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.

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 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."

I headed out into the rain on Monday night to watch the Vancouver / San Jose game at my local. While the game was a write-off, I the conversation certainly made leaving the house seem worthwhile. I ran into my friend and colleague Simon Levin, who was having a drink with Urbana-Champagne based artist Kevin Hamilton. Just in case the geek-quotient wasn't high enough, we were later joined by technologist and open-source hardware evangelist Danial Jollife. In lieu of a transcript of our heated conversation, here are a few links that resulted.

First, Kevin tipped me off to the work of Marc Downie, which I had somehow managed to remain unaware of. The image above is from Downie's project Enlightenment, in which software attempts to digitally reconstruct Mozart's most difficult musical structure (the coda to the "Jupiter Symphony"). Commissioned by the Lincoln Center, the installation is presented on a set of ten screens, one for each instrument in the electronic orchestra. According to the site, Enlightenment is the highest-resolution live digital artwork ever created (though Schiffman may have something to say about that).

Martin Antolini has some beautiful processing sketches on display over at Flickr - check out his simple but striking work in the seven sets he has posted. 

Mateus Herczka is an artist, performer, and programmer whose installation work has been shown in various venues including the Tate Modern and V2 (Rotterdam). He has also collaborated with choreographers for performance peices with the Royal Swedish Ballet, among others.

Herczka has an interesting body of work. My favourite piece from his site is Life Support Systems - Vanda, in which the electrical signals from orchids are analyzed using language modelling techniques. In the installation, 8 vanda hybrida orchids are monitored by a hacked xBox. Generated signals are visualized on screen and also converted to sound. All of the data from the experiment has been stored, offering a virtual history of the system.

Check out the orchids and Herczka's other work here.

(via visualcomplexity.com)