
Solving Sol - bpierre
http://solvingsol.com/
======
fescue
Hey wow! Site author here, tons more solutions on Github than I've posted on
the site: [https://github.com/wholepixel/solving-
sol](https://github.com/wholepixel/solving-sol)

Sol LeWitt, and his cohort of generative conceptual artists, are really
interesting to evaluate from a software engineering perspective, and I hope
you'll take a look at what they're all about!

~~~
Cogito
Are all of these solutions available anywhere?

They all seem to simply be html files, so github pages should be able to serve
them, but I couldn't see anything.

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fescue
I need to update the site - at the time I didn't build any automation from the
repo to publishing on solvingsol.com

~~~
Cogito
Are you thinking of doing that? I'd love to check back in once all the new
drawings are available.

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tniemi
This reminds me of the description texts in heraldry.

For example, the coat of arms of Finland: "Gules, semy of roses argent, a lion
rampant crowned Or trampling a sabre in base proper, his dexter foreleg in the
form of a man's arm vambraced and embowed argent garnished Or bearing aloft a
sword proper."

And somehow from this emerges a special lion with a sword through it's head:
[https://satwcomic.com/coat-of-arms](https://satwcomic.com/coat-of-arms)

~~~
sdrothrock
> Gules, semy of roses argent, a lion rampant crowned Or trampling a sabre in
> base proper, his dexter foreleg in the form of a man's arm vambraced and
> embowed argent garnished Or bearing aloft a sword proper.

Translation:

Gules: Red

Semy: Background

Roses argent: Silver roses

A lion: A lion

Rampant: Standing

Crowned Or: With a literal golden crown on its head ("Or" meaning "gold")

trampling a saber: stepping on a saber

in base proper: the saber should be colored normally

his dexter foreleg: The right "arm"

in the form of a man's arm: the right "arm" should be a man's

vambraced: wearing armor about the forearm

and embowed: bent

argent: silver

garnished Or: decorated with gold ("Or" meaning "gold")

bearing aloft: carrying

a sword proper: a sword colored normally

So, in normal speech, this is a basically a technical specification for:

1\. The background should be red with silver roses

2\. The foreground should be a standing lion

3\. The lion should be wearing a golden crown

4\. The lion should be standing on a sword, colored normally

5\. The lion's right forearm should be a human's, armored

6\. The armor of the forearm should be silver with gold decoration

7\. The human-like right forearm should be bent and raised, carrying a sword

8\. The sword should be normally colored

Anyone who knew heraldry when it was important would be able to take that
description and churn out a reasonable facsimile of the crest.

The lion isn't stabbing itself in the head any more than a "suicide king" is.

~~~
ygra
I remember when I was vectorizing flags (the simple geometric kind, though,
since I've done it with a text editor and some scripting/templating) on
Wikimedia Commons as a pastime years ago. I got reasonably well-versed in
parsing heraldry as a side-effect and it was fun in a way, considering that it
is indeed a fairly precise description syntax for coat of arms and flags.

And I got confused when GRRM started using proper heraldic descriptions for
flags in ASoIaF with the third book, while the two before were basically just
very simple English descriptions. Most readers probably never really noticed
:)

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js8
Can you draw seven red lines, all of them strictly perpendicular, some with
green ink, and some with transparent?

And for bonus points, can one of them be in the shape of a kitten?

~~~
mjlee
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg)
for the confused :)

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gabrielrotbart
I really love this. The original art piece is just a set of instructions meant
to be fed into our minds and generate an imaginary canvas. Now we use
technology to just feed the same set of instructions into software to generate
virtual canvases

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suddensleep
This is great, thanks for sharing! I wish I had known about Sol when I used to
teach high school geometry; the fact that many of these constructions can be
interpreted pretty openly would have produced a lot of different "answers" and
opened up the floor for conversation about rigor.

Instead, I had my students construct the flag of Nepal (see
[http://www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/np01000_.html](http://www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/np01000_.html)
for the specification). Let's just say that most of the students were not as
captivated by the idea as I was.

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ishmandoo
Love it!

I implemented something similar in Mathematica:
[http://blog.benwiener.com/programming/art/2017/08/24/lewitt....](http://blog.benwiener.com/programming/art/2017/08/24/lewitt.html)

My friend implemented it in Elm: [http://www.philipzucker.com/elm-eikonal-sol-
lewitt/](http://www.philipzucker.com/elm-eikonal-sol-lewitt/)

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mattdesl
Such a cool project!

I’m going to be doing a similar exercise in an upcoming Generative Art
workshop that I’m giving.[1]

I love how LeWitt’s work seems so simple on paper, but can look so impressive
on a larger scale and in a natural environment.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/mattdesl/status/1052687485715836928?s=21](https://twitter.com/mattdesl/status/1052687485715836928?s=21)

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sandebert
Sorry, I don't have anything substantial to add. Just that I love Sol's art
and got all giddy seeing this!

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Elrac
I was expecting to see a Solitaire solver.

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franciscrick1
I think the point with #797 is that the artists for each line are different,
and thus there is compounding error. As it is, each line is identical to the
last except for color.

~~~
gabrielrotbart
My first thought as well. It raises some interesting questions. Does the
perfection of execution take away from the art? What if the meatbag artists
were so highly skilled that they executed the same level of perfection? Does
it mean different things?

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ZenPsycho
it turns out someone else has explored this exact question:

[http://blog.benwiener.com/programming/art/2017/08/24/lewitt....](http://blog.benwiener.com/programming/art/2017/08/24/lewitt.html)

As for what minimalist art "means", I think that's taking the wrong approach.
It's more about how you feel when looking at it, what does it remind you of,
what non verbal parts of your mind are activated?

~~~
ishmandoo
Hey, that's me! Thanks for pointing it out!

