In Unit 2, I was looking at how information can be translated across different domains and what impact this process of translation had on the meaning. This resulted in an investigation into what interfaces are already out there for communicating science such as a textbook or journal article. Consequently, my enquiry had evolved into creating alternative interfaces that can help communicate science to non-specialist audiences. This was the group that I was projecting onto.
I found it hard communicating to non-specialist audiences as there was a fine balance between designing a piece that was visually engaging without abstracting these scientific concepts too much and losing the critical information. For Unit 3, I wanted to evolve my enquiry and instead of communicating scientific knowledge I wanted to see if scientific knowledge could inform the design process.
Throughout Unit 2, my practice had developed through incorporating concepts within genetics and computation into my work. Therefore, I still wanted to work within that intersection of science and design. For Unit 3, my initial enquiry is as follows: How can biological systems be applied to generative design? The audience that I was now projecting my research question onto are other designers.
As I’m not communicating scientific information into the public, I now didn’t feel the burden of educating non-specialist audiences. This meant that there was a large scope for my project and a flexibility in changing the variables within my generative designs.
Carrying on from my work in Unit 2, I was still using the principles from genetics such as randomness. Whereas in Unit 2, I was substituting the variable ‘U’, ‘C’, ‘A’, ‘G’ (the units of information in the genetic code) for colour, I could now substitute them for other design elements such as line, shape or scale.
With my first set of iterations, I decided to substitute the variables for lines in different orientation. Using P5js, I wrote a piece of code that would randomly input strings of U, C, A or G. If the variable presented was U then the line would be horizontal, if it was C then the line would be vertical, if it was A then the line would be diagonal going from top-left to bottom-right, and finally if it was G then the line would be diagonal going from top-right to bottom-left. I could also change the number of grids present resulting in a difference in scale.
For my second set of iterations I wanted to play with greyscale. Depending on which variable (U, C, A, G) was randomly inserted by the code, a square with certain degree of greyness would be presented.
For my third set of iteration, I carried on experimenting with these black and white squares but I wanted to have some level of organisation to them. I wrote some code that would alternate between black and white squares at varying frequency depending on the variable.
I liked my final set of iterations as there was a higher level of design than the first two iterations which felt purely random. The output almost looked like textiles or a tapestry, and reminded me of the work of Annie Albers.