyway, i'm leaning towards doing it exactly as intended. there's still one possible way to smooth it out, i think, and there's also the hope that it can get shown on faster machines than i've been using. probably i'll end up with two versions, and make a last-minute decision on which to use. even if the problem disappears, i still need to make that choice. it's a tough one, i was wrestling quite a bit today. the expression of an idea isn't always best expressed by exact illustration of that idea. you might show something similar and convey that thought/feeling more clearly, more immediately. just a few smoldering embers at the edge of a vast black pit and we imagine what the inferno must have looked like.
not yet
yes chess programming is much further along, but there's still more i want to do
at 6:30 decided finishing it tonight was a false deadline, and went for a walk (11.2 miles), along the river while the sun was setting
but i didn't take any pictures of the sunset
incremental progress
yesterday, if you had told me "you'll be able to show different points in time, and positive or negative, in a patterned mask, in layers" i would have been thrilled, and thought yes, that's enough. but i would have been wrong. made that happen this morning, and all of a sudden, feel the lack of functioning transparency.
once you achieve whatever was blocking you and you push past it, there's something else, immediately following, which isn't quite the way you want it. is it solvable? all i can say is, by tomorrow night i should have a second working prototype of chess, constructed entirely differently, which should be a lot closer to what i want to do. if i can't get it all the way there by tomorrow night, maybe it will take another week, or maybe i have to build it differently. but i believe there's a way and i'm getting closer to finding it.
technical
well, this might not look chess-related
but i'm still trying to figure some things out. none of this stuff necessarily comes naturally to me, it's not really what i long to do, but the result usually makes it worthwhile. definitely learning, so even if it's slow going, knowledge and skills being built.
if this stuff looks simple, let me know if you want me to explain some of it to me. if not, we're in the same boat, this is what i was working on today, trying to get some code-based things i want chess to be able to do working, trying to figure out what approach might actually work.
sometimes it's a bit of a struggle, knowing that there are more intuitive things i could be doing, but if this is what the art i want to make requires, it's part of the deal. try to appreciate that it pushes me, but there's a bit of yearning, to just paint something, or shoot some video, or take a picture...
title of post goes here
and if i wanted to write something, it would go here
but it would be superfluous
silence is good
a recent study found that brain activity increases dramatically when there's a pause in a piece of music. tonight's ape meeting (aesthetic purposes exploration) had fits and starts, quiet moments, and thoughts were churning. tough discussion sometimes equals learning.
not such clear notes, but feel gained some conviction, bad art often gets labeled gratuitous, lacking in purpose, senseless. so, good art must have a purpose, right? and "powerful" - eliciting an emotional/mental response - bad art can do that too, nausea, revulsion - that's pretty brief, seems a little obvious, we veered off into some side topics and there were many picky sticking points, trying to be honest and considered, is this really important? am i convinced this is what i believe?
what can something i make do for you?
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