What is Conditional Design
Conditional design is a concept I have never heard of before, and it’s very unique and fascinating. The process of creating these designs is often collaborative. There is some kind of rules for the process, and people will work with these rules to create artwork. But unlike the art/design works we normally talk about, which will always feature a tangible finished thing, in conditional design, the process is the product.
Why I Think It Is a Breakthrough
In my experience working to create art and designs, I never engaged with such a mode of creation. I always had a thing I want to create in mind, a goal. “the expectation of ‘beautiful drawings’ is no more than another constraint” would sound ridiculous to me. But this concept opens many new possibilities. There are tons of arts and designs in the world, it’s hard to create something novel and interesting. Why not focus on the process instead of the artwork itself? This opened a whole new angle of creating as well as appreciating the artwork. Another benefit of this mode of creation is that everyone can participate in the process, even the audience, as shown in the Vitruvian Paint Machine.
My Idea
An idea I have for a conditional design project is that I would set up a canvas and let a group of people draw shapes on it, and make them change the color to the color next to the original color on the spectrum every half minute. Everyone will pick a shape to draw first, and by every ten seconds draw one, each one should be right next to the former one, but the relative location can be decided by themselves.
The coloring rule I defined will give every stripe of shapes a rainbow-y color, and the final product will be many colorful stripes floating on the paper, which I think will be very unique. But the best thing will be that in the process of the painting, every colorful stripe will come to life bit by bit, making it very pleasing to watch.