While we’ll kick off with about two weeks of fundamentals, we will spend the remainder of our time working on these four projects. Concurrent with our development of these works we will explore specific programming concepts useful for implementing them. For each one we’ll look at many examples, including presentations by yourselves on artists that work in these genres.
Project 1: Generative Drawing (Mouse-Based Interaction) [2 weeks]
Using primitive drawing functions such as line(), point(), and rect(), develop a work that makes its own drawings, but that interacts with the viewer through their mouse input. You will be using controlled randomness to provide your drawing system with a degree of choice. At the same time, you will construct a system for mouse input that affects the drawing process. Perhaps that input will be directional, or maybe it will be disruptive? How that interaction works, and why, is up to you. Read more→
Project 2: Software Mirror (Camera-Based Interaction) [4 weeks]
A common tool for facilitating interaction in software-based works is the video camera. These small imaging devices built into most computers can be used for everything from face tracking to motion detection, and Processing makes it easy to access that video. In this work, we’ll use the camera as source data for a software mirror. You will continuously capture the viewer’s own image, processing it into something new that you feed back to them in real-time. Perhaps you could detect all the colors in their image and reorder the pixels based on a new sorting of that data? Another approach would be to convert their image into a drawing made up of primitive shapes. Whatever method you choose, make sure to consider its implications in terms of meaning and aesthetics. What does your mirror say about the viewer who interacts with it? Read more→
Project 3: Data Map (Internet-Based Interaction) [2 weeks]
As you’ll recall from your readings in Interaction I, Lev Manovich talks about “mapping” as an essential component of data art. In this project, you’ll create your own interactive data mapping work. While the visual specifics of that mapping is up to you, at least one of your data sources must come live from the Internet. This will allow users to interact with the work by using or submitting their own data through this conduit. For example, you could connect to a Twitter account that feeds your program tweets from users who mention a specific hashtag. Or you could draw on an RSS feed from a website, scraping the data you need from the XML you receive. Whatever method you choose, it should facilitate viewer interaction in some way. Will that interaction be instant or slow? Will the viewer’s contributions be easy to see in the work? What other data sources (if any) will you use? These are some of the questions you’ll consider. Read more→
Project 4: Portfolio Work [3 weeks]
For this final project you’ll use the skills and techniques you’ve learned in projects 1-3 to implement a new work that will be useful for your portfolio. These works must be interactive and will use at least one method to facilitate that interaction. You can use a method we used previously (mouse, camera, or data), or something else we haven’t tried yet (e.g. sound, keyboard, motion). However, if you want to use a new method, talk to me first so we can determine whether it’s possible in the alotted time. You can use a more direct concept to realization methodology, or a more experimental one. Whichever you choose, the result should be rich enough in content that it supports a sophisticated read. Read more →