Workshop at Mary Schiller Myers School of Art, U of Akron
I’m teaching a workshop at the University of Akron as part of my residency at the Myers School of Art, which the ElectroPlastiques exhibition is a part of.
Code from the workshop will be online here:
workshop.evolutionzone.com/workshops/080324_uakron.
I have a new exhibition coming up in Akron, Ohio as part of an artist in residence stay at the Myers School of Art. Titled "ElectroPlastiques", it is my first ever solo show. Interesting that it would take a show in the US for that to happen, although not really so surprising given that the European media art scene is geared towards festivals. The exceptions are the few European media artists who have found gallery representation, a process that seems to be going even slower in Europe than in the US.
I’m using this show to highlight some of the existing topics of my work with realtime animation, as well as a new direction dealing with physical output. I will screen a series of my generative animations, such as Neon Organic, ElectroPlastique #1 & #2 and Illuminations A. These pieces explore the plastic qualities of parametric software processes, where a single set of rules gives rise to an infinite sequence of possible configurations. The title of the show is intended to refer to the plasticity of digital media.
As a counter-point, I will be showing manifestations of my work in physical formats, where animation gives way to other qualities. My rapid prototyping pieces Object #1 - #3 and new work like the Grid distortion laser cuts explore the tactile possibilities of digital fabrication, while prints like the Packing series go beyond the limited resolution of the screen to explore issues of graphic detail.
As you might have noticed I’ve replaced the code formatting plugin that I use on the blog. I had trouble with the Geshi-based plugin I used before, so I replaced it with Alex Gorbatchev’s SyntaxHighlighter. This produces lovely formatting and works well - mostly.
SyntaxHighlighter hiccups when encountering the < character unless there is a blank space directly following it, most likely due to it being interpreted as the start of a HTML tag. Also, the "copy to clipboard function produces incorrect code because the text copied has < and > characters converted into the HTML entities < and >. However, I’m not sure if this is a problem with SyntaxHighlighter or with WordPress, since WordPress sometimes messes with formatting by automagically trying to provide good HTML substitutes for certain character combinations.
Most frustrating of all, WordPress has started replacing the ’s in “it’s” with a triple ellipsis character, as well as some other strangeness. Any tips for fool-proof plugins for posting properly formatted code would be most appreciated!
Code from the workshop will be online here: workshops/080310_khio. Check out Kuler for RGB color goodness.
Inspiration for media architecture:
We’re making good progress at the HyperWerk digital fabrication workshop, see the new Fabbing @ HyperWerk Flickr group for details.
Digital fabrication tools like CNC milling and laser cutting impose their own restrictions on production, such as what materials can used and what size objects can be processed. Additionally, in order to produce a 3D form using a 2D technique like laser cutting, some way must be found for translating 3D into 2D and back again.
Possible fabrication strategies
For a more complete list of strategies, look at this page from Ball State University. The PDF they link to contains a ton of great examples.
I’m at HyperWerk in Basel, Switzerland teaching a workshop in parametric design for the next two weeks. Files will be uploaded to the following address:
http://workshop.evolutionzone.com/workshops/080218_hyperwerk/
Task for the day:
MIT IAP RhinoScript workshop - Danzer Variations
While looking for RhinoScript resources for the Digital Architecture workshop at AHO I found a recent posting of the final projects from a RhinoScript workshop at MIT IAP. It features some very nice-looking work, including the Danzer tile forms shown above. It also provides the source code for most of the experiments, well worth checking out.
The resource page for a previous MIT workshop is still up, it has more scripts and some useful links: Computational Design Solutions Part 1.
I am teaching a 3-day workshop in Digital Architecture at the Oslo School of Architecture & Design (AHO) this week, as part of a course by Søren Sørensen. The workshop will give an introduction to Processing, with a focus on synthesis of spatial form. If time permits we’ll also look briefly at Rhinoscript.
Be sure to look at the page I have prepared with links related to computational architecture. Code will be uploaded to:
http://workshop.evolutionzone.com/workshops/080211_aho.
