Braids/burdens the story

Hi fxhash

In this article I'll explain the ideas and concepts behind Braids/burdens, release date: 25 Jan 2023.

First I'll go into the ideas behind this project, after that you'll find a breakdown of the technical stuff.

The images in this article are all test outputs from the same code as the project on fxhash.

This is the first of my projects with a deeper meaning behind it. My 2 previous works, Aquarium (Mea Culpa) and Humanoid were about me getting to know creative coding and the fxhash platform. Both those projects did include an aspect of relaxation but that was just a superficial expression of what drove me to create Braids/burdens.

Why braids?

I like braids, I always have. I like how they're applied in intricate hairstyles, in art and in many cultures.

Braids have served as an indication of social status, marital status or as an identifier of one's family or social group.

They also have many practical applications in textiles, medical equipment and manufacturing.

The use of braids always results in a stronger outcome. They represent strengthening, healing and unifying.

Why burdens?

That's my interpretation of braids in a social context. While braids should be unifying and strengthening, just like being socially active should be, for me they represent the knots and tangles of societal expectations, anxiety and stereotypes. Full of hidden curves, with only a part of the structure visible.

I'm quite convinced that I have Autism Spectrum Disorder, but I've never been formally diagnosed. I've only realised this in my late 20's and by then I had a stable enough work and personal life environement to get through it fairly ok, so a diagnosis seemed unnecessary.

My son however was formally diagnosed with both ADD and autism a few years ago, and I recognize a lot of his struggles as things I have been going through my entire life. His diagnosis reinforced the sumption I had about myself. But since I never got diagnosed and don't have an 'official stamp', I refer to myself as being neurodivergent to the few people in real life I trust enough to share.

Braids/burdens is an analogy of my experiences trying to function daily in our society. Some things I often encounter are the following:

- I have difficulty recognizing faces out of their expected context. I might very well encounter a colleague in the streets and not recognize them, even after they say something. This has resulted in some awkward situations, sometimes leading people to think I'm rude or that I dislike them.

- Eye contact is awkward and feels intrusive. Over the years I started to count how long I should look at someone's eyes and then briefly look away in order to not make them feel uncomfortable but still make a 'connection'. I don't feel this connection, but apparently they do.

- Smalltalk feels like a complete waste of energy and it's awkward to say random things. Why talk when you have nothing to say? Yet it seems like that's how many people connect.

- People usually talk in idioms, jokes, or express the opposite of what they mean. It's very difficult to understand when something is a real statement or request and when it's sarcasm or an idiom.

- I feel like I live in The Truman Show, like everyone I ever meet is an actor and I'm the only one not in on it.

These and many other intricacies seem to come automatically to other people but require me to be 'on' all the time.

I have numerous sets of instructions in my head to cope with different people and different situations and I have to constantly loop through them when around others. If a new situation arises or someone does something 'undocumented', I need to either add a new set of instructions or completely review the existing set. This can easily lead to an 'error' where I don't know what to do or say and need to remove myself from the situation. Through the years I've built up lots of sets of instructions and I can deal with most regular situations, so people don't really notice it, but every single day with social interaction is extremely tiring. This is true for me, but also for many others.

This is the analogy I'm trying to make, braids and social interaction can be such a beautiful thing, but for the neurodivergent brain there's a flip side, a true burden to carry in order to navigate the complexities of social structures. That burden goes unnoticed most of the time. Often people don't realize how much effort it takes to simply be present in social circumstances.

I try to reflect that in this work. The outputs contain varying levels of structure and chaos, representing the often unnoticed struggles that I and many others experience in our daily lives.

I designed Braids/burdens to be a reflective work, together with this article I hope collectors can find the deeper meaning and take a moment to stand still to realise that not all is as it seems. Maybe there's someone around you that doesn't perform to the norm, someone that's sometimes weird or seems a bit off. Be nice to them, they're trying really hard.

About the code

If you've gotten this far, you're awesome ;) Here's what's inside the project.

At the core of this project, of course, is my braid algorithm. After Humanoid I wanted to experiment more with simple shapes and what I could do with them. I experimented a lot in Februari 2022 and threw away as much as I created, I learned a lot but liked little of it.

On sunday Februari 27th 2022 I had a whole day to myself and I sat down to create a braiding algorithm, it took me about 10 hours of trying things and tweaking to finally get the movement I liked.

Although I spent a long time on it, it's actually quite a simple combination of 3 shapes and of movement on 3 levels. The first shapes I used were equilateral triangles with blunted tips. The 3 triangles form a line and move in one direction at the same speed. In combination with that movement the outer triangles alternatingly switch place with the center triangle. So left moves to center while center moves to left, after completing that movement, right moves to center while center moves to right. The third movement is every triangle rotating on it's own. The result of that looks like this:

I was very happy with getting that working. I haven't changed that algorithm since. I should update it because I'm sure I can improve it but I got attached the how it works.

Shortly after that I basically stopped creative coding because of some personal stuff and the project stopped for almost a year. By the end of the year I got through wat kept me from coding. Late December I was missing generative art and I got started again. I soon revisited the braid algorithm and combined with the experiences of the past year I knew which direction this project was heading in.

Although the above video shows an animation, I wanted to make a static project. The video only serves to describe the basic movement behind every output.

Amount of braids

Each iteration exists of 1, 2, 3 or 6 braids.

There's a 50% chance to have a single braid, 20% to get 2 braids and 15% each to get 3 or 6 braids.

Shapes

Initially I used a set of regular polygons: Triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons and octagons. After about 1000 outputs of those I felt something was missing and I tried a randomly generated polygon. That resulted in way more interesting results and since then I switched to mostly random polygons.

There's a 5% each to get an equilateral triangle or blunted triangle and there's a 30% chance each to get a randomized quadrangle, a randomized pentagon, or a randomized octagon.

Color palettes

I've easily spent a week on palettes alone, there's one problem with this. I have protanomaly. It's a form of red-green color blindness and causes me to perceive colors differently than most people. It basically means that the red cones in my eyes detect less red and are too sensitive to greens, yellows and oranges. It makes selectting effective palettes a bit more challenging. After tweaking and testing 60 palettes and eliminating down to 14, I got some feedback from other people. That feedback was that the palettes were not contrasting enough and lacked depth, I learned a great deal out of that.

After more testing and tweaking I finally decided to instead generate a palette for each output.

Every palette consists of a split-complementary color scheme with relatively low saturation. I added some extra rules to increase contrast.

I put a lot of myself in Braids/burdens and it caused me to reflect quite a bit. In order to create this work I had to cut out features and results that were not contributing to the whole. Erasing the nonconforming elements, the outcasts, was a jarring irony. Needing me to do exactly the opposite of what this work represents.

I ran into my own limitations a few times and I want to especially thank kaloh, clauswilke, and Ramenaut for offering their support and guidance when I needed it.

For me personally this was a breakthrough project, I hope it can find some happy collectors who love it for what it is: A reflection of the irony of life.

Love

--jona