/repeating history [A3] 10%
digital studio spring 2018
choose artwork by friday mar 09
due friday march 23
Find an early example of New Media Art, or Computer Art, -- something that uses instruction and variation to create an aesthetic form (in new media art, we understand the aesthetic to potentially include social engagement, interaction, play). Reverse engineer the work in Processing. Look at 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, The Information Show, Nam June Paik, Mark Tribe, early net.art, oli lialina, in anthologies of new media art, and old Ars Electronica archives. For early 20th-c computer artists, look at Ben Laposky, Lillian Schwartz, Frieder Nake, Michael Noll.... If the artwork is formal and visual, it should replicate the visual elements of the work as well as the mathematical and logical operations, and also be dynamic -- elements must move in some kind of dynamic composition, even if the original did not. If the work is more conceptual in nature, or has elements that exist beyond the screen, you have more leeway with how this piece is implemented (but it must be done in Processing).
- The artwork should have been made before 2003.
- Go to the library! look deeply online! Do some research!
- Tell professor (me) what piece you are doing by Friday Mar 09, preferrably via DM in Slack
- For this assignment, I want you to use comments to organize your code, identify problem areas, tell other code readers what your code is doing
This project will be posted to the course openprocessing site: https://www.openprocessing.org/class/57337/ (password is E4B280) Add to the "A3 Repeating History collection." Title the work A3_lastname_firstname. When you navigate to My Sketches > Create a Sketch, select the processing.js option in the right column. You will need to paste your code into the site. Leave enough time to deal with any technical glitches that need to be worked out. Please also post the zip file to the #general channel of Slack.
full openprocessing demo here
This assignment will be graded on
1) choosing a compelling work that engages the technical, conceptual and formal elements of the class (1pts), 2) creative approach and conceptual process (3pts), 3) perceptual / aesthetic engagement - interactivity, conditions/chance/parameters, and visual enagement (3pts), 4) your ability to pioneer the code (develop techniques and processes that push your skills and understanding of code at whatever level you are at), and follow instructions of assignent (3pts).
Some Suggested Resources for New Media Art Works prior to 2003:
- 9 Evenings Theater and Engineering (documentation here also look here
- The Information Show
- Rhizome's net.art anthology
- Look at Information Arts, by Stephen Wilson (in library, and in Digital Studio)
- Look at Form and Code, by Casey Reas (in library, and in Digital Studio)
- The Processing Handbook by Casey Reas and Ben Fry has artist profiles throughout it (in library, and in Digital Studio)
Some Suggested Resources for Early 20th-c Computer Artworks:
- look at Peripheral Vision: Bell Labs, the S-C 4020, and the origins of computer art by Zabet Patterson (in the library, in my office)
- Manuel Barbadillo
- Ben Laposky,
- Lillian Schwartz,
- Frieder Nake,
- Michael Noll