!DOCTYPE html> Michael Mara | Code 2 Portfolio

Exquisite Corpse

Description

For this project, we were to design and code an exquisite corpse image with two other partners and draw it in code. We needed to incorporate two technical components in this sketch: User-defined Functions and Arguments and Parameters.

Design Process

To go along with the image we created, we had to craft a story for our sketch. My original story was: Otis is an ogre that works as a bartender in Williamsburg. He doesn’t drive or take public transportation, instead opting to ride his fixed-gear bicycle to work every night. When he’s not at work he likes to read or hunt for squirrels in the local parks. He has an explosive temper and as he’s yelling at customers for not giving good tips, he spits plaque from his uncleaned teeth everywhere which leaves large stains on his shirt. I then met with my partners, Heli Moon and Jiyeon Choi. Heli Moon's character was comprised of a cartoon pig's head, a giraffe's body, and the legs of a model walking a runway. Jiyeon's character was made up of a silohoutte of a 1950s-style girl, a skeleton torso, and Mickey Mouse legs. Both of their inspirations stemmed from the idea of artificial beauty on social media channels. We exchanged segments of our drawings, I received the model legs and the skeletal torso. To match the new body to Otis' head, I adjusted my story pulling inspiration from my partners' stories: Otis is an ogre that works as a bartender in Williamsburg. He has become increasingly obsessed with his Instagram presence as it helps him financially to be trendy. He has stopped hunting squirrels in order to watch his figure and started spraying his legs bronze instead of teal green which he found to be unattractive.

Reflection

I found this project to be a bit more straightforward when compared to the experimental clock. I had a good time coming up with my initial character and it was a lot of fun to flip it on its head with my partners' sketches (though the tone of my story was a lot less serious than theirs.) I tried to parse down as much repetition as possible but I noticed that certain changes in objects with the same "y" values would end up either erasing an object completely or strangely moving it to the very left side of the canvas and cutting the shape in half even though other parts of the same line of code were set up in parameters.