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Studio

Before there isa portrait,

there is a grid.

Field / 00

The derivatives are not the portrait. They expose where the portrait changes fastest.

Sampling / 01

  1. 01 — Source
  2. 02 — Discretisation
  3. 03 — Quantisation
  4. 04 — Configuration
  5. 05 — Reconstruction

M* = arg minM ∈ A E(M, I)

The nearest colour at each coordinate does not produce the best portrait globally.

Each visible cube face carries a 3 × 3 grid of stickers, so the image lattice is three times finer than the object lattice on each axis — nine times the addressable positions.

Matrix / 02

The matrix is not a picture of the work. It is the work.

Frequency / 03

|F(u,v)| · log scale · fftshift
ℱ⁻¹ · low-pass · r = 0.180
ω lowω high

Real 2D FFT, 128 × 128, computed in-browser. Low frequency is the centre — head shape, facial mass. High frequency is the rim — seams, sticker edges. Distance is a low-pass; what it removes is the medium.

Distance / 04

Close: you see the medium.
Far: you see the subject.

Perceptual simulation, not a model of human vision. σ is not calibrated to metres.

σ = 0.05 cm

Simulated spatial-frequency attenuation

A real separable Gaussian convolution over the work’s own sticker data, recomputed at each step. Perceptual simulation — not a clinical model of human vision, and σ is not calibrated to metres.

Before mechanical constraints

62,016

|C|
6
N
2,016
Ω_colour
C^N
Ω_admissible
⊂ Ω_colour

State / 03

Ω₄ ⊂ Ω₃ ⊂ Ω₂ ⊂ Ω₁ ⊂ Ω₀

Ω₀

All assignments

Every six-colour labelling of every cell.

State / 05

A screen has pixels.This has constraints.

Reachable states, one cube
4.3252 × 10¹⁹
Exactly
43,252,003,274,489,856,000
From
8! · 3⁷ · 12! · 2¹⁰

A sticker belongs to a cubie. The cubie belongs to a permutation. The permutation belongs to a mechanically reachable state. And that state still has to serve the portrait.

Properties of the standard 3×3×3 cube, not measurements of this studio. No move sequences are published. Raising a per-cube state count to the power of the cube count would not give a meaningful number of distinct mosaics.

Error / 06

How far the assigned colour sits from the source colour, measured in a perceptually organised space rather than in RGB. Six plastics cannot land near most of a face.

The weights are the artistic decision. They are not published here.

Quantisation / 07

Pointwise optimum ≠ spatial optimum.

  • Blue → RedΔL* 6.6
  • Red → OrangeΔL* 14.4
  • Orange → GreenΔL* 1.6
  • Green → YellowΔL* 23.1
  • Yellow → WhiteΔL* 13.0

The missing colour is generated by the eye.

CloseFar
Alternating
Red (L* 41.6) and Yellow (L* 80.7)
Integrated impression
rgb(218, 144, 42) — L* 65.8
Nearest single colour
Yellow, ΔE*ab 28.8

Integration computed in linear light. Perceptual simulation, not a model of pigment or of the visual system.

Wall / 08

Switch to Analysis to operate these.

View 01–08 / fields

Perceptual lightness, from linearised sRGB through CIE XYZ. Colour is discarded before anything else, because it is the one thing six plastics cannot reproduce.

— computed in-browser from this work

View 09 / M[r,c,i,j]

Move across the lattice

Every cell carries four addresses and one decision. Hover one.

x = 3(c−1) + j    y = 3(r−1) + i

All values computed from this work in the browser.

And then you step back.

Output

One face.

All of that for this.

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