Player 1 uses a drawing tablet. Their responsibilities are; controlling the act of painting and the direction/ speed of the brush.

Player 2 uses the M-Audio Trigger Finger. Their responsibilities are; Controlling the color, alpha & brush size using the sliders and knobs of the Trigger Finger.

The basic GUI displays the color selected on the bottom left. As Player 1 clicks the mouse or presses the pen to the tablet, the drawing is initiated. Drawing ceases when the mouse click is released or the pen is lifted from the surface of the tablet. While drawing is occuring, Player 2 may dynamically control the brush settings and color palatte.

The goal is to create a system that lets two artists combine specific parts of their talent to create a unique artwork.

If you consider the elements and principles of Design and Colour;

Player 1 is responsible for only the line and the direction in the elements of design. Player 2 controls the oscillation of shape, size, texture and value.

With the principles of design it is not so cut and dry. Balance in a design is created from a combination of line, color and shape. Player 2 contributes most to the balance through the color and shape but there is significant influence by Player 1. Gradation is a result of a color oscillation and is created by Player 2. Interestingly enough, Player 1 could create themes of gradation by careful placement of the brush. The creation of repetition in a work can be done by either player. Player 1 may create repetition through placement of the brush while Player 2 can create it through careful selections of color and line style. Contrast is created through the juxtaposition of opposing elements. With this system, there are infinite ways that contrast can be created when two people are affecting the same work. If the two players communicate a strategy for creating the work then pleasing contrast may be easily achieved. If the two players work against each other, it could quickly create chaotic, un-appealing contrast. Harmony, Dominance and Unity are much like Contrast in that they can be difficult to get right without communication between players.

It will be interesting to explore how this type of interactive art can be used by different people. I plan to connect this to Twitter for the art show!

When everything is said & done (& re-factored!) I will post the source code for anyone with a M-Audio Trigger Finger who wants to try it out.

Big thanks to Ruin & Wesen for their Java/Processing Midi Classes. Read about their amazing work at http://ruinwesen.com/blog?id=95

The HTML is laid out in a simple list. The opening ul and then 44 li tags with nothing inside. This structure is styled with CSS and then each of the 44 rectangles sit nicely in a 4×11 grid.

With jQuery it is easy to get the index of a clicked element, what I really need is that element’s position in the grid. Specifically the row and column that it is in.

I spent some time thinking about the best possible solution and after trying to normalize the numbers, I remembered that I could use remainders!

Here is the code I used, it works like a charm. If you have a different size grid, replace the proper number and you are all set.

I managed to script together a working model last night but I was having trouble displaying it in my portfolio website. For some reason I could not get the images to load. As it turns out, because the images are all being pulled from external sources the security restrictions of the Flash player silently block my request.

There are workarounds but none will be as elegant as the way that the program operates when run from the Flash IDE. I may re-write it in JavaScript or I may try the PHP workaround. Either way, here is more information on the restrictions and workarounds…. http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/165/tn_16520.html

At any rate, Google Wave is amazing and I will write more about it later.

This table is so large that twenty people could easily gather around it. I envision a creative agency that has one of these for a conference table. The collaborative potential is so great!

developed by wirmachenbunt & Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts
commissioned by the Future Ocean Cluster – Kiel Germany

We are discussing a custom content management system that will be written in PHP and I wanted to find out a little more about his requirements. The conversation progressed very naturally using wave. Even though it feels like an instant message conversation when both parties use the system traditionally, the magic comes in when you explore the “Wiki” like nature of the conversation thread. We talked about Wave at first and then we started talking about the project. At one point we went back in the conversation and took one of the “wavelets” on a tangent. After our conversation was over, I was able to use the playback feature of Wave to watch our conversation evolve, step by step. This is an interesting way of communication but I see tremendous value.

When we speak, we are creating data. Natural conversation is linear and although the focus may be on one topic, it is hard to organize information that is laid out in a straight line. Using Wave turns the conversation into a circle. Information comes from the center and it never has very far to go to end up in an area with related information. When you consider the ability to do real-time collaboration, I could imagine a team of people having a discussion on Wave while another team works silently with the information, organizing and formatting. At the end of the session, the team would have a comprehensive set of visually appealing documents.

While I do not necessarily see Wave as the replacement for email, I am beyond excited to see what the Wave team does with it. I am even more excited to dig into the Wave API! Way to go Google, you all are champions of innovation.

Another interesting aspect of MXML is that it is forcing me to carefully consider my public methods when designing objects. All of the interactive controls exist on the application MXML file, the event handlers are responsible for calling methods that are buried deep inside the main program code. I need to spend some more time learning about the Model View Controller design pattern because it seems that MXML encourages this.

I am excited about using MXML as a front end for my generative art projects. It will save me tremendous amounts of time by reducing the need to design and code control components. I believe that it will also help me get my projects off the ground in less time, leaving more time free for new experiments! I have been reading debate about MXML and it’s usefulness and I agree with some of the dissenting opinion. MXML is great for rapid application development but in some situations, it does encourage sloppy coding. Someday in the near future, I plan to design and code my own set of components in favor of pure AS3 applications and programs.

The first cube tree sits on the desk in front of me as it’s new, massive big brother towers over it. Both trees have similar construction; each trunk block is a cube and there are defined ratio’s for the construction of the branch and topper blocks. The difference in construction of the new tree is that the “in-between” segments which send the blocks in different directions are all of equal dimension.

When I finished constructing the trunk shape, I fixed the topper element to the end. After fixing the branch elements on the tree I noticed that it was very unstable. I had not walked away from it for more than ten minutes before I heard a crash and turned to see the tree in pieces. I pondered the weight distribution for a day or so before deciding to rebuild the tree last night. When I awoke this morning the tree was still intact and it has even survived a trip to the window for some photography. I believe that I solved the stability issue with a stronger base and by internally reinforcing some of the trunk segments that I observed to flex in an unwanted direction.

This tree is nothing more than an interesting object but it has helped me tremendously in a programming project that I am working on.

The tree is built of symmetrical objects, it’s constructed like this to help me understand a trigonometry concept that has been difficult to master. I am interested in the positioning and movement of objects in 3D space. The simple (x, y, z) coordinate system works well for positioning but there is really no rise/run in 3D Cartesian coordinates. A few months ago I began studying Spherical coordinates in the hopes to understand more delicate positioning with a different type of coordinate system. I came to understand the notation for Spherical coordinates at magnitude for the distance, elevation for the direction pointing up to down and azimuth for the direction left to right for 360 degrees around. Spherical coordinates can be thought of as specifying a direction and then a distance to travel in that direction.

What is interesting to me about Spherical coordinates is that once you travel in one direction, it becomes very easy to translate your position to the left, right, top, bottom, backward and forwards… it is something that becomes invaluable when running around in a giant 3D arena. I am using Spherical coordinates in a Flash as3 project that will grow a tree much like the physical one I have constructed. I have built math around the size and spacing of the physical blocks to create a digital representation of my creation. By randomizing the side that the segments appear on, I am able to explore an infinite number of cube tree constructions.

Here is a look at the physical cube tree sculpture, I have yet to measure it but it towers over my 5′11″ body so I can only assume it is over six feet. My cat doesn’t know what to do with it.

I have been toiling away on a as3 generative art project that combines augmented reality, wiiflash control, papervision3d and beautiful organic tree structures for the last two weeks. It has consumed much of my attention, causing me to skip class and almost miss deadlines. It is the kind of project that is ripe with discovery and wonder. Since I appreciate math, but ended my studies with Math G: Math for Liberal Arts Students, I have no advanced knowledge of the trigonometry that was required to make this work. Yet, I continued to pursue a solution; pouring over math books and google searches, trying numerous formula’s until one seemed to fit and then refining that loose fit into a properly functioning algorithm. This would have been short work for a Trig student but it would have come with only a fraction of the satisfaction.

Through visual programming I see a way to learn about the world around me. I have never been able to truly learn by just listening, I have to go hands-on if I ever really want to get something. Although I have always enjoyed math class, I became bored around the grade where people started questioning “Are we really going to use this in REAL LIFE?”. The formulas and theory that must be memorized was a huge turn-off for me. With visual programming, and generative art in particular, I can explore the effect of any number of mathematical theories.

This is a very simple test of the CubeTree program.

The idea behind the widget is a novel one that goes against the grain of what most sites aim for. For a business, one would think that the most impact would be made with the visitor spending time exclusively on the site. While this may be true in most cases, the Skittles.com team opted to walk their visitors through a course of user generated content to show how much people love their product. Not only does the widget ensure a constant marketing presence, the wiki pages and social media pages provide a wealth of user generated content and opinions that further reinforce the brand.

Way to go Skittles.com, you have developed an innovative way to tap into user generated content from all platforms.