Using three.js and the GitHub API to recreate Isabel Del RÃo's "2244 Módulos" -- but for code!
Three.js • Node.js
This project will use three.js and the GitHub API to recreate the work below by Isabel Del RÃo.
The plan is to render a tablet for every x lines of code pushed to GitHub. Stacks of tablets will likely each represent a week of work (rather than the artist's original stack-per-day design), purely because of the frequency with which I'm currently pushing up code.
In 2244 Módulos Del RÃo physically registers the passage of time. Over a period of six months, Isabel Del RÃo set herself the task of making several one-inch thick plaster tablets every day. Her efforts resulted in 2244 tablets, each stamped with the date it was produced. The number of tablets completed each day varied according to the artist’s 'work' or 'free' time. After six months, the artist had filled a considerable physical space with the results of her daily activity.
The hours spent in apparently mindless repetition suggest a futile obsession, and also a desire to find a rational order. Although at first glance 2244 Módulos may recall a precise and mathematical Minimalist sculpture, the handmade quality of the tablets and the obsessive nature of the project suggest a more existential and personal concern.
Since seeing the installation in 2014, I return to it often as a reflection on the intersections of productivity, work, progress, humanity, and futility.
For a while, I've been thinking it would be great to recreate the installation using a visualization or rendering library, mostly as a way to practice JavaScript and to face my front-end nemeses.
The digital rendering invites further ideas to ponder: the merits of virtual creation vs. physical creation; the assumption that lines-of-code-added amounts to work done; how to lend human touches to technical work.
Be in touch if this made you think! Constructive code review also (very) welcomed.