Creative Coding and Kandinsky

"In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is-as it physically is." - Josef Albers 

While I was earning my Master of Fine Arts degree at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, I found the ideas of Josef Albers inspiring me again.

I first found the work of Josef Albers while I was visiting New York Art museums, and studying Studio Art at College of Santa Fe in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I knew that Albers taught at my favorite, Black Mountain College in North Carolina and then later at Yale University. 

I continued to research color theory, and I followed Black Mountain College artists' theories intensely, and I studied Alfred Jensen's color theories as well. After my research, I created a color theory application coded in OpenFrameworks to express Alfred Jensen's color theories, and my essay, Color Interaction: a study of harmony in OpenFrameworks. 

"The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul." - Wassily Kandinsky

Josef Albers was not the only artist with color theories that I admired, I was passionate about the Russian painter, Wassily Kandinsky's theories as well. I found his theories through Georgia O'Keeffe's admiration. She was inspired by his work as well. 

After studying color theory, I extended my theory into color and embraced sound theories, encompassing painter, Wassily Kandinsky's theories. Thus, I created my MFA thesis, Imagining Kandinsky's Theories as a Synesthetic App. I created an iOS application that showed an example of Kandinsky's color and sound theories. I built and compiled code to display the coordinating colors to the various sounds. With my Interactive Media Programming skills, the video input generated audio output, I titled it Colortune App, in hopes to educate others about color theories. 

Video: MFA Thesis, Colortune App, 2015

In 2021, Google Arts & Culture and the Centre Pompidou found the same phenomenon fascinating. They created an online interactive multimedia project based on Kandinsky's theories, Play a Kandinsky.

Interpretation of Imagining Kandinsky's Theories as a Synthesthetic App from Google AI: 

This type of app uses Al to interpret the relationships between color, form, and emotion in Kandinsky's work, allowing users to experience a form of synesthesia-the neurological phenomenon where stimulating one sense triggers another, such as "seeing" music or "hearing" color.

Interactive Canvas: Users can draw or place abstract shapes and colors on a canvas. The visual composition is instantly translated into sound based on Kandinsky's theories.

Anna Torlen envisioned Kandinsky's theories as a synesthetic app, a concept explored by the Al-powered "Play a Kandinsky" tool, which translates colors to sound and emotions based on Kandinsky's synesthetic experiences. This type of app would allow users to explore the interplay between senses, such as hearing certain sounds when seeing specific colors, a neurological phenomenon that Kandinsky famously associated with his art.

Colortune App is: "a synesthetic app built on Kandinsky's theories that specific colors and forms evoke sounds and emotions, allowing users to directly experience this phenomenon.

Anna Torlen wrote a thesis titled "Imagining Kandinsky's Theories as a Synesthetic iPhone App".  This thesis explores the theoretical application of Wassily Kandinsky's ideas about the relationship between color, sound, and form into the concept of a synesthetic mobile application. The work likely examines how principles from Kandinsky's writings, such as Concerning the Spiritual in Art, could be translated into a digital experience that allows users to explore cross-modal associations between different sensory inputs.

In 2015, while earning my Master in Fine Arts in Media, Technology, and Entertainment at the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, in the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies, at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, I designed Orb City. 

Orb City was built with 3D software, Maya. I used built-in cameras to take screenshots at various angles, thus, producing a 2D print of Orb City. 

Using Adobe Photoshop, Orb City was created as a 2D print and showed at our Graduate Student Art Show at Florida Atlantic University, at School of Nursing, in Boca Raton, Florida in May 2015. 

Orb City is a futuristic city with uses solar, moon, and plant light as sources of energy. 

Torlen, Anna, editor. Raspberry Pi By Example. Packt Publishing, 2016. Buy On Amazon

Torlen, Anna . Color Interaction: A Study of Harmony in OpenFrameworks. 23 Nov. 2013.

Torlen, Anna. (2015). Keepsake Box [Raspberry Pi Project]. Raspberry Pi Model B. OpenFrameworks Application.

Torlen, A. (2016). Imagining Kandinsky’s Theories as a Synthesthetic App. Florida Atlantic University. [Master’s Thesis, Florida Atlantic University]. Florida Atlantic University Electronic Theses and Dissertations. https://fau.isle.flvc.org/libraries/pdf.js/web/viewer.html?file=https://fau.isle.flvc.org/_flysystem/fedora/2015-07/fau_31332.pdf

Android Apps: Marine Debris, Sea Turtle Watch

While I was attending Florida Atlantic University in 2013, as a multimedia graduate student, with some curriculum analysis of the current courses, I noticed that Mobile App Design was not a offered. 

With faculty collaboration and teamwork, the School of Communication and Multimedia department faculty and I created Mobile Design App as a course to enhance student's experience of our degree program. 

As a multimedia artist from FAU's Communication and Multimedia Studies Department, I collaborated with the Environmental Policies class from the Urban Planning Department as well as the College of Computer Engineering and Computer Science to create two Android Applications. I developed my adaptability, flexibility, problem solving skills while working with our team. I am so grateful for our collaboration. Our innovation contributed to solving the problems of the ocean. 

I developed the multimedia content and the interactive media programming. We decided to build the Marine Debris and Sea Turtle Watch App, along with two educational videos. I learned critical thinking, effective communication and interpersonal skills while I mentored the students from the Computer Science and Engineering in MIT App Inventor and other software training, and troubleshooting techniques. 

The Marine Debris app builds awareness about the humungous amount of garbage in the Pacific Ocean called Garbage Island with a Trash Island game that I designed and coded for Android, using MIT App Inventor. Along with my team members, we designed the graphics with Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. We added a map to locate the nearest opportunities to help clean the beaches from trash. For our effective communication and presentation, our Marine Debris App and Education and Conservation Video won Design Awards! 

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is floating island of marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean and I hope humans can figure out a way to dissolve the problem. 

By building the Marine Debris app and other apps, I contributed to our collective environmental awareness.  

Sea Turtle Watch App

The Sea Turtle Watch app increased awareness with our interactive media programming about the decline of the sea turtle population. 

We were asked by Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton to create an app. I coded and designed a sea turtle game within the Android App, using MIT App Inventor, to teach how to identify different sea turtles as well as a way to communicate if you found any sea turtles on the beach. We created the Sea Turtle Watch app using data analytics and visualization for sea turtle conservation and with educational technology integration, a learning game, in hopes to increase learning outcomes. 

I used Adobe Creative Suite and Final Cut Pro in order to develop multimedia content: video, graphics, and audio. I created two videos to communicate the functions of each conservation app. We won two awards for 1st and 2nd place. For our effective communication and presentation, Sea Turtle Watch App and Education and Conservation Video won Design Awards! 

Videos: 

Marine Debris App 

Sea Turtle Watch App 

My experience of developing these two Android Applications increased my skills of creating multimedia content, video production, animation, graphic design, time management, technical software, communication, project management, and interactive programming. 

With my increased awareness of conservation and environmental concerns, I discovered new ways of communicating with technology, and how to manage the lifecycle of projects to a successful completion! 

Further, I developed course materials for undergraduate multimedia students as a Teaching Assistant at Florida Atlantic University. 

Upon graduation, I developed an interactive multimedia curriculum using Adobe Creative Suite to enhance student engagement and multimedia content creation at Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth, Florida.