review: [MC] Escher web sketch
I have a cadre of amazing & free creative apps that keep me going: Audacity, Hydrogen (the beat machine), and the GIMP. While the online MC Escher symmetric pattern generator is much more specific than these, I think it’s a notable example of an idea reflector that complements more free-form creative tools. When I’m drawing a P1 crystal, I can imagine wind or the sharp, falling edges of a saw; the P6mm is is like a blitz of energy; the order of the P4mm seems to fit in a Kraftwerk synthi-sterile-expansive space, fronting an infinite mind bend into the meaning of chaos and truth.
One day I should try to codify the various dimensions along which I see these tools living. Sketching as thought, idea reflectors take liberty in transforming input to product, forming highly constrained systems with relatively few rules. In these systems bang-for-buck is heightened, unpredictably, channeling a controlled variability. The output of an idea reflector has some semblance to an original thought, but it is only a glimpse of the original thought in a palpable form that connects a feedback loop between the creator and herself/himself.