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.

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.

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 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.

I don't think there's a word in the English language to aptly describe how good Flashbelt 2007 was. 'Superfuntasticawespirational' comes close, but I'm not sure that it has been accepted into the Oxford dictionary yet. So, I suppose we'll have to rely on old stand-byes like 'fantastic' and 'exceptional'. 

On Monday, Craig Swann started things off with a perfect mix of inspiration and technology, reminding us of the value of imagination and generally making everyone feel like they could do anything. After lunch, Wes Grubbs spoke about data visualization, with an emphasis on how meaning can be extracted from data. It was nice to see this topic covered from both a technical and philosophical stand-point. Following Wes, some fool blathered on about colours and pixels and economies, which gave the audience a chance to nap before Josh Davis. Josh reviewed a lot of the work from his impressive career, showing some old work mixed with new. Usefully, he directed us to workshop.joshuadavis.com, where he's open-sourcing all of his projects from the last decade or so. Kudos to Josh for taking on this task.

Because my underwear needed to dry, I missed Tuesday morning's sessions, but I made it to the venue on time to see Seb Lee-Delisle's presentation on particles. Seb's friendly nature comes across perfectly in his presentations, and helps his audience easily learn some fairly complex concepts. By the end of it, a lot of the people with laptops around me had their own particle systems working - not bad for 50 minutes! After Seb, Mario Klingemann took the stage and showed us where he's heading with his absolutely incredible Blind Sketchmaker project. Imagine a project that combines image recognition, learning systems, compositional generation and evolutionary computing - all in Flash!! I don't have enough space to describe this in enough detail in this post, so I'll be dedicating a whole post to Mario and his painting machine over the next couple of days.

Flashbelt is right around the corner! It's happening June 18th-20th in Minneapolis, MN, and now would be a good time to get yourself registered. Flashbelt is my favourite conference. With great speakers (Jared Tarbell, Mario Klingemann, Josh Davis, Julian Dolce, Robert Reinhardt... the list goes on!), a beautiful venue, and an environment that fosters discussion and collaboration, it is truly an inspiring event. Register now for Robert Reinhardt's video workshop - there are only a few seats left.