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#Fine Arts, Code Art
Processing Sketch #2
September 11, 2018
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bb6ebe89f22489fcce5e69e21c24ea507fd177211646cbefa51e9a8446a3b4a6/1.png)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/be8b78551806c07ea783fedeaf52e873249725779c4c916bc30fa05c03cf419c/3.png)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/092db36207cd85d7082ba0a93dd1be0f19f14866986b10c6aa53c87779fb1457/4.png)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9d81142bb6bdad7347c7a8e024e40432c0a3f7bba2d82586b08d9ec19c5e0ad6/6.png)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9fa88e43622079ac19b0fd69532eaf7f9242a857690885c6a1beb81527d0c0fa/7.png)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/55d21d52d38705a92245a5730b35375860d6e910a76c4412ecc95822203ede06/11.png)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b0cf8275e502ae0052af4b63235b53c27d30e93eafbadcc9d3ed518e8ef0f1da/12.png)
Backstory
These images are samples of code-generated art from Processing Sketch #2, linked above. I coded this simple project after reading through a tutorial on coding for interactivity.How do finger movements on the mousepad lead to cursor movement on the screen? Before the tutorial, this was a question I took for granted.
Mouse movement is an act of two translations:
[1] translation of muscle movement [human language] into numbers [computer language],
[2] translation of numbers [computer language] into an image, the mouse cursor [human language].
So, [human language]︎ [computer language] ︎ [human language]
Computer mouse data is a collection of (x, y) coordinates1. There’s no way that I, an average human, could intuitively understand the mouse’s path if I relied solely on that raw, numerical set of coordinates. However, by adding a cursor that appears at those coordinates, I gain a much more fluid understanding of the mouse’s locations and speeds. Different displays of information work better for different machines (for our brain, a moving image; for the computer, numerical data).
1This blew my mind. It’s so obvious, but I had never thought about it!