
Contest: recreate Mondrian painting in code, win exposition in museum - vindia
http://www.elegant.setup.nl
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vindia
Rules are in Dutch, so I did a quick translation of the most important parts

Generate Mondriaan's Victory Boogie Woogie in code

Everyone who can make squares appear on a screen can join until March 7th 2013

Submit your code to elegant@setup.nl

    
    
      Rules
    
      * Any programming language can be used
      * Please do try to document your code as good as possible and add a little description how it works, as the judges will not speak all programming languages
      * Please add a little manual on how to run your program on the judges' machine
      * Code will remain secret until the deadline of March 7th 2013
      * After the deadline all code will be published on Github, licensed under MIT license and with proper attribution to the author
      * Your submission must consist of the following:
        * Sourcecode
        * Output of your program (image)
        * Short description of the algorithm used
        * Contact details

~~~
dkarl
Thank you!

Wikipedia says Victory Boogie Woogie is unfinished. Should submissions produce
a finished version of the painting?

~~~
rolandboon
"It is a kind of demoscene contest, where beauty come first. You do not have
to produce a one-on-one copy of the painting. The jury rates on quality and
creativity of the used algorithms."

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jerf
The winner is a foregone conclusion, it's the person who submits the solution
in Piet: <http://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/piet.html>

It'll be a worthy victory, though.

~~~
Someone
I think Mondriaan would dislike almost all Piet programs. Green? Cyan?
Magenta? Light and dark? No gray?

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kens
There's a famous 1965 experiment to generate synthetic Mondrians by computer.
Most people couldn't tell which was real, and people actually liked the fake
better. This was some of the earliest computer art, done on an IBM 7090. (Just
a historical note, not a comment on the current contest.)

[http://www.newmediacaucus.org/wp/routing-mondrian-the-a-
mich...](http://www.newmediacaucus.org/wp/routing-mondrian-the-a-michael-noll-
experiment/)

[http://www.dam.org/mix/noll-all-artworks-4-computer-
patterns...](http://www.dam.org/mix/noll-all-artworks-4-computer-patterns-
with-lines--dam-11493-gUmmn-de-2.jpg)

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ktf
More-or-less off-topic, but if you live in SF you should check out the house
near Ocean Beach that's painted like a Mondrian:

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlbeanlarson/6184099446/>

I forget the exact cross street -- somewhere between Judah and Taravel,
overlooking the beach. A good excuse for a walk on the beach, if nothing else!

~~~
alxndr
I ran down the street real quick in Google Maps, it's 2140 Great Highway:
<http://goo.gl/maps/NZNAO>

~~~
jerf
I just had another _holy shit, it's the 21st century_ moment.

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Adaptive
Those with xscreensaver installed can use something along the lines of:

    
    
        /usr/lib/xscreensaver/deco -mondrian
    

Temper your expectations by the `man deco` intro that suggests it draws "tacky
70s basement wall panelling".

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jessedhillon
Evidently there's some interestingness in the precise choice of the colors in
Boogie Woogie: <http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/mondrian2.html>

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pejoculant
I wrote some code a little while ago to do something like this (although I
wasn't trying to produce Victory Boogie Woogie in particular)[1]. It generates
samples from a probability distribution over kd-trees called the Mondrian
Process [2]

[1] [http://whatididonthetrain.blogspot.com/2011/02/mondrian-
was-...](http://whatididonthetrain.blogspot.com/2011/02/mondrian-was-
mathematician.html)

[2]
[http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~teh/research/npbayes/RoyTeh2009a....](http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~teh/research/npbayes/RoyTeh2009a.pdf)

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onion2k
Years ago I wrote a toy to make Mondrian style pics using PHP+GD2 ...
<http://ooer.com/automondrian/> ... It just makes silly random pics. Fun.

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specialist
I'm a little bit sad that such awesomeness can be reduced to an algorithm. As
my graphic designer friends used to joke, "There's a Photoshop filter for
that!"

I'd be really impressed if a computer program simulated the -tactile- texture
and gamut as well.

Mondrian's New York period paintings are deceptively simple. I've read a
teacher's writeup of his student's efforts to recreate Mondrian's Composition
(I think). Not easy.

Matching the palette, precise layering, bevels and edges. Mondrian's New York
paintings were precise and subtle.

Here's a similar description (can't find the article I vaguely remember):

Two-year study of Mondrian's Victory Boogie Woogie in Gemeentemuseum Den Haag
to be rounded off by symposium Thursday, 28 August 2008
<http://www.codart.nl/news/338/>

~~~
Samuel_Michon
_“I've read a teacher's writeup of his student's efforts to recreate
Mondrian's Composition (I think). Not easy.”_

Here you go:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-
elkins/post_1036_b_75666...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-
elkins/post_1036_b_756669.html)

~~~
madethemcry
such a cool analysis. thanks!

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yeureka
This reminds me of an installation by Mine Control: <http://www.mine-
control.com/mondrian.html>

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kevinconroy
Bonus points for who ever can structure your code with whitespace to appear in
a layout very similar to the resulting painting.

