Speakers: Dr. WooHoo

Session

Generating Artwork

After helping Adobe develop multiple tools related to driving Adobe apps from AIR applications and Flash Panels, Dr. Woohoo has an inside view of how to combine these worlds in order to create tools, designs and animations that would otherwise be insane to attempt without them. Woohoo will demonstrate how he’s generating his artwork using two new Adobe tools that simplify the process of driving Illustrator, Photoshop (and maybe After Effects) from AIR applications and/or Flash Panels, as well as generating scripts for Maya and Painter. This inspiring session will also explore new color, brush and experimental tools Woohoo has created for Adobe and for his own company with the objectives of streamlining the creative process, while also kicking open the doors to new creative possibilities.

Bio

Dr. Woohoo is a New Mexico based artist who is programming a path from code back to the natural world. To create his art he combines the intelligence of algorithms, the creative expressiveness of organic media with behaviors found in natural systems.

Transforming ideas-to-pixels-to-atoms, Woohoo sculpts the strings of code from an abstract artistic vision into color, painting and sculpting applications to generate his contemporary and sophisticated artwork into prints, videos, installations, glass, ceramic and metal sculptures.

Woohoo’s art plays with the extremes of formlessness and structure. The formless compositions resemble Dale Chihuly’s fanciful blown glass chandeliers. These luminous sculptures use color and light that play out in whimsical tendrils looking for serious fun. Other paintings use bold and bright color contrasts to ground his airborne patterns, which seem to defy their static state and float off the canvas.

Equally ornate but highly structured is a series of geometric circles. They have a glass-like component as well, but are flat, like stained glass. The effect ranges from subdued, dense, and composed to the ‘60s pop culture color explosions reminiscent Peter Max.

As a generative artist, Woohoo is part of an influential set of modern day alchemists using programming and natural media. His approach is commonly found in artificial intelligence but Woohoo considers it “serious fun.” As he describes, “The magic of the creative process expresses itself when the analytic side of my mind crashes into the creative.”

More info on Woohoo's new art book, Color Visualizations: Exploring the Circle, vol 02, is available here.