Wall Art

When I moved into my apartment in Boston in 2018, I wanted to decorate my place. In recent years, I have refrained from putting posters or paintings my walls, because I feel like they become invisible to me over time.

Idea

As a reaction to this, I started thinking about modular, low-cost, parametric DIY-art. Made in such a way that it could be reshaped regularly.

An artist I have been very inspired by is HOTTEA who makes vibrant yarn installations, often creating gradients by having hundreds or thousands of suspended strings of yarn in slightly different hues.

My thinking was, by using Rhino + Grasshopper as a parametric CAD and sketching tool, and the idea of strings of yarn in diffent constellations, I could create recipes for art works that could be mounted on my wall around specific anchor points.

Process

I took a picture of my wall and put it in Rhino as a viewport background. Then I went into Grasshopper and started building up an anchor point generator setup that would allow me to control how many strings I’d like, and how long they would be. Assigning the color is done through reading an Image Sampler that you can put any bitmap into, and have it read the colors of pixels in the bitmap and map them in 3D.

Setting up strings and anchor points in Grasshopper

Screenshot of initial set up of anchor points and strings in Grasshopper

Setting up strings and anchor points in Grasshopper

First sketch of what a rainbow wall piece could look like

Setting up strings and anchor points in Grasshopper

Sketch of a sunset-style gradient and larger number of strings

Next steps

An important component in this project is the anchor point. I imagine:

  • Something that mounts into a wall with a single small screw
  • A center “spool” that you can tighten the string around
  • A cover that hides the screw and the spooled and loose end part of the string
  • A cover might have to have one or more outlets that lets the string in/out