On flow fields and novelty and taste

Make a flow field with me

Let’s make a flow field together. But first, a very long aside…

I saw this piece of art last week and it annoyed me. Mainly because I was annoyed at my past self.

Years ago, my wife and I were considering buying our first piece of ‘expensive’ art. One of the pieces that caught my eye was split into an artificial triptych like you see above. I loved it. Since then I’ve seen it everywhere and it now usually feels kitschy, unconnected, and unneeded. 

Here is a simple idea:

• Images can be broken down into aesthetic parts / patterns / tools

• When a tool feels novel, it makes the piece more interesting

• Once that novelty fades, it detracts from the piece unless required by the piece

A novelty degradation (1)?

You see something for the first time and love it. Because it feels novel. But each time after, the novelty wears off. Until seeing it feels like a cheap carnival trick. Like the artist is trying to take advantage of you by using it. To say ‘look here at this pretty thing and not at the man behind the curtain just over there.’ 

Of course this isn’t universal. And there’s almost nothing more satisfying than seeing an old idea made with extreme craft. Or in a truly new way. Or in a piece where it feels innate and needed.

I think this problem is particularly pronounced in generative art because of how easy it is to take code from an old piece or a public repo and slather it on (4). The common culprits being grain, paper or paint textures, responsiveness, and geometric color swatches. 

It’s not just ‘tools.’ Sometimes an entire composition can become so well worn as to become default annoying. Which brings us to another interesting phenomenon: taste cascades (2). I see this everywhere. 

Similar to the way you build up an alcohol tolerance, you build up a tolerance to aesthetics (3). That tolerance then drives you to more and more extremes. You start listening to music with a little synth. Years later you’re listening to the screeching of a chisel on a chalkboard and calling it music. 

Flow fields are the archetypical example in generative art. I just googled “p5js flow field” and got this. It’s beautiful, elegant, and delightful. But if you’re familiar with the generative art world, it feels very very familiar. Even moreso, you’ve probably noticed many “artists” taking this code, changing 2-3 inputs, and then minting it.

To someone who has never seen generative art, a simple flow field (like the one above) is beautiful without question. But someone who has lived and loved our space won’t feel that same kick of novelty. They’ll think, “oh that’s nice.”

It doesn’t mean that flow fields are bad. Rather, if you are going to trod on such well worn ground, you should take extra care to do it well or uniquely. To make sure the piece really needs it. 

In that spirit, I’ll now take 2-3 hours and try to make my own flow field.

I’ll start by removing any actual flow, e.g., running particles for a certain amount of time and then capturing an image. I’d rather generate a grid of lines and then rotate them. So already we don’t have a flow field, we have something different.

Boring. Let’s add some randomness and variability.

I like this. By randomizing the line lengths and adding a little ‘wiggle’ to each lines position, it creates an almost asemic quality. 

Next let’s add 24 more slightly randomized lines to each individual line. Almost like we’re thinking of each line as a flock of animals. 

Even better. Like ink scratches. But I like this metaphor of schools of fish or herds of sheep or flocks of birds better. Little autonomous herds. 

Now some real changes. We’ll make the number of lines and length of lines variable. We’ll remove the white space and add color. And wiggle each flock a bit more.

This no longer feels like a flow field. In a good way. I like it a lot. A school of fish. This took roughly ~20 minutes. And then I forgot about this blog post and got lost tweaking. You’ll notice no more big changes. Just lots of detail work. Adding little dots on certain lines. Playing with density and color and angles. Tweaking noise increments. Varying transparency and color.

Here is a summary of the ‘changes’ i made to a typical flow field to produce something that i don’t think feels cheap by emulating what a ‘herd of herds’ or starlings / geese might look like as embodied by a flow field:

• Instead of actually ‘flowing’ i generate the whole piece once via a grid

• Within each grid is a flock of lines of variable density

• Each flock has a color

• Within each flock the line length changes (like the size of a bird)

• Each flock is rotated by a simple noise calc

• That noise calc can be overridden by a ‘frozen field’

• Each bird has an antenna it shoots out ahead for scouting (dot)

A final note. I’ve lied to you. I came up with the idea of a ‘flock’ after making the piece. It didn’t actually guide any of my decisions. But it feels like it did, right? Because the ultimate ‘tool’ that artists often slather on in a cheap or unthinking way is the artists statement.

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Notes

1| The idea of a novelty degradation or taste cascade is not new. I know I’ve heard it before, but I can’t seem to remember it’s actual name.

2| This idea of taste cascades is also what leads to a ‘comedian’s comedian’. No one is exposed to a field / taste / category more than its creators (unless they are the type to abstain from it all) and thus there are some who cater only to other makers and their extreme tastes, but sacrifice widespread popularity.

3| You can start to feel taste cascades in your home and wardrobe in particular. It’s another sense of ‘kitschiness’. It’s why if you decorate your entire apartment in a weekend (as opposed to slowly, incrementally over time), it will feel dated very quickly. 

4| Another reason it’s easier in generative art is that many start all new projects with a ‘boilerplate’ piece of code. So things in that boilerplate will be there by default.

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