Arwan Beetooh / R1B2
R1B2 is a French programmer, musician and artist living in New York City. His artwork is mostly generative – drawing from such influences as jazz improvisation, computer programming and traditional painting, embracing the random output from carefully designed custom software.
Information Age
Generative Art (code with random element), June 2023
The Paradox of Living in the Information Age
We live in an era of unprecedented access to information. We have the tools to communicate, store, and process vast amounts of data in ways that were unimaginable a few decades ago. Yet. The more tools we have, the less we are able to access information that hasn’t been distorted in some way or another. This distortion can take many forms, such as misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, censorship, bias, manipulation, filter bubbles, echo chambers, fake news, and so on. It is this paradox that inspired this new project. Information is symbolized by a straight rectangular grid, which is then distorted in various ways, creating bubbles, holes, suggesting images and organic shapes, …. The colors and textures pay homage to some of my favorite modern masters: Picasso, Klee, Vasarelli, … to name a few. The rendering code has been carefully tuned to emulate watercolor paintings, producing pieces that look stunning on print. The project is on-chain and fully generative.
Circle of Life
Generative Art (code with random element), November 2023
The circle of life is a concept that describes the natural cycle of birth, growth, decay, and death. It implies that everything that lives is interconnected and interdependent, and that nothing can exist without the balance of creation and destruction.
Death is an essential part of this circle, as it allows for the renewal of life and the maintenance of equilibrium. Rather than the end of life, it is the beginning of a new cycle, providing the opportunity for new life to emerge, evolve and flourish.
A civilization based on infinite growth, on the other hand, is a contradiction to the circle of life. It assumes that resources are unlimited and that consumption can continue without consequences. Such a civilization is doomed to collapse, as it will eventually exhaust its environment and grow itself into extinction.
“Circle Of Life” is a simulation of organic growth in a constrained environment. It is written in vanilla JavaScript, using WebGL and Tone.js for the generative ambient music.
Depending on the growth style and parameters, an initial single-cell organism evolves into a complex colony. Cells grow and spawn children, or run offshoots, or sometimes explode in a spore-like behavior to propagate further away.
As time passes and all the living space is occupied, older cells start to die, living room for new ones to grow. Sometimes, the cycle goes on forever. Most often than not, the organism eventually grows itself into extinction.
It is my hope to trigger existential thoughts with this piece. Thoughts about life, about the necessity of death, and most importantly, about how a society based on infinite growth is doomed to fail eventually.