Alan Ki Aankhen
Alan Ki Aankhen is a long-form generative art project: the artwork in the series is generated entirely using code, without any human input or curation. The project was selected for the Art Blocks Curated Series 8 collection and released as a 500 edition NFT series on 27 July 2022.
You can also explore the entire collection on OpenSea or Sansa.
Concept
Alan Ki Aankhen is an exploration of other-worldly cityscapes in the visual aesthetic of my distinct style with ink on paper. The title, translated as Alan’s Eyes, alludes to Alan Turing’s machine intelligence test - a thought experiment foreshadowing a moment in which we can no longer differentiate between the real and the artificial. Though first proposed in 1950, the topic feels especially relevant today, as even our creative practices are being carried by shifting technological tides.
The algorithms and decision-making encoded into this generative art project intentionally imitate my approach on traditional mediums - composition rules, textures, and overall themes. The visual elements are inspired by memories from my nomadic life. You’ll find intricate windows from Rajasthan, massive Egyptian pyramids rising from the horizon, a density of civilization only seen in New York, and the moon - a comforting and shared sight no matter where you stand.
Select Works
Five hundred unique cityscapes were randomly generated as part of the Art Blocks launch. Each edition in the set has the overarching look of one of eight compositional styles: ancient city, crowded city, eyescape, maze of windows, ocean towers, pencil city, rooftops, or upside down. I’ve included below an edition for each style from the collection.
Clicking on an image will display it in full screen.
Alan Ki Aankhen #92. The ancient city composition features large pyramids in the backdrop of a desert city.
Alan Ki Aankhen #42. The eyescape composition most closely resembles the original vision for this project: a surrealistic cityscape brought to life with eyes.
Alan Ki Aankhen #471. The maze of windows composition is the most abstract in the series - a grid filled with elements of the Alan Ki Aankhen universe.
Alan Ki Aankhen #326. The rooftops composition is densely packed and often lined with tall and narrow buildings in the distance.
Alan Ki Aankhen #52. The crowded city composition in inspired by the view from a downtown Manhattan apartment: buildings stacked as far as the eye can see.
Alan Ki Aankhen #39. The pencil city composition invites you into an alternative universe in which civilizations have elevated pyramids and temples into skyscraper-like structures.
Alan Ki Aankhen #144. The ocean towers composition is the most minimal look in this project: a world built on stilts over the ocean.
Alan Ki Aankhen #441. The upside down composition features mirrored worlds - the bottom representing the future and top representing our past traditions.
Process
This project was developed iteratively over several months. I began with a study of each individual element (eyes, windows, leaves, vines, pyramids, etc.), codifying and parameterizing the geometry for how to draw each one. Particularly with the arches within windows, this led me down a tedious and fascinating path of studying how these forms are brought to life by carpenters and designers in the physical world.
Arch study 1: Pointed two-centered arches with varying placement of the the origin of the circle that makes up each arc (as you move rightward through the columns, the origin is shifted further out relative to the center of the arch; as you move down the rows, the origin is shifted lower).
Arch study 2: Ogee arches with varying specification of the inflection point where the two circles making up each arc meet (as you move rightward, the inflection point is shifted further out relative to the center of the arch).
While chipping away at my library of elements and textures for the project, I also built composition tools that would make it easy to quickly combine, scale, and position elements in different styles. As an example, each window in Alan Ki Aankhen is a uniquely designed assembly of rectangular blocks, arches, and circles with varying fill textures. The same tool used to assemble a window out of these components is also used to glue together rectangles and arches into an observatory for a tower.
Sketchbook brainstorm of different types of modular window designs and how to parameterize/label the structures.
First pass on generating window designs using code!
The final stretch of this project was focused on overall composition, including codifying rules about whitespace, overlap tolerances in different scenarios, and layering/depth. Converting my intuition on these themes into reliable logical rules was definitely one of the most challenging aspects of this project.
Though actual project outputs stick with a black and white look, I used color markups to debug and visualize layout and composition rules. The image above is an example of how I analyzed whitespace allowance when iteratively stacking layers of buildings to the canvas.
Whenever I got stuck on this project, I always fell back to the same methodology: how would I approach this with pen, paper, and human brain? The challenge I set for myself was to both capture the visual look and feel of my hand-drawn artwork and the higher-level creative approach that drives me through the phases of completing a drawing. Having a confident and established approach with traditional mediums turned out to be invaluable as a compass in a codebase.
Early prototype of a generative flower creature, coded using Javascript and the p5.js library. I’ve always gravitated towards vines and other organically flowing forms.
Flower of the Octoclover
Ink on paper
2016
Water Tower
Ink on paper
2017
Experiment in imitating my Water Tower drawing using the software I developed for Alan Ki Aankhen. I manually tuned the parameters in the program to achieve this specific look.