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In 1990 a little-known computer scientist called Tim Berners-Lee created a way in which information could be easily shared across networks using hypertext. Hypertext is a means by which information can be linked together. The method used to present information was to become known as Hyper Text Markup Language – HTML for short. Over the decades following, the evolution of web technologies incorporated Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript (JS) enabled much more elaborate ways of presenting increasingly complex information.
In 2013 I conceptualised the idea that I could use these same presentation building blocks (HTML, JS and CSS) to present original imagery to the world. I wanted to indulge in the idea of creating imagery that could be seen the World over, in code through a web browser, from this the idea of ArtML was born. I worked on the resulting solution over the course of a year or so and then released the first incarnation of this system in June of 2014.
ArtML is a portmanteau of 'Art' and 'Markup Language'. It isn’t by any means an extension to the HTML, it is simply a moniker which I have created to describe the form of presentation. Perhaps in some regards it describes the form of art which I have created.
Something which I think lots of people wonder when they hear of this means of production is: Why code an image instead of uploading a still image such as a JPG or GIF? For me the process was a way that afforded me an opportunity to create a system where I could create digital images and present those images to the world that could only really exist in a web browser.
That process alone has entertained me for many months. In some ways part of the self-imposed restrictions I wanted was that I didn’t want people to simply download the image and share it away from its source either. I looked at the way other digital art was produced, and shared and replicated and to some degree I wanted to create digital art that anybody, all over the world could access, and yet couldn’t just easily “download” and share it – it would have defeated the reason behind its presentation.
Digital art, in comparison to physical art, has a very fickle existence. Physical art can last millennia, digital art is very much dependant on technology that exists right now. While the underlying technology evolves, and the art stays still without maintenance, it may cease to be viewable or functional in the future. Without persisting legacy software and hardware the images may eventually just disintegrate into the ether of the World Wide Web. That in-itself is an interesting problem to see and that we may begin to experience the longer my art is around.
Every ArtML image I produce is produced in code, and every ArtML image has been entirely conceived, researched, produced and presented digitally. There is nothing about these artworks (or our human experiences of which they reflect) that is not electronically produced, including their cause or effect.
For the most part these works are reflections of my understandings, thoughts, beliefs, experiences and feelings of this world, projected through this digital medium in a format that is in keeping with some definitive passions of mine including; Gaming and Digital culture, politics and the dependency and fragility of human memory in a digital world.
In many ways, it could be argued that sensory points of influence (understandings, thoughts, beliefs, experiences and feelings) are human qualities which, machines as we conventionally perceive them, are incapable of experiencing. Though depending on how you envisage human physiology, we may already be those “machines”, with every decision we make simply being a binary logic gate of archived and pre-programmed judgement calls, defined to determine whether to survive and breed or not and where we place our perception of value.
In the creation of this process by which the art is produced I have created several rather distinct algorithms;
This algorithm has the appearance of pixel art, every pixel of an image is rendered as an inline-block level element with an associated colour. Due to the vast number of pixels required to make up an image, the image download can be relatively large and so this lends itself to small, minimal coloured images.
This algorithm also has the appearance of pixel art, however where have a row of the same coloured pixel is present a single pixel of a comparable length is used. To achieve this an array of colour data is plotted using JS so the rendering from the server is minimal and all of the presentation work is achieved on the user’s device making this a particularly efficient way of presenting the image, in comparison to algorithm 1, and affords a much richer colour balance and greater number of pixels that can be used to make an image.
ANSII Art is a long-standing digital art form and thus an algorithm was created to assist in converting my imagery into shaded ANSII ART blocks and formatted specifically to be presented on a web page.
ASCII Art is the use of text characters to make images, this first gained popularity in Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs), and as a way to embellish documents with diagrams and decals. Even typefaces called Figlets were created from ASCII characters to enhance the presentation of information. However the algorithm I use simply picks up on the tonality of an image and converts each pixel to a corresponding character of comparable tone. The line height is adjusted to give better proportionality to the outputted image, as the standard line height of the text makes the resulting image look elongated.
This particular algorithm, does not conform to the tonal or shape requirements of conventional ASCII Art as the text used is not selected based on its perceived pixel density. However what this algorithm does do is presents text information in such a way that each character is coloured as if it is an individual pixel within larger image. The text which makes up the image is presented entirely in uppercase, and the message can be completely changed. This way the image and the text can be chosen to convey a more direct message to the viewer.
Please free to enjoy the ArtML I have made public in my ArtML gallery, where I will continue to grow the collection.