Art from Code: Self-Portrait

Me, as seen through a pile of windows
Me, as seen through a pile of windows

Does my self-portrait capture me? Who knows. I feel like a portrait drawn by another person and a self-portrait are entirely different things. While a portrait by a third party captures your physical appearance, it may not necessarily capture your mental state. A self-portrait, though, is capable of capturing what goes on in the artist’s head. With that in mind, I knew from the start that I wouldn’t be capturing what I see in the mirror.

So, what am I supposed to be? How do I see myself? How do I put that on a canvas?

Different meetings, different colors
Different places, different colors
Different windows create a different version of "me"
Different windows create different versions of “me”

I started with trying to capture an important part of my life – my relationship with technology. I love computers. They enabled pretty much every single opportunity I got in my life. No matter what interest I pursue, I will at some point be looking at a computer screen while doing so. To capture that, I went with the metaphor of an operating system desktop, and some of the apps that I use on a daily basis.

While the operating system itself is cold – the wallpaper and the windows are using grey and blue colors – the content I make is bright and active. The images I make, the code I write, the files that I work with, those are the things that I chose to define me.

Me minus me in the mirror
My face, minus what I saw in the mirror

When I started work on this project, I first created the image behind the windows. My glasses and my headphones. Parts of my face that I can see without having to look in the mirror. By choosing to showcase just these two elements, I wanted to give a sort of a “first person” perspective to the viewer.

Who
The image does not stay the same.

Between the three different types of windows, and the ability to move them, I spent some time working on implementing them all. The biggest challenge for me ended up trying to balance my desire for this project to always produce a unique result each time it’s opened, while also still maintaining its personality – the colors, and the unique glimpse of “me” that each window shows. At the same time, I also tried to offer a degree of interactivity – windows can be dragged and rearranged, to produce a different portrait.

Drag windows to change things
Drag windows to change things
Author: Dima Konev