Virtual Emotions 16.1

Ink on paper with software controlled pen plotter

As the world of online social media encroaches into our physical world, genuine interaction and emotions are replaced by virtual representations. Do they possess the same power?

This piece is an amalgam of the virtual and physical, combining generative computing techniques with archival ink and paper.

Each square is produced with a pen plotter controlled with the Processing programming language running on a Macintosh. The large emoticons consist of hundreds of plots of the corresponding ASCII characters and are based on the square's design, with additional stochastic positioning.