Week 3 - Bridget Riley

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Using Sound interestingly: https://editor.p5js.org/bethfileti/sketches/u7KfbA22o

Working Sketch with sound: https://editor.p5js.org/bethfileti/sketches/FiSb4a3pd

Working Sketch with mouseX: https://editor.p5js.org/bethfileti/sketches/VFu69srMP

It took me some time to finally crack the math behind this one. This morning, as I was walking to class, I realized that instead of starting with the squares at their largest size and slimming them down, it made more sense to start thinking about them as small and then growing. I also knew that I needed to stabilize the size of the squares on either end of the canvas. From there, all that I had left to think about was moving through the columns from left to right, in order to properly position and size them.

Of course, a few additional hiccups came up. Specifically, I struggled to figure out how to get the canvas to be the correct size, while maintaining the edge columns as perfect squares. To accommodate, I ended up creating an additional function to my columns class of "initalize." This allowed me to run the math with an initial data set, and then I simply had to create the canvas after the initialization. A second hiccup occurred when I realized that while I was appropriately turning on the booleans of this.isTheThinnest, this.isToTheRight, and this.isToTheLeft, I was neglecting to turn them back off.

I'm glad I pushed through the math thought, because it allowed me to keep many parameters in the sketch flexible for an interesting array of different effects. Drastically increasing the number of columns, or reducing

Once I had the Bridget Riley sketch properly setup and responsive to mouseX, integrating the volume receptor of the mic was straight-forward. It's mapping to a fairly low volume, as I am testing it later at night, surrounded by neighbors.

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After getting this working, I realized that adding motion to Bridget Riley's work is in a way, not the point of her work. Her work thrives on the unexpected visual relationships. There is a false motion to her work, that is part of what makes it so captivating. I also wanted to develop a more interesting relationship between her work and the interaction of sound. I want a user to stop and take in the work, interact with it, and then stop to take it in again.

With that in mind, I realized that it's a more interesting experience, if the artwork pauses and then changes, before pausing again.

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