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  • Author Author: Gough Lui
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When Frustration Turns Into Art - Words vs Numbers

Gough Lui

It's been a while since I've blogged or even had the chance to build something, so last weekend when I was busy trying to get something to work, I was thwarted by a failure of an ESP8266 Wi-Fi Shield that was so elusive that derailed my plans entirely and resulted in butchering a few components.

 

However, out of the ashes of testing the components that remained, rose a little consolation prize built from scraps and half-broken bits. Something built for the "sake" of building it. Something I'd probably call "art".

image

It uses an HD44780-based display to show an ongoing battle between words versus numbers, but more than that, is a demonstration of (pseudo) "random" behaviour and entropy/decay. But more than that, it's just rather interesting to watch the words appear for a fleeting moment, with a challenge of "catching" them before they disappear.

 

I posted about the full journey at my own personal blog - https://goughlui.com/2018/11/03/project-words-vs-numbers-art-with-an-arduino-hd44780-lcd/

Hope you enjoy the posting, and feel free to "look around".

 

Of course, it's not always perfect - for example, I ran into issues with Arduino's pointer implementation which results in sketches >64kB having trouble (hence limiting the number of words in the sketch to ~6500) - apparently there are ways to get around this to some extent with segmenting the storage and using "far pointers", but this is hardly well documented. Maybe I'll learn this eventually ... or maybe I'll just stick to more powerful 32-bit platforms and forget about it entirely image.

 

- Gough

  • in reply to jw0752

    Interesting - I never quite thought of it in the same way. At face value, I'd say "sure, this is something that was hacked together - it has utility", and that to me would preclude it from being solely "art".

     

    But there is a creative artistic process in arriving at the result, and a sort of art in the result that some creators might experience (along with the sentimentality). I suppose, yes, there it could be considered "art" in this regard, but at the same point in time it's nice that it's not only art (i.e. serves no other purpose). As a result, a "useful" piece of art (e.g. a nice looking water fountain) wouldn't be something I would normally look at as an art project ... but maybe it is and I've been looking at things from too narrow of a perspective.

     

    - Gough

  • in reply to Gough Lui

    Hi Gough,

     

    I realized that much of what I build is art for the following reasons: While the things that I build do have purpose, most of the time, they are not that well made and are generally not marketable. If I make more than one of anything it is always different and unique. When someone offers to buy one of my builds it is always a problem as money can't compensate me for the loss of the item even though I may have multiple items with redundant utility. I imagine each time how an artist must feel when they sell a painting that the buyer can't possibly appreciate in the same way as the painter can. I am building another bench power supply right now which is probably my 8th in the last 3 years. I am not a designer unless you consider what Dr. Frankenstein did was design. I take parts and pieces, circuits and ideas and blend them together to reach a goal. There is adventure and challenges in the process. Last night I was able to hack one of the SMPS that I will be incorporating into the supply so that it has a 30 volt output instead of the original 24 volts. When the new bench supply is complete and the variable output goes from 0 to 30 no one else will remember the fun I had last night hacking that supply except me. I like your incorporation of elegance into the conversation and I agree that a build that serves to answer a need without complication, or side effects is elegant. If you can make it attractive at the same time then it is probably art too.

     

    John

  • in reply to jw0752

    Indeed there is a lot of art in the true sense of the term, as everything creative is a form of expression. But when the "art" is in a product that serves a function, I tend to regard that as "elegance" instead.

     

    I suppose I subscribe to the thinking that for an object to be "art" requires it to have no other function than to be "art" ... it's not practical, it has no other real aim but to just "exist" and perhaps provoke/elicit a reaction from those who experience/view it. Maybe this is just my unique (?) perspective ...

     

    I guess that's why I (personally) don't see the other things I do as being "art", although there is "an art" to actually doing it. I guess that's why it's "The Art of Electronics" and not The Elegance of Electronics image.

     

    - Gough

  • Hi Gough,

     

    While it is not usually recognized as such there is a lot of Art in the things that are done on this forum and what you have made certainly qualifies.

     

    John

  • Interesting looking display.  Vaguely similar to some of the Matrix effects.

    Well done.  Are you going to be having an art showing soon?

    Gene