Software over the rainbow

An openFrameworks workgroup has started this week at Hangar. Every thursday until March, the wise Arturo will be there helping you with any doubt that you have. From 19 to 21 pm. +info

The equally talented Chris Sugrue will be doing the same in Madrid’s Medialab. Every friday from 19 to 21pm. +info

Last, and this has been going on for some months now, the incombustible Alba Corral has created an increasingly active spanish speaking processing community, with forum, wiki and more cool projects on the way.

Edit: I almost forget that there is also an introductory workshop to computer sound synthesis taught (with chuck) by Eduard Aylon. In a couple of weeks also in hangar.

Being an actionscript head, I’ve frequently used rober penner’s easing equations in processing*. To avoid copy/paste each time I’ve packed them as a processing library.

While I was at it, I discovered a couple of implementations (1, 2), but I was almost done, and wanted to learn how to make processing libraries anyway.

So in the hope that it is useful to somebody, here it is:
http://jesusgollonet.com/processing/pennerEasing/

*I’m also using them in openFrameworks, so I’ve begun porting them to c++ too. They’ll be here when I’m done.

So this morning I found that someone had already done an idea which I had been thinking of for some time (probably since I did the Steve Reich’s Clapping Music version in ChucK):

Source code for “In C” by Terry Riley in ChucK

No problem. With the amount of information we have a few clicks away, it’s impossible to maintain the naive belief that our ideas are original.

Having a look at the programmer’s website (ah, curiosity) I’ve discovered why the url sounded so familiar: He’s also the man behind whitney music box, a well known series of animations inspired by the work of john whitney, as described in his book Digital Harmony: On the Complementarity of Music and Visual Art. The post explaining the work is worth a look.

(on a deeper look, I’ve found more gems, such as the article Processing as a first language, as compared to flash, his processing gallery or the JSyd Java Synth)

Anyway, what I find particularly interesting is the exercise of trying to emulate in code art works which weren’t originally conceived for that. We know the construction rules (the score and/or the composer’s instructions) and the final result (the recording), so I see them as ideal programming practice problems.

Because of its main focus on processes rather than final products, I’d say that some art of the 60’s and 70’s is specially suitable for this task. We’ve talked about minimal composers (reich, glass, riley), but I’m also thinking of process art (see Casey Reas implementations of instructions by Sol Lewitt) or even John Cage (whom most famous work has been also versioned by Jim Bumgardner in justone line of chuck code: (4*60+33)::second => now) .

A couple of other examples:

• Piano phase after Steve Reich with source code in JMusic (Java)
• PD Repertory Project: Some live electronic music repertoire pieces in Pure Data (including works by Pierre Boulez, Steve Reich, Stockhausen and others)
• (Update) The Riley-o-matic by Daniel Iglesia, more In C (implemented in, well, C)

Do you know of more examples? Let me know in the comments.

After the recent workshop by joan soler-adillon in hangar, we’ve known of two more forthcoming workshops:

• on October the 16th, 19th, 23th, 26th, 30th and November the 2nd, gerald kogler will teach one at the centro cívico Golferichs of barcelona. + info
• on October the 24th, 25th and 26th, federico joselevich will give another one in Granollers, at La Fàbrica de les Arts. + info

So yesterday I gave a talk about my experience with processing at the begining processing workshop which is being held at Hangar by Joan Soler.

First part was about my reasons for learning-using-loving processing and how I’ve managed to use it in a commercial context. Then I went into a tutorial explaining the ascii video sketch. Finally i improvised an explanation of a del.icio.us information visualization project I had done at a previous workshop, which i think turned to be the most interesting thing for the audience.

It was my first experience as a speaker and although i don’t think it went too bad, the ascii tutorial didn’t work as I expected. Going too deep into code details doesn’t seem to be approppriate for a one hour session. Lesson learned.

Anyway, here are the slides (in spanish only) and the source files for the ascii tutorial.

Thanks very much to Joan for inviting me and to all the assistants for not leaving the room.

That is, some of my friends growing up tend to draw, you know
whenever. Start a sketch, doodle in class, pick up something,
refine it, etc. Anyway, these folks end up getting really good,
less out of diligent patience than iterated and distracted
practice. […]

For a process to be sketchy, or like sketching, it should:
- be immediate, quick to engage or start up in
- be incremental, easy to save and resume working on

Maravillosa definición de lo que es un software sketchbook. Lo dice graham coleman acerca de chuck. 100% aplicable a processing.

Gerald Kogler ha traducido el clásico Processing Tutorial for Macromedia Minds de Josh Nimoy al castellano. Tal y como su nombre indica, si vienes de entornos como flash o director es de lo mejorcito para hacerte con la herramienta. Igualmente, dado que es un tutorial de iniciación, es una buena lectura para los que quieran dar el salto:

Tutorial de Processing para Mentes Macromedia.