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Graffitized alphabets

Daniel Berio (drand48@gmail.com)

Many of my works explore a concept that I call Graffitization: The (computational) process that applies the stylistic principles of graffiti art to computer generated forms.

In this specific work, I apply this concept to the letters of the Latin alphabet, organized in a grid. The letter structures are derived with a procedure that extracts a plausible stroke structure from a glyph in a font, approximating the way in which the glyph could be written with a pen or brush. These structures are first simplified and abstracted and then used as a scaffold to combine strokes and other visual elements in a way that is inspired to my practice as a graffiti artist.

The presented images show different vector designs produced with this system. These designs are intended to be printed with color on paper. The presented videos show a pen plotter drawing the paths produced by this same system. As the paths are drawn, another program incrementally computes a planar arrangement that is used to fill new areas of the drawing as it is being produced. The areas are projected on top of the drawing surface with conventional projection-mapping techniques, resulting in a dynamic and temporary coloring of the permanent marks left by the pen on paper.

 

Artist Bio

Daniel Berio is a researcher, programmer and artist working between computer graphics robotics and graffiti art. He recently competed a PhD in computing at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he researched methods for the computer aided design and procedural generation of (synthetic) graffiti art and calligraphy. Previously, Daniel specialized in multimedia software development, especially applications involving real-time hardware accelerated rendering and vector graphics techniques. Artistically, Daniel comes from a graffiti writing background and he explores this same aesthetic in algorithmically generated forms.