Emoji Script #161

Travess Smalley is an artist working with computation to make generative image systems, vitally interested in how code and systems can construct, transfer, and disrupt images. For FLA002, Smalley developed a program:

*Emoji Script is a program that rapidly generates portraits. The portraits are geometric and usually rounded. They look like avatars. They are cropped at the chest. The head is large and close to the center. The background is solid or radial. The eyes are usually looking directly back at me. Sometimes they are funny. Sometimes the portraits are missing parts, like a shoulder. Sometimes they aren’t portraits at all, but an edge case in the script where the shapes have merged and what’s left looks abstract or unexpected, or like a picture of a lemon.

Emoji Script is made from various JavaScript instructions for Photoshop. The instructions are things like: set a circle selection, fill a selection with a color, or fill it with a gradient. The colors, dimensions, and placement are pseudo-randomized with parameters I set in my code. Many of the instructions I write are not specifically designed to always happen but are given a chance of happening. For instance: a 25% chance that the eyes will arch upwards, and then a 50% chance that those eyes will be outlined with another color, a 25% chance that outline will be filled with a two color gradient, and so on. The combinations of random numbers applied to the script variables makes each one unique.*