blprnt's blog

Glocal at the Vancouver Art Gallery

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:01:57 -0700

This photo shows 3 of 4 projections panels in the VAG cupola. Note that the image on the right has not been fully mapped to the panel shape (yet).

I have been working since January on The Glocal Project, a large-scale contributive art project being run out of the Surrey Art Gallery's TechLab. The team as a whole has been developing a series of simple software applications designed to act as creative and pedagogical tools for both individuals and educators.

A couple of weeks back, we had the chance to bring some of our work out of the lab and into the Vancouver Art Gallery, where we presented a large four-screen projection in the Gallery's rotunda cupola.

A grid of images from a single camera feed mapped onto the cupola panels

Technically, this presented a challenge. Not only did we want to have four linked screens in which images could overlap - we also wanted the projections to be 'mapped' to the four curved panels of the cupola. All four panels together would be shown in 'flat' form on four plasma screens. To add to the confusion, we would be running four live camera feeds into the system - three webcams and one wireless DV camera. 4 cameras. 6 computers. 8 screens. As has been the case for much of the Glocal project, we turned to Processing for a solution.

Flashbelt2008 Round-up

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 14:08:37 -0700

Thanks to everyone who attended my session at FB08 - I will get my lecture notes and demo files up here over the next few days.

I am still basking in the warm afterglow of a really outstanding conference. Dave Schroeder and his crew deserves a full basket of kudos for continuing the tradition of awesomeness at this now-famous event.

Since I spoke first thing in the morning on Monday, I managed to watch more presentations than I usually do during these events. Though there were too many to list in full, here are a few selected highlights:

Phil Van Allen's Tuesday morning talk on New Ecology of Things. Phil is a researcher at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. It was great to hear someone speak so succinctly about the issues surrounding tangible computing and pervasive technology.
Julian Dolce's talk on... physical computing! It was good to get an all around review of the available options, and some code demos of integrating tech with Flash.
I think pretty much everyone left André Michelle's talk feeling inadequate. His work with Hobnox is nothing short of awe-inspiring. the man may quite possibly be a machine.
Robert Hodgin's closing keynote. Though I had seen most of that was shown before, it was good to get some insight into Robert's process. Did you know that he owns 10,000 dice, and hates ants? It's true.

One of my only regrets is that I missed Mario Klingemann's presentation on Tuesday morning (did I mention I finished on Monday?). Luckily I'll have a chance to make amends in a few months at Flash on the Beach.

Colour Economy Vimeo Channel

Tue, 27 May 2008 20:21:49 -0700

Rather than continuing to blanket this blog with videos from my current project-in-progress, I've set up a Vimeo channel which those of you who are interested can subscribe to. I'll be posting a lot of videos there as changes are made, to document the process and to gather feedback where I can.

Here's the URL: http://www.vimeo.com/coloureconomy

There are a couple of new videos up there already - please drop by and have a look.

The Colour Economy: The Gap Between the Rich and the Poor

Fri, 16 May 2008 11:39:53 -0700

What if pixels were free? What if they could trade their computer-given red, green, and blue values in pursuit of a profit?

The Colour Economy imagines an artificial economy of pixels, in which individual 'traders' exchange colour. In this pixel performance, the seed image creates a region in the bottom right which is wealthier than the regions surrounding it:

As the economy develops, this wealthy population separates itself physically from the traders with little colour capital.

Here are three video renders of the system unfolding:

The Colour Economy: Can't we all just get along? from blprnt on Vimeo.

The Colour Economy: The Gap Between the Rich and the Poor from blprnt on Vimeo.

The Colour Economy: In the end, we will have more important things to worry about from blprnt on Vimeo.

Market conditions fluctuate in each run of the simulation, so though some general things remain constant with each seed image, the performance happens differently every time.

Jean-Pierre Hébert on Apple.com

Mon, 12 May 2008 22:32:35 -0700

There is a nice little feature on Apple.com about French artist Jean-Pierre Hébert. Hébert is perhaps best known as a member of the Algorists, a group that includes other algorithm-based artists such as Roman Verostko and Manfred Mohr.

Though the article contains the expected amount of Apple propaganda, it also gives some interesting information about Hébert and his practice. Since 2003, Hébert has been artist in residence at the Kavil Institute for Theoretical Physics at UCSB. This provides an unusual opportunity to collaborate directly with scientists, and this influence certainly shows in his work.

According to the article, Hébert is currently working to set up a new conference for people interested in the crossover between art and physics. The conference for Physics, Art, Dance, Music and Education will be something to watch out for (and might be the winner of the Dorkiest Acronym Ever Award).

Flashbelt 2008 is going to break my brain

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 14:14:42 -0700

Flashbelt 2008 is looking to (once again) raise the bar for creative web technology conferences. I've said this again and again over the past five years - if you are going to choose one conference to go over the year, make it Flashbelt. The speakers' list this year is perhaps the best ever - here's a little taste:

Robert Hodgin (Flight404.com)
Jared Tarbell (complexification.net)
Mario Klingemann (quasimondo.com)
Seb Lee-Delisle (sebleedelisle.com)
André Micheller (andre-michelle.com)

And there's more. Check out the conference site for the full list, and to get a taste of what each presenter will be talking about.

The theme of my talk this year is emergence. It's a concept that has been central to my work from the start and over the last year or so I have been thinking a lot about the role that emergence plays in the creative process. Here's my official session description:

"Emergence refers to the way that complex systems and patterns arise out of relatively simple interactions. In this session we'll look into some of the ideas behind emergence, and will explore in detail the role it plays in the creative process. We'll talk about the role that emergence plays in a variety of diverse areas, including AI, economics, and philosophy. Along the way, I'll show a variety of new generative works which tread into emergent territories, and will unravel some of the underlying code that brings these projects to life."

The Music of Life

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:02:33 -0700

Oh, my. Is that ever a cheesy title.

Still, it accurately describes this neat little video from Turkish composer & sound artist batuhan. In it, music is created by John Conway's Game of Life, the classic cellular automata system. The results are surprisingly pleasing, both visually and music-wise. Check it out.

While we're on the subject of music, you may as well check out Robert Hodgin's all-code, all-processing Radiohead video.

Processing Tutorial: Spherical Coordinates

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:34:38 -0700

Tutorial notes: This is a short (well, sort of short) tutorial intended to demonstrate how to use Spherical Coordinates. The example here will be built in Processing, though a similar effect could be achieved in virtually any environment. This is a low-level tutorial - it assumes basic programming knowledge, but doesn't do anything particularly complex. Click here to see what the resulting looks like in action (click!). It looks fairly basic, but I am going to follow this tutorial up with some examples of how we can use this system as a base to do some more interesting things. Enjoy!

Typically when we are working in three dimensions, we use the standard Cartesian coordinate set - x, y, and z. While this is suitable for most cases, it is easier and smarter to use a different set of coordinates when we are rendering spheres, or placing objects in orbits around points in 3d space. In this tutorial, we'll take a look at Spherical coordinates, and we'll walk through an example in Processing to show how it all works.

Spherical coordinates are much easier to use when we are dealing (surprise, surprise) with spheres. This is a similar reason to why we use polar coordinates when we are describing circles or ellipses in two dimensions. Indeed, spherical coordinates can be thought of as polar coordinates with one extra dimension:

Cartesian 2d: x,y
Cartesian 3d: x, y, z
Polar: θ, r
Spherical: θ, ø, r

From the vault: Freeze Tag!

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:00:47 -0700

I am just finishing up a tutorial post on using spherical coordinates. It should be up on the blog sometime over the weekend - I need to go over it with my editor's comb one more time, and insert some links here and there.

While I was uploading the sample files to my server, I stumbled on an old Processing project that I had completely forgotten about. In Freeze Tag, a group of Tagger particles chase a group of targets. When they catch the targets, they freeze them. Targets can be unfrozen by their friends, but they risk becoming frozen themselves in doing so. It's a fairly stable system, for a while, and it's fun to watch.

Check it out here. I would like to revisit this and maybe combine it with some newer projects that I am working on. I'll add it to my list! As always, comments or questions are appreciated.

Ⓕield Update

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:59:03 -0700

A few months ago, I posted about Ⓕield, a development environment for making digital art. At the time, the project was nearing release, and it seems that some time during my vacation the folks at the Open Ended Group have made it available for download.

Check out some of Ⓕield's features here, and then download it and give it a try. I haven't had a free moment to dive into it yet, but I am hoping to be able to do so over the next week or so.

Note that this release is a developer release and is not yet a stand-alone application. Hopefully that will be coming soon!

Best Practice: The Pros on Flash

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 14:52:02 -0700

After a bit of a wait, I received my shiny new copy of Best Practice: The Pros on Flash, a book that I was lucky enough to contribute a chapter to. Each chapter of the book focuses on an artist or designer that uses flash in their practice. Not only do you get an insight into their work, background, and creative methods, you also get a step-by-step tutorial from each contributor.

I am a big fan of a lot of the other artist featured - Jonathan Harris, Carla Diana, and Aaron Koblin have been favourites of mine for a while, and it is truly an honour to be printed alongside them. My chapter features a step-by-step tutorial on creating a generative particle system. Fun stuff!

The book is available at bookstores everywhere, but the easiest way to get it is to click on the link at the top of this post and get Amazon.com to deliver it to your doorstep.

a.viary.com

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:20:15 -0700

Aviary is an interesting idea - a suite of web-based applications for creatives that allows easy for collaboration and sharing. Almost every application you use on your machine at work or at home is represented in bird-form on the site - there's the Photoshop-esque Phoenix, an algorithmic pattern generator in Peacock form, a 3-D modeller named Hummingbird, and many many others. The apps are built with Adobe AIR.

I already use Google Docs extensively, and it will be interesting to see if the Aviary tools can provide me with the same advantages. It looks like the Aviary folks are already testing some of their apps by invitation - head over to their site to find out more.

Facing Change

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:06:40 -0800

I've spent the New Year so far getting ready. I'm getting ready for a vacation, only 6 days away, which will take me to, among other places, Guam, Yap, Fais, Palau, Tokyo, & Nagano. I'll be gone for 5 weeks, so the quiet pace that has been the norm for this blg will continue for a while.

I'm also getting ready for a career shift of sorts. After 7.5 years of freelance Flash & design work, I'm making the shift to an almost full-time art career (I will still be doing some consulting and choice design work on the side). So, the last month or so has been dedicated to tying up loose ends on projects and 'wrapping things up', as it were.

The next year will be a busy one. I have been lucky enough to be commissioned by the Surrey Art Gallery, along with two other artists, to produce a major interactive community art exhibition. I'll post more details once things get going - it's very exciting.

For now, it's back to work!

Generator.x 2.0: Beyond the Screen - Code You Can Touch

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 11:51:48 -0800

The latest Generator.x event focuses on digital fabrication and generative systems. Central to the event will be a workshop, in which a small group of 15 participants will investigate the technology and and techniques involved in bringing digital projects into the physical.

The workshop is free, but space is limited. If you are interested in attending, check out the event page to find out how to submit your application. Generator.X: Beyond the Screen runs from January 24th - February 2nd, in Berlin. Which, as many times as I may check, still remains 8013km away from Vancouver.

Umbrella Storm - Video 1

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 14:01:19 -0800

Umbrella Storm on White from blprnt on Vimeo.

Check out the stills rendered in full res here.