At first, I was only working on this project to have a bunch of squares that generate different polygons within themselves (the first attempt below, the idea was scrapped). This initial idea was inspired by Alexandre Zajac’s Generative Art.
However, as I was experimenting with this project, I drew inspiration from my personal experience of constantly feeling judged by others. Every time I go out, I always get the feeling that there are people watching me, leaving me always on the lookout for who may be looking at me and wondering why they do so. I try to make sense of the way people perceive me by attempting to see myself through their eyes. The motifs of eyes and perception persisted through the planning phase of this project, which gave my work If We Had Your Eyes its name.
After some experimentation, I felt that it would be more interesting to have an eye inside each square instead. When I saw the output for the first time, that was when I came up with the idea of how the eyes can cause discomfort for the viewer. To make the system more unpredictable, I decided to have 8 different variations of the eye (normal/cat/shining/bloodshot/mixed) where each one has a different probability of occurring, with the chance that multiple ones can appear at the same time (excluding normal/cat), and that each eye will be rotated a random amount. The reason I positioned the pupils/iris to look in multiple directions and not just at the viewer is to show how people can really get in their own heads or get lost in their own thoughts when in reality not everyone is watching their every move. However, there is also a very small chance that all the eyes will be staring at the viewer to showcase the special cases where people would be staring at someone. The background and squares have three main colors – red, green, and blue. There is also a rare chance that the color of the squares will be completely different and random. There is also a rare case that shows a fully black screen with red eyes, which showcases the cases when overthinking can take over your conscious thoughts, and you think that everyone is judging you and staring at you. All randomness/probabilities are calculated using ‘if’ statements and the random() function. My thought process and initial sketch can be seen below including all the probabilities:
Collage of different outputs:
I really enjoyed working on this project especially since it has a lot of personal meaning to me. I hope you enjoy experimenting with the outcomes and trying to get the rare ones!