Switching Over

Today is the day.

I'm switching this blog over to a new design and a new server, so as of this post this blog has gone stale.

To find the new, mould-free one, go here:

http://blog.blprnt.com

For the new RSS feed, point to here:

http://blog-blprnt-com.bryght.net/node/feed

Don't fear change.

blog.blprnt.com >> Beta version

I am testing out a new version of this blog - with more features and driven by a much more robust system than Blogger.

Please, have a look. If you have any comments, or find anything that isn't working (I'm sure there are tonnes of things!) post a comment here or over there. It would be very much appreciated.

If all goes well, the new site will launch before the end of the week.

Index for X: An Experiment in Mass Collaboration

I was lucky enough to be asked to build a piece for the Winter issue of Born Magazine. The poem, Index for X and the Origin of Fires is a truly beautiful work by Ander Monson.

What I wanted to avoid in this project was forcing the reader into one particular interpretation of the poem. I think the beauty of verse lies in its ability to speak in different ways to different readers.

With that in mind, I built a semi-intelligent engine for this project that interprets the poem by accessing the massive database of images that is Flickr. Images are gathered for each line of the poem, and are displayed semi-randomly, appearing just long enough to register and then fading again into the background. As the viewer progresses through the poem, a collage of images is present in their memory - enough, along with the poem itself to build a unique interpretation of the work.

This 'collective interpretation' changes in two ways: First, because Flickr is constantly being updated and because the engine is stochastic, you will never see the same set of images twice. Second, because Flickr users can tag images with the word 'indexx' to have them appear more often in the project, the generated compositions will (hopefully) become more focused over time.

So, go and check it out.

Yunsil.com

Keeping on my trend of posting about cool sites by bright young women, here's Yunsil.com. There is a pile of great projects in here, including some really nice explorations into tangible computing.

Of particular interest is the techniue used in Tadpole and DrawDisk, in which the computer's printer cable is rigged to control first a set of LED lights, then a small robot used to draw physical compositions. Great idea.

Sensescape

sensescape is a nice little collection of digital art done in Processing and Flash. Not surprisingly, I really liked her work with L-Systems, which are rendered beautifully. The sketches also make excellent use of sound - recordings of the Tagalog Alphabet are combined generatively as the L-systems grow.

Geraldine Sarmiento is a student at ITP NYU, which seems to have a lot of very interesting courses in their schedule. I am particularly upset that I never had the opportunity to take a course like Nature of Code, which looks fairly comprehensive (the course site has some great reviews of fun things like particle systems, autonomous agents and genetic algorithms).

It's good to see students producing such interesting and creative work. Kudos!

blprnt in Budapest

My tree.growth project has been accepted into the Process Revealed exhibition, part of the EvoMUSART workshop in April, in Budapest. From the website:

EvoMUSART 2006 is the fourth workshop of the EvoNet working group on Evolutionary Music and Art. Following the success of previous events and the growth of interest in the field, the main goal of EvoMUSART 2006 is to bring together researchers who are using biological inspired techniques for artistic tasks, providing the opportunity to promote, present and discuss ongoing work in the area.

I am honoured to be a part of this exhibition - and excited about a trip to Hungary! If anyone has any good travel advice or must-sees in Budapest, I'd love to hear it.

Retrievr

retreivr lets you query Flickr's image database by drawing a rudimentary sketch of what you're looking for. I had good luck drawing simple things like an apple, but when I tried to draw my dream girl it kept on giving me a giraffe. Maybe that's saying something.

I have my own Flickr-powered project launching next week. It's super-secret so I can't link to it yet but I think it turned out pretty well. It doesn't involve and fast multiresolution color searching but it works nonetheless. Stay tuned.

flower.trees

Two more desktop images for you:

Flowering trees... I think I'm pining for spring.
1024x768
1280x854

Protobytes

If you're in the mood for some pretty algorithmic pictures, check out Ira Greenberg's Protobytes. From the site:

Prototypes are algortihmically generated (iterative) virtual forms, based on nested mathematical expressions and programmatic drawing methods.

The results are really pretty, and would definitely stand up as large-scale prints.

While you're over at Ira's place, check out the rest of the site, too. There are a lot of interesting projects kicking about. Nice work.