Category Archives: info

Might be seeing some more action here…

Yeah, it’s been a while. 2009 was the year of iPhone apps. Objective-C is a fun language, but so different than anything else that it takes a lot of concentration to get through the learning curve. I had a lot of fun with it, but by the end of last year I became kind of burnt out on the whole thing. For the last month or two, I haven’t really been doing much coding outside of work at all. A much needed break.

But in the last few weeks I’ve been feeling the itch to create something with code. In the Resources section of this site, I’ve listed a few different tools that one can use for creating art with code. While I’ve downloaded and kicked the tires of most of them, I hadn’t really done anything serious with any of them. I decided this would be a good time to dig into some of these tools and languages a bit deeper.

So, for the next few weeks or months, you will hopefully see some new, non-Flash stuff up here. I’ve been playing with Context Free Art quite a bit, so the first series of images will come from that. I’ve also been experimenting with Structure Synth, which has a very similar paradigm, so look for some images from that as well. And more tools/languages to come.

If you are really stalking me, then you’ll know that I will be speaking at FiTC in Toronto this April. My presentation is called Programming Art, and I hope to touch on a number of these tools, showing how to get them, the concept behind them, and a whirlwind tutorial on each one. This forces me into actually learning each one myself, so gives plenty of opportunities to create interesting images, many of which will wind up here.

Some code behind the art

As you may have noticed, I don’t post a lot of code here. But, a few days ago I spoke at FiTC in Amsterdam, on the subject of Art from Code. I showed a bit of the code that created a lot of the images here and have shared it on my other site, bit-101.com. If you are interested, you can get the slides from the presentation as well as all the code, here.

That's all for 2008

I’m taking a break for the rest of the year. All 13 days of it. Taking some time off work. Going to finish up a game I’m coding and otherwise just chill out. Happy holidays if  you celebrate any, and see you in January!

Kind Words

Been getting lots of links from all over. So thanks.

This one kind of impressed me. From creativecontact.com:

The type of work Peters is involved in follows in a deep tradition dating back to some of the earliest avant-gardes. Tristan Tzara, and later William Burroughs, with their literary cut-up techniques. Sol LeWitt with his wall drawings and modular sculptures. John Cage with his experimental compositions, and following in his footsteps, Brian Eno.

Just being mentioned in the same paragraph as those other people is kind of nice. 🙂

Short Break

I’m going to take a quick break from posting images here. If you haven’t guessed already, I don’t actually create images every day. I generally create several in the course of a heads-down coding session and schedule them to be published over the next few days. I’ve managed to keep about a week’s buffer in queue, so if I missed a day or two I could catch up later.

But being in England for a week pretty much emptied that buffer. So I’ve been scrambling for the last week or so. And now I have 1.5 chapters on my next book that are way overdue. So I’m heads-down writing that for the next couple weeks. Then hopefully I’ll fill up the buffer again and go from there. Lots of good ideas in the head, just no time to execute them.

Prints

I plan to start doing prints of some of the images here and offering them for sale. This involves making higher resolution versions. With Flash 10 I am able to do over 4000×4000 pixel bitmaps natively, and a lot bigger if I start tiling, not to mention save them natively. I’ve got some test prints going now and should have them in hand in the next day or two. At 300 dpi, 4000 pixels should be good for 13-14 inches. I’m pushing it up to 24 inches – still over 150 dpi, which is what people say is minimum for print. If that looks like crap, I’ll have to tile.

In the mean time, I’d like to guage the interest in this, which images people might be interested in having prints of, and what size would be desirable.

Computers and the Imagination

Get this book:

Computers and the Imagination: Visual Adventures Beyond the Edge

by Clifford Pickover

It’s a tough book to describe. All kinds of math, physics, fractal, science, computer related stuff in there. Pretty stream of consciousness. Some sample BASIC programs for some of the images. Discussions of off the wall topics. Some chapters consist of a single page presenting an odd idea. Others get into really complex formulas. But flip through it and you’re sure to have something click in your head. Several of the pieces here are based on, or inspired by stuff from this book. And a lot more in store.

I’ve renewed my library’s copy twice now, but just sprung for the 98 cent used copy on Amazon! I’m really not that cheap. I just ran across it in the library and haven’t been able to put it down. Went to Amazon and all they had were used copies. I could choose between “good condition” one being offered for $101.87, or the “very good condition” one for $0.98. 🙂

One month later…

Wow, I have to say I am really enjoying this site! I just realized it’s been up over a month. It’s a challenge to keep coming up with stuff, but not a very hard one. I generally create a few things in a flurry of activity and use the scheduled publish feature to push them out. So I always have at least a few days (up to a week or more) of buffer.

It’s a bit like the old lab at BIT-101, but with some different challenges, and some more freedom. I might eventually start putting some animated or even interactive stuff up here, but right now I’m really enjoying capturing static slices of a piece and freezing them in time.

And, in regards to the code behind the art, I did start putting together a library of some of the common routines and classes I’ve been using. I should probably clean it up a bit and maybe even document it, but eventually I’ll release that. Some pretty cool stuff in there, if I do say so myself. 🙂