# Minipix

December 3, 2025 · generative-art, tools, creative-coding, algorithmic-art

Canonical: https://www.romellogoodman.com/writing/minipix
Originally published: https://mellogood.substack.com/p/minipix

---

A photo manipulation tool

Four years ago I had the idea to use p5.js to manipulate images. At the time I was interested in mosaics and the collage process—splitting and combining pieces of photos into something new. I spent the night coding and by 3am had a finished product.

Then I put the project on the shelf. I thought about it on and off and experimented with variations within my practice, but never revisited the original. When I came across Chelsi Cocking's [Photorythms](https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/photorythms/overview/) a few years ago, I decided to archive the project for good. Here was an artist exploring the same territory at a higher fidelity and with much more polish than I was capable of. I was happy this work existed and made sure to mention it to her when we met in Atlanta this fall at Book+Zine.

But a few weeks ago the itch returned. I was looking at Nano Banana and felt this growing urge—questions pinging my brain around computational images and creativity. I don't think AI-generated art is itself art, but I do think computers can enable creativity. I wanted to figure out where that line was, so I found my old notes and began sketching again.

The result is [Minipix](https://minipix.romellogoodman.com/), a computational image manipulation tool. Instead of a textbox that can generate anything, the UI is an endless scroll presenting outputs from the system's internal algorithms. At launch there are six of them.

This work reminds me of a passage in *[To See Takes Time](https://store.moma.org/products/georgia-okeeffe-to-see-takes-time-hardcover)*, where the author is describing a series of O'Keeffe's drawings and notes that she was interested in documenting the same subject as a way to capture it from all angles and perspectives. That's what I hope to accomplish with this tool: create variability and emergence through the act of rearranging the pixels of the same photo.

Here are some sample outputs using *[Anselm Feuerbach's Peonies](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anselm_Feuerbach_-_Peonies_-_WGA07873.jpg)*:

![Sample output 1](https://imagedelivery.net/BtaYDmQqPcGi8C3w4F2NuA/13d5479e-4daf-431e-25bc-3564e619ea00/public)

![Sample output 2](https://imagedelivery.net/BtaYDmQqPcGi8C3w4F2NuA/07482821-b6ff-44ea-5b02-0eb22fb82c00/public)

![Sample output 3](https://imagedelivery.net/BtaYDmQqPcGi8C3w4F2NuA/64bc1b2c-2082-49c9-1e08-35d8876cfe00/public)

![Sample output 4](https://imagedelivery.net/BtaYDmQqPcGi8C3w4F2NuA/23ac84bc-d32e-453c-04ef-438d6fa69300/public)

![Sample output 5](https://imagedelivery.net/BtaYDmQqPcGi8C3w4F2NuA/cd491ed2-b19c-4152-7a3b-93032c4fb300/public)

![Sample output 6](https://imagedelivery.net/BtaYDmQqPcGi8C3w4F2NuA/7a673576-2771-4e32-1650-aea806f5b300/public)

—Mello

P.S. - The tool is named after my lil black cat Mini.