Tsung-yu Lu

**Concept**

Many people have experienced tearful moments while listening to music, often due to resonating with lyrics. However, this emotional response can also occur with instrumental music or foreign songs where the lyrics are not understood. Why does this happen? Clearly, certain tones and melodies can draw out a depth of feeling, a sense of sentiment.

What about images? Figurative images are like songs with lyrics, while abstract images are akin to instrumental music. If instrumental music can elicit emotional responses, can abstract images do the same? 

The most intriguing and thought-provoking aspect of this project is that the creative process of generative art is extremely rational—each line of code is a highly logical crystallization. Yet, my goal using this process is to create emotionally charged images that transcend their “lyrics”. What do you think, is there a connection between rationality and emotion that goes beyond imagination?

**Algorithm**

Inspired by The Delaunays' Rhythm series of paintings, the prototype of this project is titled "AlgoRhythm.” The entire rendering process is as if we are witnessing how an artist creates a painting from scratch. It generates groups of connected concentric circle using a composition checker to ensure that each output has a sufficiently balanced composition aspect ratio. And each stroke is an animation that builds on my previous project, Rose 1851.

**Palettes**

There are total of 21 palettes in this project, including 13 made from my photography (some of which have been inverted). Others draw from 8 paintings from the 18th to early 20th centuries.

**Controls**

[Keyboard]
- Adjust animation speed: UP/DOWN ARROWS
- Pause/Resume animation: SPACEBAR
- Toggle frame: F
- Toggle texture: T
- HD size: H
- Save as PNG: S

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[Touchscreen]
- Toggle animation speed: Tap on the artwork
- Toggle frame: Tap on the edges of the artwork
- Save as PNG: Tap on the completed artwork

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Note: This work is GPU intensive. The live, animated version might not run on some mobile devices at the default canvas size. You can add "?ll=1000" to the end of your edition's URL and adjust the number to manually set the height of the canvas.

How much emotion is it possible to convey through purely abstract images generated by code?