Cruz Prima
The work “Cruz Prima” is a generative image of an artistic nature made in the integrated development environment editor p5.js, it is a dynamic image captured on a digital canvas of 512x512 pixels at a speed of 2 frames per second in gray scale generated from endogenous data. It consists of a three-dimensional drawing with lines (unfilled, empty) of the figure of a cross on a black background, composed of 8 “walls” or differentiated areas that illuminate independently over time infinitely.
Technical, aesthetic and conceptual development
These zones are associated with an algorithm, each one directly related to a mathematical calculation of divisibility proof with the use of the modulo (%) operation. This algorithm takes as input the number of frames generated since the beginning of the program and performs 8 divisibility test operations with the first 8 prime numbers (2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19). If one or more of these operations are confirmed as true, the area of the cross associated with it “lights up” for the duration of 1 frame, filling with the white value 255 for the areas associated with the prime numbers 2.5, 11 and 19 and with the white value 255, alpha 210 for the areas associated with the prime numbers 3, 7, 13 and 17.
The inspiration for the creation of the work comes from several places, in the aesthetic part I take elements from the artistic movement of Suprematism founded by Kazimir Malevich by focusing on fundamental geometric figures (rectangles and squares) in this case using them to give an illusion of resemblance to an object in reality, representing it in an “abstract” way, although the use of this term today is obsolete since, quoting Mitchell, “Abstract art has already become a familiar element of our cultural landscape” (Mitchell, 1994).
I also took inspiration from the computational artist, scientist and writer Herbert Franke, mainly the use of mathematics as an artistic generative principle and in the composition with a dark background, making use of the strong contrast between light and darkness, also closely linked to the dichotomy between good and evil culturally installed by the Catholic religion, to which the Cross belongs as one of its main symbols.
I decided to make the cross the way I made it and from the angle at which it is seen to give an idea of three-dimensionality, thus transgressing the two-dimensional space of the canvas on which it is located and the support (screen) on which it is displayed. The use of mathematics for the generative part of the work is found in the sequence in which the areas of the cross are illuminated arises from the very nature of the numbers that make up the support of the work, they arise from conditions established by numerical relations of divisibility between the prime numbers and the internal count of the squares drawn by the application, virtually assigning each of the first 8 prime numbers to each of the 8 areas of the cross. These areas are illuminated in white, but this is not a solid white but rather has transparencies through which you can continue to visualize its structure, almost like the shine in large glass panels, giving the sensation of fragility. The cross does not have a clear meaning or explanation, it is part of a machine that, reading itself, generates the work that is seen, whose extension in time is as infinite as natural numbers, as long as the machine does not stop. It does not have a defined cycle nor does it have an order, so its state at a given moment is always unique and unrepeatable.