CODE & FORM is a blog supporting the coding and teaching activities of Marius Watz. It contains documentation of workshops, as well as code for various projects. Email tips about relevant links or pieces of code to marius-at-unlekker-net.
Old workshop materials are still online, and can be found here.
I just got an email from Casey saying that processinghacks.com has finally officially been integrated into the main Processing web site. The new URL is http://processing.org/hacks/. Processinghacks was a great initiative by Toxi and Tom Carden, but has ended up in an inactive limbo over the years. Wikis are perfect for letting users contribute their own content, but they also requires a dedicated community to work properly. Sadly, that never quite happened.
Hopefully, the integration into processing.org will provide a little extra motivation for would-be contributors to step up to the plate. There are already links to empty pages indicating topics that should be filled, giving some useful starting points. I know there are some things in unlekkerLib that would fit, but I’ll have to see when I have the time to write them up.
In any case, congratulations to the Processing team for adding a new feature, and thanks to Toxi and Tom Carden for having the Processing hacks idea in the first place…
Ira Greenberg’s "Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art" (published by Friends of Ed) was the first Processing book to hit the shelves this fall. I haven’t had a chance to look at it in Person, but from the sample chapters provided it looks very useful.
“Appendix C: Integrating Processing within Java” should be of interest to anyone looking to better understand how Processing and Java work together. It breaks down the basics of how pure Java syntax differs from Processing, and shows how you can make the switch quite easily. It wraps up with a useful example of how to write a Swing GUI application with a Processing sketch as a GUI Component.
The two other sample chapters deal respectively with 3D rendering (including a quick introduction to vector math) and drawing more complex shapes. You can download all of them from the Friends of Ed site, where you can also buy the book in hardcopy or ebook form.
Jana Frank has posted a really great video on YouTube of the final presentation of the Merz Akademie Pathwaywoche workshop. Thank you, Jana! The projects included print output from generative systems, sound-reactive visuals and particle systems. See my Flickr set for more pictures of the presentation.
I just found this gem while looking at my YouTube subscriptions: Karsten Schmidt (aka Toxi) and Matt Wade from Moving Brands were interviewed for the launch of the Japanese book "Built with Processing". They speak a little about their general approach and then about a few specific projects.
The presentation of the KEF Muon project is perhaps the most compelling of the three included. But for long-time Processing heads the bonus of seeing the mythical Toxi in the flesh should be enough to warrant a few minutes of your time.
The opening paragraph strangely proclaims that “Marius Watz is always afraid.” (Marius Watz hat ständig Angst.) That seems to be a slighthly overenthusiastic interpretation of a comment I made about the importance of backup and having access to data while travelling. It also states that I’ve exhibited in Los Angeles, which I haven’t.
The rest of the article seems ok, if a tad superficial. In particular, I think the issue of whether or not generative art can be sold is a bit more resolved than it comes across in the article. The answer is yes, of course it can. The main challenges here are reaching collectors and museums, as well as to make sure the work is collected in a form that can be maintained for posterity.
See the following two articles at Artinfo for some pointers on the subject of selling and collecting media art:
I just bought a new toy for live performance: The Doepfer Drehbank MIDI controller. Sporting 64 rotary knobs, it should satisfy all my needs for live control of obscure parameters. In fact, I doubt I’ll ever come up with that many parameters, but having the option is nice.
Compared to the FaderFox LV-1 which I’ve been using so far, the tradeoff is control vs. portability. The Drehbank is fairly hefty, weighing at least 2 kg and measuring maybe 40 x 12 x 6 cm. If I already had a lot of performance gear that would probably be too much, but since I mostly only use one laptop and a controller it’s not too bad.
Plugging the controller into Processing was painless. The knobs are solid, with good resistance so that you can get a smooth turning motion. There’s even just enough room between the dials to allow a small white space for labelling. My only concern is about the power plug, which sticks out a bit far and would seem prone to coming unplugged if the unit is moved. But seeing as the unit is so heavy I won’t be moving it much anyway.
The Drehbank is going out of production, and Doepfer is selling off its remaining stock at the relatively low price of €299. Their site say that it’s sold out, but when I sent them an email to check they still had some left. There is also the smaller Pocket Control with 16 dials.
Remember Philip Galanter’s definition of generative art:
Generative art refers to any art practice where the artist uses a system, such as a set of natural language rules, a computer program, a machine, or other procedural invention, which is set into motion with some degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a completed work of art. "What is Generative Art? Complexity Theory as a Context for Art Theory"
I’ve promised to post this to a few people over the last few months, but somehow never got around to it. But here it is: My blogroll.
I use Google Reader to follow about 80 feeds, which seems managable except for during very busy periods. The blogs I read cover design, art and architecture, as well as some technical subjects. Not surprisingly, the focus is towards computational work, but I also follow some more general interest design and art blogs.
This list was generated by exporting my feed subscriptions as an OPML file, then writing a quick Processing hack to output it as HTML. For those who want the actual OPML file for easy importing, here it is: mariuswatz_bloglist_070213.opml.
