Cart211: Class One

Thinking about networks I realized I'm not very spread out in my networks...

Most of my on-line activity is fairly solitary. Facebook, RolePlayMarket, DeviantArt, and Inkboard.Net being notable exceptions.
These were some of the inspirations for my attempts:
www.visualcomplexity.com/

http://www.blogviz.com/

There is a real fetish attached to charts and diagrams, especially masterful ones. Visual omnivores digest knowledge and one way to get it is through diagrams. (XKCD is a good example) Fractals and generated art give the eyes a lot of iterations to look at... Similarly to how illustrators/artists try to create complicated colours and patterns with watercolour or other paints, programs and programming can gain different but similar qualities.

composition by Veronika Schmidt,
 found at http://nodebox.net/code/index.php/Introduction 

Unplanned Muse by Nara Van Rossum Aug. 2010

The idea of injecting texture into digital work isn't new, but I've never really thought of it the other way around, creating complexity digitally from programmed input. Often textures are used to hide the digitalness of a work.
Eg: city-diversity by Betteo of Deviantart , Bamboo by Ikenai of Deviantart

http://cgtextures.com/ is one of the one-stop-shops for complexity from photos.

I suppose I'm still attacking these topics from a highly visual standpoint. All of my education so far has been heavily visual, as well as heavily applied to illustration rather than art. I think it will take me a few weeks for me to really get a feel for the real expanse digital arts.