Document:Q10217

The Micro Modernist Google Gadget generates a unique image for you every time you load your customized Google home page. You can click on the applet to generate a new image. The Micro Modernist requires the Shockwave plug-in and a customized Google home page.
The Micro Modernist Google Gadget uses generative and systemic processes to create the image. Each image is unique and created for that instant in time. First the program loads a lookup table of color palettes from a database of palettes generated from actual artists works (Josef Albers for example). The engine then generates a 3d virtual world, populates it with primitive objects and assigns them shaders from the loaded palette. This handles of the general layout and also creates some volumetric shapes and lines that can work their way into the design. The program then extracts the image from the 3d objects. A decision tree determines how the image is deconstructed and reconstructed. The decision tree spawns graphic layers in memory much like layers in Photoshop and manipulates them before merging them into one image layer. The layered process iterates a couple of times arbitrarily choosing various manipulations, systemic reductions and effects. All resulting layers are arbitrarily assigned a stacking order and then they are merged. Finally vector shapes are drawn in the foreground and the graphic generation process is complete.
When the graphic processes are complete, the The Micro Modernist creates a title by combining a noun, an adjective and a random number attempting in futility to assign meaning to the work. While this is a trivial task to program it is an important step in the process of creating a modernist work since modernism seeks to make sense out of the senseless and impose meaning through art where there is none.