Sketchbook

Great Transnational Nude Cruft

This cruft algorithm selects the name of a large corporation from a listing on Transnationale.org, and passes that name as a search term into Altavista Image Search. The search results of corporate imagery are then composited with a national flag downloaded from WikiMedia, as well as a recent image of a nude female from KindGirls.com to generate this cruft image.

…the point of public relations slogans like “Support Our Troops” is that they don’t mean anything [...] that’s the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody is gonna be against and I suppose everybody will be for, because nobody knows what it means, because it doesn’t mean anything. But its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something, do you support our policy? And that’s the one you’re not allowed to talk about.

Noam Chomsky. Interviewed by unidentified interviewer. WBAI. January 1992
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199201–.htm

View the most recent Great Transnational Nude

This CRUFT is the result of my consuming and digesting the words of Rush Limbaugh as well as the associated images offered up by the Internet. This algorithm begins by downloading daily quotes from Limbaugh’s talk radio show, and passing his individual words as search terms into Altavista Image Search. The results are processed using a genetic algorithm, creating a daily cruft of incendiary text and image.

Cook On Cannabilism
This custom of eating their enemies slain in battle (for I firmly believe they eat the flesh of no others) has undoubtedly been handed down to them from earliest times; and we know it is not an easy matter to wean a nation from their ancient customs, let them be ever so inhuman and savage; especially if that nation has no manner of connexion or commerce with strangers…

…For, said they, ‘Can there be any harm in eating our enemies, whom we have killed in battle? Would not those very enemies have done the same to us?’ I have often seen them listen to Tapia with great attention, but I never found his arguments have any weight with them. When Oedidee and several of our people showed their abhorrence of it, they only laughed at them.
~ Captain Cook

A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 14 by Robert Kerr
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13381

The code used in this work was originally developed for American Dream Cycle (Payload), presented at the Generative Art International Conference, GA2009, at the Politecnico di Milano University, Milan, Italy in December of 2009.

View the most recent Load Cruft (Limbaugh)

Attending the Generative Art International Conference, GA2009, at the Politecnico di Milano University, Milan, Italy in December of 2009, I presented in real time, computer code using genetic algorithms which produced images and text that became the basis for a live art performance. Continue reading…