SUBROSA, Generative Key Art

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We use keys and locks to secure some of our most valuable possessions but the beauty of the keys is often overlooked.  I named this project SUBROSA, which means 'secret', as that seems to be apropos considering the often private nature of things people use keys to secure.  I wrote a python script to generatively create profiles of keys that I could plot with a pen plotter to highlight the aesthetic qualities of keys.  I modeled my art keys loosely on the structure of real keys which typically have a head, shoulder, blade and tip.  The contours are mostly composed of multiple paths of cubic Bézier curves.  In modeling the curves I tried to follow the general trend that the head is wider than the shoulder of the key which is in turn wider than the blade and usually keys are designed to to have any convexities in the shape facing outwards along the head.  I began to use vpype (https://github.com/abey79/vpype) after I created the keys (vpype looks like amazing software, so far I have just scratched the surface in my usage) to center each key and also to perform a linemerge.  I then manually or programatically created some composites of the keys to plot with Inkscape and used the EMSL Inkscape hatch fill plug in, plotted with Sovol SO-1 on paper and then scanned the paper prints.   I will share the python file key6.py I created to generate the artwork.

key6.py python script to generate key svg images for SUBROSA artwork.

File to automate some of the steps:

multikey.py, short script to automate running key6.py and then use vpype to center each key svg on A4 landscape and linemerge.

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