Radiate Enso
Interactive installation
Exhibition:
Out of Site
Design Philadelphia Exhibtion
Twenty-Two Gallery
Art direction & Design:
Dermot Mac Cormack
Coding:
Dermot Mac Cormack
I’ve been studying Zen Buddhism for a number of years and have always had a love for and fascination with, Enzos. These are typically hand-painted scrolls, painted very quickly, after much preparation of paper, ink, and most importantly cultivating a focused state of mind. The resulting painted circular brush stroke is typically done in one fast, uninterrupted flowing movement. There is no intent per se, other than the one who is painting, becoming at one with the moment of the actual painting of the circle. It is also typically, executed in silence. This digital Enzo, however, breaks the formalities usually associated with the traditional hand-painted method, by replacing the painter with code, silence with recorded chanting (in this case a recording I made of birds) and moving the object from a monastic, physical location, to that of the digital realm.
Radiate Ensō is the most recent iteration of the Ensō series, you can view the earlier versions in the links below. In this instance, while I appreciated the advantages of developing this series using the Processing language, I wanted to create a piece that could also be delivered in an online environment, and consequently, I began to explore Processing’s close cousin, p5.js. Once again, the parameters are dictated by the code and when triggered by the audio input, they work seamlessly to create a generative, reactive Ensō. Mindful listening is a practice sometimes used by Zen Buddhist meditators to become more open to the world around them, without judgment. With this piece, I wanted the viewer to approach the work, in a more meditative encounter, using incorporated audio of birdsong as the trigger for the generative art. And, instead of the concentric circles, I aimed at creating a vortex of lines that pulse outward, still circular in nature, but emanating from a dynamic core.
RECOGNITION:
Out of Site
Twenty-Two Gallery
Gallery B
Philadelphia
October 2019
Ensō
Performance & Installations
