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."

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. 

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.  

I've been toying with the idea of putting together a small team of AS developers here in Vancouver for some time now. I have a lot of great work on the go for a lot of excellent clients, and demand for high-end Flash development is building by the day out here on the Wet Coast.

With that in mind, I am looking to put together a team of Flash people in Vancouver to help tackle some projects that I have on the go, and to work on new things in the future. You should have a good knowledge of AS2, and at least a working knowledge of AS3. Back-end skills would also be an asset (insert joke here), and good design skills are a must. 

If you think you'd fit the bill, please get in touch (sitename at sitename dot com).

Variance was born out of a year-long exploration into genetic algorithms and evolutionary computing, and their possible applications within the creative process. 

It can be argued that the traditional design process is not too far removed from the classical evolutionary process. Individuals (our designs) are introduced into a competitive environment (our brains, or perhaps, our clients' brains). The ones that survive are deemed to be the best. This fits nicely into the low level 'survival of the fittest' model of evolution but it doesn't consider some of the other key elements - namely mutation and hybridization.

Variance is an attempt to provide a creative tool for designers that can leverage some of the power of evolution. Using Variance, designers can harness genetic algorithms to brainstorm or refine compositional ideas. The classical design process becomes the Evolutionary Design Process.

I would consider this version of Variance to be pre-alpha - it is more of a proof of concept than it is a working application. Still, it show some promise. Here, I'll use the application to design a logo for Variance itself.

The first step is to select colours, compositional elements, and typefaces. We do this from the 'controls' panel:

The folks over at Splice music make the bold claim that their flash-based music mixer is 'the world's most advanced online sequencer'. And, while I haven't taken the time to check out every other offering out there, I am pretty sure this claim would hold up in court.

I first saw a preview of this clever tool during Andre Michelle's presentation at FlashBelt, and I've been itching to take it for a spin, ever since. It turns out to be worth the wait. I chose to re-mix a track that was already mixed by a Splice user, so everything was in place and waiting for me. Just like a conventional editor like GarageBand, the Splice mixer lets you add & edit tracks, add effects, and export the finished project to MP3. It is truly amazing that this all happens in Flash! I will admit that the onboard processor monitor on the mixer was redlining on my 2.33GHz Core Duo, but everything was still pretty smooth to use.

Sound mixers are nothing new to Flash - but this one is by far the most fully-featured and potentially the most useful. Splice is a community site, so users are actively mixing and mashing each-other's creations as we speak. Already, the site has 21,018 remixable songs, which is enough to keep even the most avid bit-head busy for a while. Speaking of which, I think I'm going to get back to my latest dance-floor hit... now where did I put that flanger?