HOME • SYLLABUS • COURSE RESOURCES • YOUR PAGES • FEEDBACK

 

This week:

 

Thank you all, for a wonderful class!

 

Your feedback is available. When the page loads, select ALL the asterisks (*******), and type in your Z-NUMBER (capital Z followed by your eight digits, no space or dash). Hit the 'return' key. Click and drag on the feedback text to scroll down. You can also drag down to select all your feedback text, if you want to copy and paste it into a text document (which makes it a little easier to read). And please read your feedback ! ! !

 

If your browser doesn't like this, empty your browser cache, refresh, and try again. You need Flash to view this, so , sorry, it will not appear on your iPad!

 

* * * * 

 

If you're interested in participating in the April 14 meme™ performance at Inkub8 in Miami, please let me know via email! (and please come to the showing on Saturday, to re-affirm that, yes, I'd be there if I weren't having my bathtub fixed!)

 

* * * * * 

 

And finally, if you'd like a Flash AS 3.0 preloader, here it is (thanks, Steven!). Obviously, I did not count off for not having a preloader on your project.

 

 

Previously:

 

 

with great suffering comes great art (or at least great memes). Also, reflections on life.

 

For those digital archaeologists among us: follow-up on our discussion of destabilizing texts (60MB)

 

Testing my little book for the iPad—really early stages.

 

Animoog still 99¢!! (until Nov. 18) 

 

Adding sound to your Flash map.

 

Possibly a viral moment? Watch, and we can discuss this.

 

Large form data mosh. Epic!

 

Got an extra $78 just burning a hole in your pocket? Here is an excellent holiday gift suggesttion!

 

Make sure you know how to EXPAND the mindmap template. Actionscript 3.0 will not work if you have, for instance, anything out of place.

 

Can you enfold your entire abstract/premise within the mindmap template? That's what we will investigate this week.

 

Ancient texts: You probably knew that Google was starting to scan in the planet's newspapers, some going back to 1804, right? Wonderful source material for uses of language that have evaporated.

 

And finally, be sure you check out a few late (I guess post-midterm is fairly late) additions to the syllabus!

 

Latest and greatest improvements on the Flash Mindmap template. This one ingests XML, but there are specific things that still need to be fixed. See if you can populate it with your own map and content.

 

If you're interested in digital archaeology (and want to figure out Actionscript 3.0), go here, for one of the better overviews of AS 3.0—how it differs from previous versions of Actionscript, and how it approaches more hard-core languages like Java and C++ (and also Objective C). It's a pretty good article, and the more you've been involved in using these tools, the more sense it will make to you.

 

And to ease us into yet another approach to digital culture/interactivity (and one that hasn't been super-investigated in academe, that is, the Venn diagram between 'digital culture' and 'psychology [specifically, archetypal psychology], which is essentially the barren, lonely vacant parking lot I hang out in, with my work), check out two chapters from the Hillman book  (#2 and #7).

 

And one more post-script to distract you in the audio world: If you like hooking little boxes together (as in Quartz), but want to do that with sound, you want Pd (PureData). Get the Pd app here (it's free, open source, and cross-platform), and work through the massive online tutorial. It's all there. And here are my first little compositions with pd, after only the first two chapters of the tutorial.

 

As we make our MIND-MAPS, be sure to include the PROCESSES you use most (are you thinking? Feeling? Sensate? Rational? Intuitive? etc.). Let's look at some of the great mind-maps, historically. Here's one, from a rather famous book from the 1970's (dated in many ways, but still relevant in others) (My own snapshot, but needs to be updated).

 

Also, if you want a free 30-day trial of stand-alone mind-mapping software, you might try NovaMind.

 

And here's the new and improved 2D-spatial interface in Flash, AS 3.0. Click on the main page buttons to zoom in, click on the button on the top left to zoom out. I'm still working on the XML for loading text dynamically--we should have that working by Wednesday.

 

And also, as we continue this process, how do we DELIVER this information? Flash? HTML5/CSS/JS/XML? iOS/Android? Other? (Answer: it's probably going to be "Curtain Number 2" because that should be viewable on every platform most folks use—but there are always newer platforms that emerge).

 

YAY! GREAT SHOW, EVERYBODY!  (more video to follow) I'd probably like to include a few of your compositions on the meme iTunesU site (more on Wednesday).

 

Generate your own QR codes here. QR codes for my four sites, zipped, here. (which we didn't talk about on Wednesday, but it's just an FYI if you're interested.

 

Terrific interview with Leon Johnson.

 

More Quartz plug-ins: one for glitch aesthetics . And you should check out the Kineme plug-ins if you haven't already.

 

Some amazing vocal gymnastics by Steven McCafferey

 

Still images are wonderful resources in interactive and motion work. Here's a bunch of plates by William Blake, circa 1820's.

 

Putting SOUND into your QC compositions: 

Put your sound in the soundtrack of a background video. Export your movie as a Quicktime .mov file — I'm using photo-JPEG codec, because it's easier on the processors, sound at 44.1K, 16-bit or 8-bit PCM . For the show, I'm putting all my movie files in a folder called 'media' within a larger folder with all my Quartz compositions.

 

Open Quartz. In the Edit window, at the root level of your Quartz composition, drop a Billboard at Level 2 (below your foreground material, but above the 'Clear' layer). Drop your .mov file next to the Billboard and hook it up from 'image' on the movie (right side) to 'Image' on the Billboard patch.

 

Select the movie patch, hit command+2 to pull up the Inspector, and under 'settings', select 'Asynchronous Mode'. Not so hard!

 

If you figure out a way to trigger the videos, you trigger the sound. Also, the videos would not need to use any video material—make them blank, small, zero quality, to use minimal processing.

 

Wednesday we'll work with one of our dancers, and also SAPLING (freeware on the Mac), for some live audio interaction. Here are two FOLDERS (world percussion—70MB, and the amazing waterphone—24MB) you can start experimenting with, included in each is a 'recipe' visual in Sapling to start your experimenting.

 

Special Labour (intensive) Day Update - 

 

 

My sincere apologies for not sharing with you a couple of  truly sick Quartz Composer projects until now. Go to the Course Resources page, and download the Datamosh zip and the Video Synth zip. Datamoshing  I've written about in my little book, and the fantastic Rutt Etra video synthesizer is a thing of legend! (Images above, using the Video Synth, except for bottom right, using datamoshing).

 

Placeholder soundtrack for our event. Maybe a little more than a placeholder. . .  dancer's iPod soundtrack

 

And . . . slight change of location: we will set up and perform INSIDE - - in the hallway outside the Schmidt Gallery (closer to where the action is, and it's indoors , so equipment does not get rained on! And carpeting for our dancers! ). Here's a rough layout:

 

 

The only tricky part is setting up partially on the stairway landing, and the steps (projector and visual laptop). The audio equipment will be at the bottom of the stairs, so at least we don't have to put everything on the landing.

 

 

update - 2.ix.11

A rather intriguing article on monetizing digital art.

 

 

 

update - 1.ix.11

 

The FORM of our performance on 16 Sept. will be a simple RONDO - - alternating A material with B material. The A material will be my 'Trailogue (redux)'; the B material will be your QC compositions, with your own voice-over and soundtrack, or one will be provided for you. This is going to be . . . so great! Details at 6pm! (tonight)

 

 

MMC 6931

 

The intersection of expressive and communicative media with technology has evolved into a rich and complex contemporary landscape where new aesthetics and practices are emerging around user interaction. Through collaboration and experimental production, this course will examine interactive media and culture from the perspective of hybrid processes and structures, often expanding our notions of performance, installation, intervention, and presentation. Candidates in this course will begin the process of identifying and articulating the interactive and conceptual foundations that will be developed as their thesis projects, and present components of their work-in-progress in public fora.