For an assignment recently I had to do some research into computational arts practices and information design practices in the context of data visualisation. As such I did some hunting around for different practitioners, examples and related websites and I’ve put together this small list of websites. I did have a number of others but I’m not quite sure where they went – must have closed the tabs by accident:
After a little bit more work in Max, I’ve extended the tap tempo calculator to diferentiate between semibreves, minims, crotchets, quavers and semi-quavers rather than just displaying the crotchet timing. I have left the big LED in so that it can be compared.
Basically the difference is that now the crotchets are split down into semi-quavers, and from there the metro goes into a counter and to the LED’s which are lit up as the counter counts through them on each beat of the metronome.
Aside from that it remains very simple in what it does – just does it in a slightly more interesting way. I’ll put up some more interesting things done in Max/MSP/Jitter soon, promise.
This semester at uni we are looking at graphical programming with Max/MSP/Jitter. This simple little patch is the first one we created as homework. The aim is to take a pair of taps on the bang object and work out the timing between them. The LED object will then flash on every beat.
It is also manually adjustable by changing the BPM or milliseconds in the two float boxes. You can also stop the flashing with the “Stop” button.
It’s very simple and straightforward, but it is a great little program to create as an introduction to graphical programming in Max and getting an idea of how it functions.
I’ve been having a bit of a play with Quartz Composer since I haven’t had a chance to do much in the way of computational arts since uni finished last semester. In doing so, I came up with this, which as you can see became the background of the current website design!
I decided to start off with a halo generator to create a similar effect to a lens flare which I then built on with audio input from the MacBook Pro’s built-in microphone to make it a more interesting effect. Adding in a replicate in space which chances direction over 8 replications gives it the appearance of movement amongst itself, again making it a bit more interesting, but what I really like about this is that it turns it into a colourful iris, which I really quite like.
When the audio is fairly quiet, the iris is small and fades in and out. As the audio volume increases, the iris grows and changes colour.
It can be downloaded here, you are welcome to have a look and play around with it as you like! Just remember, like everything else on this website, it is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License. So anything you do with it must attribute me as the original artist, me, be shared under a share alike license and cannot be used commercially.
This has been done in Quartz Composer for OS X 10.5 Leopard, so it may not work correctly on Tiger. I don’t think I’ve used anything that was new in Leopard, but I’m not sure. So if you are using Tiger, good luck!
I’ve rendered a video which is now up on YouTube to give you an idea of how it looks.
At the moment, it is great for a little while, but unless the music is constantly changing, the interest is lost as it begins to show similar patterns repeating themselves. If you have a look at the Quartz Composition, it’s a pretty simple one really, so I’m sure there is plenty more I can do with it yet to make it that bit more interesting for a bit longer!
You may have noticed things in the design gradually changing around here over the past couple of weeks.
The design itself is now finished. Unfortunately though, since I’ve widened the main content section a fair bit, it’s put some of the individual posts out, such as images behind code sections. Actually, mainly images behind code sections. I’ve gone through and cleaned up all of the ones I’ve found so far. If you happen across any that are still out, it would be greatly appreciated if you could leave a comment on the post to let me know.
Something new I have incorporated with this theme is my Twitter stream, running down the bottom right of the page. I’ve had it running on my other blog, Still as Life, for a while now, figured it’s about time to put it it on here too. My tweets are more web design oriented than computational arts, and even more so just what I’m up to in general. So when I am working on something, I’ll usually be tweeting about it, be it web design, computational arts or something else. Follow me if you are on Twitter and want to keep up to date on what I’m doing and my latest projects.
The background image I have used is a still from the output of one of my recent Quartz Composer audio visualisations. I’ll be putting it up here when I get a chance, along with a couple of variations on it.
After a little bit more work in Max, I’ve extended the tap tempo calculator to diferentiate between semibreves, minims, crotchets, quavers and semi-quavers rather than just displaying the crotchet timing. I have left the big LED in so that it can be compared.
This semester at uni we are looking at graphical programming with 
