ElectroPlastiques: Object #1 / Grid distortion

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.

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Boris Müller / Satoru Sugihara / Eno Henze

The Generator.x 2.0: Beyond the Screen workshop and exhibition kicks off in Berlin this Thursday. In addition to the workshop there will be two evenings of presentations open to the general public, intended to bring the topics of the workshop to a larger audience.

The presentations will take place at the Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, which is also the venue for the workshop. If you’re in Berlin I hope to see you there!

Generator.x 2.0: Presentations #1 - Thu 24 Jan, 19:00 - 21:00

• Keynote: Marius Watz [NO]
• Boris Müller [DE]
• Satoru Sugihara - Morphosis [JP/US]
• Eno Henze [DE]

Generator.x 2.0: Presentations #2 - Mon 28 Jan, 19:00 - 21:00

• Aram Bartholl [DE]
• David Dessens [FR/DE]
• Tim Schork - MESNE [DE/AUS]
• Skylar Tibbits - Theverymany [US]

See the Club Transmediale site for a full list of Generator.x 2.0 events. Documentation of the event will be posted on the Generator.x blog and Flickr group as it becomes available.

Oldskool: Sketches 1994-1998)

I just posted a sequence of old sketches to Flickr, ranging from 1994 to 1998 and showing some of my earliest computational work. Actually, since I never drew or worked visually in any other non-computational way after age 12, it is also some of my earliest visual work of any kind.

While some of the images are deeply mired in the techno aesthetic I was so taken with at that time (after all, I had just turned 20 and these were the 1990’s), others point to the beginning of a generative approach. Some of the basic ideas about form and structure expressed in these pieces are still with me today (see Kugelstudie or Illuminations for proof).

These are some of my favorites:

• Boxgrid
• objsphere
• Particle
• postscript.red.lines
• punch.codes
• grid0-5.deformation

You can still see these pieces on my Evolutionzone web site as part of the historical section, but that design was done in 1996 and is painful to look at now. Seeing the images on their own in the pristine Flickr interface makes me look at them in a different way. It still feels a bit vulnerable to expose them to public viewing like this, but I figure it’s not a bad thing.

The 3D images were rendered in POV-Ray, my first ever visual tool.

Demo of high-res tiled image output: KugelTiled04 res demo

Update: I’ve finally found the time to write a proper class for this tiling technique. Have a look at aTileSaver.pde.

I’ve been able to generate huge raster files for print use from Processing, using the tiling trick first outlined on the Processing forums by user “surelyyoujest”. Using his code as a base, I got it working with OpenGL and proceeded to output some gigantic files. A quick hack using PImage allowed me to stitch the resulting tiles together in one huge image, which was then saved as a Targa file.

See the picture above for a demo. When viewed at its original size, the left half of this image shows the full picture at 10% (original res 10240 x 7680 px). The right half shows the whited-out section of the left image at 100%. The resolution is staggering.

This should clear the way for doing huge prints, without not having to worry about PDFs not showing 3D correctly (see previous post). I will post sample code for tile-based rendering and stitching as a library when I have time.