Sebastian Schmieg is getting creative with code (see below). As far as I interpret the code right (and I just vaguely understand this 01-gibberish) he uses the Google image search for similar images and starts with a black image. And always uses the first resulting image for a next search and so on. And putting all the results together in a video. And the fun part: even though the start is just a blank/black image, a (little random, still amusing) narrative is created. Totally generative with no human manipulation at all. It’s a bit dry, though, without any soundtrack. Try listening to this in background while watching the video: Philip Glass, Glassworks.

import re, subprocess, time

class GoogleSearchByImage :

    GOOGLE_URL = "http://www.google.com"

    GOOGLE_SBI_URL = "/searchbyimage?image_url="
    
    AGENT_ID = "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:7.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/7.0.1"

    MIN_SECONDS_BETWEEN_REQUESTS = 2

    _myLastRequestTimestamp = 0
    
    _myCurrentHtml = ""

    def scrape(self, theReference) :
        if time.time() - self._myLastRequestTimestamp < self.MIN_SECONDS_BETWEEN_REQUESTS :
            time.sleep(self.MIN_SECONDS_BETWEEN_REQUESTS - (time.time() - self._myLastRequestTimestamp))
            return self.scrape(theReference)
        else :
            self._myCurrentHtml = self.getHtml(self.GOOGLE_URL + self.GOOGLE_SBI_URL + theReference)
            self._myLastRequestTimestamp = time.time()
 
    def getHtml(self, theUrl) :
        try :
            myHtml = subprocess.check_output(["curl", "-L", "-A", self.AGENT_ID, theUrl], stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
            return myHtml
        except :
            print "Curl error. Will sleep for 10 seconds"
            time.sleep(10)
            return self.getHtml(theUrl)
         
    
    def getSimilarImages(self) :
        myPattern = re.compile("\" href\=\"\/imgres\?imgurl\=(.*?)(\&amp|\%3F)")        
        myImages = myPattern.findall(self._myCurrentHtml)
        myImagesUrls = []        
        for myImage in myImages :
            myImagesUrls.append(myImage[0])
        return myImagesUrls
    
    def getLinkToSimilarImagesPage(self) :
        myPattern = re.compile("\<a href\=\"([^\"]+[.]?)\"\>Visually similar images\<\/a\>")
        myPageUrl = myPattern.findall(self._myCurrentHtml)
        myPageUrl = str(myPageUrl[0]).replace("&amp;", "&")
        myPageUrl += "&biw=1600&bih=825" # always keep this
        return self.GOOGLE_URL + myPageUrl
(via Lebowitz)
Computational architecture. Maybe nothing that hardliners like Le Corbusier or van der Rohe would approve. But hey, pillars (with no purpose at all) that have 16 million unique tiny surfaces and are created with a sci-fi looking software are just much cooler than puristic usefulness. By Michael Hansmeyer (via FastCompany Design)

Computational architecture. Maybe nothing that hardliners like Le Corbusier or van der Rohe would approve. But hey, pillars (with no purpose at all) that have 16 million unique tiny surfaces and are created with a sci-fi looking software are just much cooler than puristic usefulness.

By Michael Hansmeyer (via FastCompany Design)