November 15-20, 2010
Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany

The purpose of the inter-media forum is to facilitate a cross-border exchange between interactive media, digital art and generative design. The ‘NODE – Forum for digital Arts’ emerged in 2008 from an initiative of developers and users of the programming language vvvv, which is mostly used to create artistic and creative software projects. But NODE is more than just a large-scale vvvv user meeting, the NODE – Forum for Digital Arts gathers people working across the disciplines of applied and artistic media in a week-long event.

The focus of this years NODE10 is the investigation of cultural consequences of a post-industrialised, technological society. The exhibition ‘abstrakt Abstrakt’ thus deepens the discourse surrounding technology and society. Participants look into the subjects through workshops and talks combined with subsequent symposiums and live performances.

NODE10 – Official site
NODE10 on Facebook
NODE10 on Twitter

Deadline: 31.08.2010

This year you are definitely invited to participate the NODE Forum for Digital Arts again. So don´t hesitate and send us your work, which could be from screen to wall to everything. Please send us your proposal including the following information:

- detailed contact information
- title of your work
- context of creation (personnal project, schoolwork, professional)
- description of your work
- duration, resolution, sizes, tech rider
- screenshots, photographs

only as pdf to: node@vvvv.org (subject: submission)

For all other materials please send your documents to:

NODE – Forum for Digital Arts
Niddastrasse 84hh, 60329 Frankfurt, Germany

Prime – public art for the new Bybanen light rail system in Bergen, Norway

I just came back from the premiere of my new piece Prime, a light installation for Fageråstunnelen on the Bybanen light rail system in Bergen. Above is a quick preview slideshow of photos shot in the tunnel, more detailed documentation along with video will follow.

Prime is based on a strict grid structure of light elements, with each element switching on and off according to an individual prime number. Due to the use of prime numbers this primitive switching logic gives rise to unpredictable patterns whose logic is not decipherable through observation alone.

The grid is realized in 3 configurations, each of which is repeated two times throughout the tunnel. The two largest installations (using 16 elements) are placed at the tunnel exits, and are clearly visible from outside. The 4 smaller pieces (using 7 and 4 elements respectively) are placed at regular intervals inside the tunnel. This way the work retains its presence throughout the 0.7 km long tunnel, glimpsed as the train moves past.

Unlike most of my other work Prime is not computer-based. Instead I chose to create a programmed logic using simple and stable electric relays. I also wanted to find physical technology that could match the scale and rough nature of the tunnel environment, opting for large LED elements rather than screens or projections. The piece was commissioned to last for a minimum of 5 years, and so technical stability is of the essence. The installations were fabricated by Focus Neon using LED technology normally used for commercial signage systems.

Prime is one of three public artworks installed for the opening of Bybanen, the other two being HC Gilje’s 400 meter light tube “soundwaves” and The White Rabbit by Anita Hillestad and Rachel Dagnall. The artworks were commissioned by Bergen Kommune, with Jørgen Larsson and Jørgen Blitzner as artistic consultants. Additional art for Bybanen will be commissioned through a public competition, the outcome of which will be announced later this year.

Use Data.beginSave() to initialize data string collection, then add data with Data.add(). To write to file, use endSave(filename). I’ve included code for auto-incrementing filenames, it’s used in the example code.

To load data, call Data.load(filename), then use readInt(), readFloat(), readString() etc. to get values from the strings read from the text file. Used properly this should give you most of the flexibility you need for simple data saving.

// saveData.pde
// Marius Watz - http://workshop.evolutionzone.com

// Example showing how to use the Data utility
// class to save and load data from text files. 

float a=2.5,b=3.144;
int x=10,y=20;
boolean bool=true;
String s="This is a string.";

Data data;

void setup() {
  size(400,400);

  data=new Data();

  // SAVING
  data.beginSave();
  data.add(s);
  data.add(a);
  data.add(b);
  data.add(x);
  data.add(y);
  data.add(bool);
  data.endSave(
    data.getIncrementalFilename(
      sketchPath("save"+
        java.io.File.separator+
        "data ####.txt")));

  // LOADING
  data.load(sketchPath("save"+
    java.io.File.separator+
    "data 0000.txt"));

  s=data.readString();
  a=data.readFloat();
  b=data.readFloat();
  x=data.readInt();
  y=data.readInt();
  bool=data.readBoolean();
}

///////////////////////////
// DATA CLASS

class Data {
  ArrayList datalist;
  String filename,data[];
  int datalineId;

  // begin data saving
  void beginSave() {
    datalist=new ArrayList();
  }

  void add(String s) {
    datalist.add(s);
  }

  void add(float val) {
    datalist.add(""+val);
  }

  void add(int val) {
    datalist.add(""+val);
  }

  void add(boolean val) {
    datalist.add(""+val);
  }

  void endSave(String _filename) {
    filename=_filename;

    data=new String[datalist.size()];
    data=(String [])datalist.toArray(data);

    saveStrings(filename, data);
    println("Saved data to '"+filename+
      "', "+data.length+" lines.");
  }

  void load(String _filename) {
    filename=_filename;

    datalineId=0;
    data=loadStrings(filename);
    println("Loaded data from '"+filename+
      "', "+data.length+" lines.");
  }

  float readFloat() {
    return float(data[datalineId++]);
  }

  int readInt() {
    return int(data[datalineId++]);
  }

  boolean readBoolean() {
    return boolean(data[datalineId++]);
  }

  String readString() {
    return data[datalineId++];
  }

  // Utility function to auto-increment filenames
  // based on filename templates like "name-###.txt" 

  public String getIncrementalFilename(String templ) {
    String s="",prefix,suffix,padstr,numstr;
    int index=0,first,last,count;
    File f;
    boolean ok;

    first=templ.indexOf('#');
    last=templ.lastIndexOf('#');
    count=last-first+1;

    if( (first!=-1)&& (last-first>0)) {
      prefix=templ.substring(0, first);
      suffix=templ.substring(last+1);

      // Comment out if you want to use absolute paths
      // or if you're not using this inside PApplet
      if(sketchPath!=null) prefix=savePath(prefix);

      index=0;
      ok=false;

      do {
        padstr="";
        numstr=""+index;
        for(int i=0; i< count-numstr.length(); i++) padstr+="0";
        s=prefix+padstr+numstr+suffix;

        f=new File(s);
        ok=!f.exists();
        index++;

        // Provide a panic button. If index > 10000 chances are it's an
        // invalid filename.
        if(index>10000) ok=true;

      }
      while(!ok);

      // Panic button - comment out if you know what you're doing
      if(index> 10000) {
        println("getIncrementalFilename thinks there is a problem - "+
          "Is there  more than 10000 files already in the sequence "+
          " or is the filename invalid?");
        println("Returning "+prefix+"ERR"+suffix);
        return prefix+"ERR"+suffix;
      }
    }

    return s;
  }

}

My thanks to all the great people at Shakerag, and especially my studio assistant Greg Pond (an excellent sound artist and sculptor.) Between the awesome food, great company and inspiring conversations it was a week well spent down South.

The following are some useful links that came up in the course of the week, reposted here for convenience.

• Classes and objects:
  - Shiffman’s Processing tutorial about objects
  - Shiffman’s Particle Systems tutorial
  - How my Dog learned Polymorphism
  - Java Tutorial: Object-Oriented Programming Concepts
• Processing.org Tutorials section
• wiki.processing.org (tutorials, hacks, documentation)
• 3D geometry generation: Toroid
• Fabbing and 3D printing:
  - Meshlab 3D model viewer
  - unwrappingLib for polygon unwrapping
  - Unfold Fab project for 3D printing ceramics
  - Hemesh library for complex 3D meshes
• Book: Getting started with Processing

We also had some fun with Arduino that made me realize I really do need to pick up some more physical computing tools.

The workshop will give an introduction to Processing for artists, and focus on ways of integrating Processing into the participants’ art practice. The course description is as follows:

The rise of digital media tools for artists has led to an increasing understanding of software as a medium in its own right. Going beyond the confines of commercial software, artists are experimenting with code to create new forms of expression in areas like generative art, interactive installations, and information visualization.

This workshop will give an introduction to the idea of computational aesthetics, which understands form as a product of a computational process. We will use the popular Open Source tool Processing to start sketching with code, then move on to more advanced topics like video and vector output. Built on top of the Java language, Processing is simultaneously disarming in its simplicity and impressive in its ultimate potential. The last part of the week you will focus on individual work, during which we can look at how Processing can be applied to different forms of artistic practice.

The workshops take place on the campus of the St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School. Hope to see you there!

• Jim Campbell’s Formula for Computer Art
• Mork / Pendry / Stenslie / Watz: Sense:less (1996)
• Edward Ihnatowicz: Senster (1970) (YouTube)
• Edward Ihnatowicz: SAM – Sound Activated Mobile (1970) (YouTube)
• Jeffrey Shaw: Legible City (1989)
• Daniel Rozin: Interactive mirrors (1998-)
• Ken Rinaldo: Autopoiesis (2000)
• Chaos Computer Club: Blinkenlights (2001)
• Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin: Listening Post (YouTube) (2002)
• Golan Levin & Zachary Lieberman: Messa di Voce (2003)
• Golan Levin & Zachary Lieberman: Manual Input Sessions (2004)
• Golan Levin: Scrapple (2006)
• Scott Snibbe: Blow Up (2005)
• UVA: Volume (2006)
• Zachary Lieberman: Drawn (2006)
• Grafitti Research Lab: Throwies (Instructable) (2006)
• GRL & Theo Watzon: Laser Tag (2007)
• Zachary Lieberman, FAT and Grafitti Research Lab: Eyewriter (2009)
• Chris O’Shea / rAndom International: Audience (2008)
• Espen Sommer Eide: Karusell (2008)
• YesYesNo: Night Lights (video) (2010)

KBGAnimD01EB 0008, still from new sound visualization

Ever since doing Stockspace project it seems I am getting asked to do data-related work. This despite the fact that my personal interests diverge from such masters of insightful infographics as Martin Wattenberg, David McCandless or Jonathan Harris.

Suffice to say that I am more concerned with exploring data structures as spaces than I am with providing new understandings of the information contained within them. Manuel Lima’s Information Visualization Manifesto calls for a seriousness on the topic of data treatments, while my projects remain comfortably frivolous.

Recently I’ve been working on a project that has required researching data sources and adapting them to illustrate a bigger idea, which has led to much Googling in the absence of good data from the client. Sometimes you find the right thing immediately, but sometimes data is hard to find in a format that is freely available and easily parsable. Since I have found some good sources I thought I’d share them here…

• PVWATSS calculator from Renewable Resource Data Center (RReDC) provides theoretical calculations of yields (hour-by-hour, 365 days/yr) from photovoltaic solar panels for most international locations.
• World airport codes with geo name data, helpfully spidered by Wiebe Cazemier so you don’t have to.
• Unattributed FTP depository of geo-related CSV files, including postal and ZIP codes, world city info etc.
• Historical weather data from Weather Underground, providing year-by-year hourly information for most cities in the world. (See also this list of weather APIs.)
• Yahoo Finance offers downloads of historical stock price data (CSV) for just about any stock symbol out there. Sadly I have yet to find an open intraday stock data source, due to the proprietary nature of that kind of information.
• The Guardian’s Datablog is a recent venture, and I have yet to use any of the data sets they provide. But I like their approach, which is clearly aimed at democratizing data with a view to public agenda.

I would be interested in hearing tips about any great data sets out there, particularly interesting time series data.

Miska Knapek recently sent me a link to a source of weather sensor data from Helsinki, including measurements of wind direction at the top of Helsinki’s Olympic Tower in 5-minute intervals. He has already made some wind visualization videos and some fabricated wind data sculptures based on this data.

Video: Rishaug & Watz live at The Villa, Oslo (video by Andreas Paleologos)

Alexander Rishaug and I just completed a mini-tour of Norway, playing gigs in Oslo (The Villa), Bergen (EKKO Festival), Trondheim (The Black Cube at Verkstedhallen) and finally the Insomnia festival in Tromsø this weekend. Thanks to everybody who turned up! In Oslo we were fortunate to have Andreas Paleologos in the audience with a HD camera, resulting in the video above (possibly the nicest documentation of our set to date!)

The Rishaug vs. Watz project is now over two years old, having debuted at Lovebytes 2007 in Sheffield. It continues to be a very satisfying experiment in exploring sound and visuals as a continuous narrative space. I look forward to seeing what possible new iterations it can take, not least of which will be the upcoming release of Alexander’s album and possible extensions of the project into installation form.

Exploder, wall drawing (made with 1 cm black tape)

It’s always a pleasure to do new types of work when an exhibition calls for it. This time the occasion is “system:system”, an exhibition of 30+ artists opening this Friday in the defunct St.Cecilia’s nun’s convent in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. According to curator duo Adam Henry and Christina Vassallo (aka Super Square), system:system is…

…a three-day event that reflects on the nature of associations between parts of a whole. The title is a play on the term “complex systems,” which are characterized by their connections and tendencies toward unpredictable behavior. The organizing of this event evokes these qualities and embraces the small world phenomenon of strangers being linked through minimal degrees of separation to form a dynamic structure.

The list of artists is full of friends and family, including Peter Kirn, Yeni Mao, Derick Melander, SoftLAB, Studio Mode, Lee Wells, and many others. See the full list here. Random Number has some very promising photos from the installing.

Left: Original Exploder image / Right: Projection with distortion

Given the nature of the building, which is filled with tiny rooms that previously served as bedrooms for the nuns, I wanted to do a physical installation rather than using projectors or screens. I’ve been wanting to try to do a wall drawing for quite a while, using artist tape to trace vector outlines from a projected image.

After doing a few sketches I chose to base the walll drawing on Exploder, an “exploding sphere” form I have done variations on in the past (see Architek209 and GasWorks). Rendering it as a wireframe meant that it is technically feasible to trace while maintaining an implication of movement in space. The number of polygons had to be reduced to control the number of lines in need of tracing, but the form proved to take the scaling down well. Rather than worry about the inevitable distortion caused by the projector I decided to incorporate it, making sure the form could stretch to cover the entire wall while taking on an exaggerated perspective.

I’m quite pleased with the result and will definitely be expanding on this strategy in the future. Come along to the opening this Friday to see it in person!

• Opening reception: Friday, Oct 23, 7pm – 10pm
• Performances by: Matamoros and New Idea Society
• Address: St. Cecilia’s Convent, 21 Monitor Street, Brooklyn, NY
• Facebook: system:system event

Jer Thorp: NY Times: 365/360

Processing visualization head Jer Thorp is putting his money where his mouth and publishing 7 pieces of code in 7 days, free to download and experiment with. Judging from the three that he’s released so far they’re not your standard 20-minute sketches either:

1. GoodMorning! is a Twitter vizualization, showing users around the world popping up on a globe as they utter the magic words “good morning”. With a little geocoding and spherical mapping thrown in, this is a sweet sketch
2. NY Times: 365/360 uses the New York Times open data API to retrieve news stories for an entire year and draw connections between them. The results combine complexity with elegance for that true infoporn look.
3. tree.growth revisits that old classic, the L-system tree. Thorp uses colors and abstract “leaves” to great effect.

With such a strong start, one certainly looks forward to seeing the next four sketches to come. It’s not so common to find sketches of this complexity freely available, so they’re a great study for users who are on the threshold of making more complex applications.