Don Relyea's Blog

Generated tentacled eyeball monsters halloween 2009

Don Relyea

Generated Monsters -- done in OF 0.06
I wrote a quick program to generate monsters for my kids this halloween. This is not a serious art project but fun for my family that turned into something cool enough to share.

It was done in c++ in openframeworks 0.06 using code blocks. You can download the source here (right click) and the textures here! I'm sure you can swap out different eyes and mouths for different looking monsters.

It uses a version the hair particle drawing class I wrote to do my hair drawings, I just swapped it out with opaque textures of eyeballs and mouths and placed the drawing origins in the lower right corner. I then copy the screen to a FBO Texture and draw that to screen flipped so the creature is both vertically and horizontally symmetrical and voila...a tentacled eyeball creature!

You can see all of these monsters at my flickr set "Generated tentacled eyeball monsters halloween 2009" there are over a hundred of them!

500x Open Show Theme: Landscape

Don Relyea

"635 Commute" by Don Relyea

The 500x annual open show has moved from the end of the Spring season to Fall. This years theme is "Landscape". I always try to support 500x since it is the first place I showed anything a very long time ago.It is also a great place to try out new work and see what peoples reactions are at the opening.

This year I entered a piece titled "635 Commute" that uses two of my projects combined, my slit scan photography project and the good old reductionizer. I recorded several minutes of my commute to work and generated a slit scan image of the video, I then reduced it using the reductionizer and combined the images. The result is a 22 x17 photo print which looks fantastic. You can pick it up for cheap at the show.

There is still one more day to drop off art at 500x, they are taking stuff Tuesday night from 5-8pm as well.

Open Show Theme: Landscape

Exhibition Dates: October 10-31, 2009

Opening Reception: Saturday, October 10, 7-10pm Delivery Times: October 5 & 6, 5-8pm Pick-up: Sunday, November 1, 2009, 12-5 pm

All work in the Open Show must explore the image, presence, or idea of the landscape. Work in any media is accepted.

Requirements:

$25 per entry -5 entries maximum
Each piece must include name of artist(s), address, phone #, e-mail address, title of work, media, year of execution and sale price on the back.
Payment may be made with credit card, check or cash.
All work must be ready to hang-canvases, frames, etc. must have "D" rings or wire; unframed works on paper will be pinned to the wall unless other hanging systems are provided and prepared.
All video, sound, and media work must come with equipment, and the artist is required to come during the installation time to set up the work.
Work must not exceed 60" in any direction.
500X Gallery will retain a 30% commission on all sales.
Work will remain on view until the show closes at 5pm on Saturday, October 31, 2009
Exhibited works must be picked up Sunday, November 1, 2009, 12-5pm.
Other information
A storage fee of $50 will be charged for work that is not picked up on November 1, 2009. 500X Gallery carries no insurance and accepts no responsibility for work damaged while in storage. Stored work not picked up by Sunday, November 29 will become the property of 500X Gallery.

Data, it fails us now... youtube playlist updated

Don Relyea

I have updated my glitch playlist on youtube with a ton of new videos, check it out if you have some time and enjoy digital detritus. The above video I think is my new favorite "Mac the Knife", it is Ben Hernstrom's entry for the 3rd Annual Public Domain Private Dominion - The Pittsburgh Creative Commons Film Festival. It is uploaded by user ambulantic.

I have also added the very well done and informative "how to datamosh part 1" by Datamosher the genius behind the Chairlift, Evident Utensil video. This video provides step by step instructions on how to data mosh in three parts as well as a link to the free software you need.

See: Data, it fails us now.

Interview in Artworks Magazine

Don Relyea

Big Thanks to Max Eternity, contributing writer to Artworks Magazine and editor of Art Digital Magazine who interviewed me a while back on my thoughts on digital art and provenance. He also interviewed Kristin Heming of Pace Prints, David Rudd of Cycleback, Rex Bruce of Lacda and Andy Weimer of Spaightwood Galleries.

The article is published in the Fall 2009 issue of Artworks Magazine and features a frame from my Generative Flowers III video art work.

161 02 space filling curve art

Don Relyea

"161 02" by Don Relyea

I have been using my space filling curve program to generate some textures with transparency for an open gl music visualization program I am working on for fun. "161 02" was a keeper.

I have ton of new ones I need to get around to posting on Flickr or here on my site soon.

Jeffrey Cortland Jones at Some Walls

Don Relyea

Some Walls is a new curatorial and writing art project located in a private home in Oakland, California. For the inaugural exhibition, Some Walls is proud to present �Jeffrey Cortland Jones: Recent Paintings,� from September 10 � October 31, 2009. Images and an essay about the exhibition are at Some Walls.

Jeffrey Cortland Jones is Associate Professor at University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio. A painter as well as a curator, he is much admired by peers for his lush and serious work, disciplined and productive practice, broad and active exhibition schedule, and friendly and generous spirit.

Some Walls will show four small recent paintings made with enamel on acrylic panels. Known for his use of industrial materials, institutional colors, complex layering, and vigorous mark-making, Jones had in the recent past used a more wild and vibrant palette. The four paintings in this exhibition head in a slightly different direction, however. Returning to his previous use of green and white, Jones has quickened, reduced, and softened his paint application, resulting in images that, though abstractions with a strong physical presence and object quality, with their vertical format and horizontal spatial divisions hint at the wintery-like atmospheric image of haze just as the sun is about to burst through.

Some Walls is open by appointment only. To view the exhibition online visit somewalls.com.

Collagenator by Quasimondo

Don Relyea

Collagenator preview image by Flickr user Quasimondo

Quasimondo is teasing us with a generative collage project that blends several images based on a source photo. This particular piece looks great. I have been working on something very similar in openframeworks but Quasimondo's choice of source texture images is impeccable. Very well done.

New digital slit scans on Flickr

Don Relyea

I have uploaded 144 new images to my Flickr account that I have been tinkering with for the past several months.

These images were created using a digital slitscan process. I wrote a program that generates several groups of 3d primitives. The separate groups of primitives are rotated in slightly different directions slowly while every frame of rotation a column of pixels is sampled from the middle of the image and used to make a picture.

The Flickr set is here!

Vague Terrain Journal 14

Don Relyea

This issue of Vague Terrain(journal 14) is a must read for computational artists and enthusiasts...from Rhizome

A selection of artists, architects and writers were invited to contribute work that dealt with biological, botanical and morphogenetic ideas and processes. Some keywords and ideas to reflect upon were: Morphogenesis, Algorithmic Botany, Emergence, Genetic Algorithms, Cellular Automata, L-systems, Bacterial Aesthetics, Biomineralsiation, Autogenesis, Self-generation; Cellular Division, Cosmobiotechnics, Biomimicry and DNA sequences.

Contributing artists include: Alisa Andrasek (Biothing), Daniel Widrig, David Lu, Emma McNally, Jonathan McCabe, Kat Masback, Mark Fornes (THEVERYMANY), Michael Hansmeyer, Robert Hodgin (Flight404) and Wilfried Hou Je Bek.

Muti-Scale Radially Symmetric Turing Patterns by Johnathan McCabe

Verostko, Chiplotle and pen plotters

Don Relyea

Roman Verostko , one of the original algorists, is also one of my favorite artists. He has been making exquisite algorithmic drawing using BASIC code and pen plotters outfitted with a variety of drawing tools including ink brushes since the 80's. I have seen some of his works in person and they quite nice. I hope to have one in my house one day as his work has been an inspiration..

�

Verostko at FEEDBACK, Centro de Arte y Creaci�n Industrial, LABORAL, Gijon, Asturias, Spain, 2007.

From Verostko's site...."Exhibition platform displaying Verostko's plotted drawings and his DMP52 pen plotter. The opening event for FEEDBACK included his historic pen plotter actively creating work with algorithms dating from the 1980's. The original HODOS, written in BASIC, is implemented� using DOS running on a laptop.� The works on display include a painting (far left) generated with Roman's code driving� paint brushes mounted on the plotter's drawing arm."

I have always thought Verostko's plotter approach to algorithmic drawing and painting was clever and I have have always had an urge in the back of my mind to try a pen plotter project. The barriers to entry for just such a project have been lowered with Chiplotle!

Victor Adan and Douglas Repetto have released Chiplotle: an HPGL (Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language) Python API for HPGL compatible pen plotters.

From the release on Eugene...."Chiplotle is a Python library that implements and extends the HPGL (Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language) plotter control language. It supports all the standard HPGL commands as well as our own more complex compound HPGL commands, implemented as Python classes. Chiplotle also provides direct control of your HPGL-aware hardware via a standard usb<->serial port interface."

Above is most likely one of Victor Adan's scores visualized and then plotted using Chiplotle

A quick survey of Ebay shows that you can get some decent large format pen plotters for 80-400 dollars, not too bad.

See:
http://chiplotle.org

Chiplotle manual:
http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/chiplotle/manual/

3 minutes of Spike TV

Don Relyea

3 Minutes of Spike TV

More slitscan photo experiments from the weekend...here on my Flickr slit scan set. This piece has a lot of nice horizontal stripes from camera auto white balance settings.

more slit scan experiments

Don Relyea

Slit Scan photo set uploaded to Flickr at Slit Scan Experiments

I have been taking HD video using an off the shelf Sony camera and post processing the video digitally to assemble slit scan panoramas. I am experimenting with driving around, water, my kids, sunsets, clouds, weather and anything I can think of that has the potential for interesting motion.

I'm also writing some software based on the slitscan work I did for the Archetime Conference that will turn my HP touchsmart laptop into a portable slitscan camera. It's a no brainer openframeworks project that I pretty much have done, I just need to get higher resolution web-cam connected to the computer and I will be all set.

I'll probably add some to this group on Flickr as well. There is a lot of interesting stuff going on there.

I have migrated my website in it's entirity to a new server with an unlimited hosting plan and it was pretty painless. So now I can resume posting as usual without having to delete old stuff, yea!

Alys Beach Digital Graffiti article in Art Digital Magazine

Don Relyea

Well I can't believe it but I have stuffed my web server I have 3GB of space now all used up with art, music and content. I had to delete some old stuff just make this post. So I may be quiet for a week or so in order to move my hosting account to an unlimited space plan.

We went on vacation the other week and had a great time! I got some great footage of dolphins, jumping and flipping devil rays and some ok footage of the Alys Beach Digital Graffiti party we went to in Florida.

We had an awesome time at Alys Beach Digital graffiti party! MAX ETERNITY from Art Digital Magazine has published an article on my experiences there.

- link to web site -

Mot�rhead - Ace of Spades - Songsmith Version

Don Relyea

Microsoft songsmith has become somewhat of a phenomenon on the internet and most of what I have seen is pretty aweful. Songsmith uses algorithms to generate music for your vocals. But this is suprisingly not as aweful and pretty funny. Lemmie does a ballad, hmmm =)

June 2009 Art Events

Don Relyea

June is going to be a busy month for me as far as video art goes. I will have stuff in NYC, Seoul Korea and Florida through most of June.

Video stills from Generative Flowers III by Don Relyea

Generative Flowers III in Digital Graffiti festival at Alys Beach Florida June 6th. Generative Flowers III is a computational piece and is intended to be a celebration of life. It draws flowers from gray scale alpha channels and then feeds back on itself. Environmentalist Mark Charneski contributed the magnificent flower photos and�scans from which the alpha channels were extracted. Mark is with the Florida EPA.��

The Generative Flowers III algorithm creates a mathematical variant of the Cantor Set. Flowers are also naturally occurring mathematical expressions and work very well with the Cantor�Set effect. The geometric progression of the Cantor Set is symbolic to me of the natural progression of life

Systemic Sky and Generative Flowers II on display at the W Hotel Wu Bar in Downtown Seoul, Korea through Lee Wells [PAM] and Janet Oh Gallery. May through the end of June

Slit scan projects part of Archetime Conference NYC brought to you by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Tank Space for Performing & Visual Arts, and the NYC Future Salon June 4th-June18th

Slit scan video installation

Don Relyea

Hye and I were working on an installation proposal/proof of concept the other night for a slit scan video installation and got some cool pictures.

There are a several flavors of slit scan video that I am aware of, there is the kind like Zbig did back in the 80s, s where horizontal of vertical pixels of video are buffered and time displaced in some fashion so there is a time differential between the top and bottom of the video or between the left and right of the video as it plays. There is also the the more traditional variety that is similar to the original photographic process where columns or rows of pixels are scrolled vertically or horizontally.

What I am doing with this version is buffering the whole frame of video, while time is progressing from left to right we are making the horizontal slit position we are sampling variable and linking it to an fft making it audio reactive. This project is built in openframeworks. It is working really well and I will have to post a video of it soon.

This project will published as part of the Archetime Conference and Exhibition. The actual installation will happen at a later date some time in 2010 in NYC.

The conference is at:

THE TANK SPACE FOR PERFORMING AND VISUAL ARTS
354 West 45 th St., New York, NY, 10036

Conference: June 6 - 7, 2009
Exhibition: June 4 - 14, 2009

ArcheTime conference and art exhibition aims to foster critical discourse between artistic, academic and scientific thought on Time. We endeavor to examine and compare the various models of Time that have been suggested across disciplinary boundaries. We invite participants from these divergent disciplines to come together and share their visions of Time in the spirit of multi-disciplinary collaboration and the search for new perspectives.

evilcomputergenius + Blixaboy record listening party + Don Relyea's 40th!

Don Relyea

This Saturday the 18th of April I am celebrating my 40th and the release of my new evilcomputergenius album with my old sub-tronic theatre buddy Mwanza aka Blixaboy.

The party is at the Whisky Bar on lower Greenville ave in Dallas TX. 8-11pm but will surely go until later but get there early to hear the new records. This event is open to the public so consider yourself invited!

If you are on Facebook you can rsvp to the event here:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=93675835902

evilcomputergenius - theory of humanistic futility

Available now at these online stores:

Commodities by Erik Dalzen

Don Relyea

"1982 Worlds Fair PEZ Rare Astronaut B Blue Stem, 2009
Ink on Paper, 7x9" by Erik Dalzen

Erik writes on his web site..."Commodities is a collaborative project between me and spirited bidders. Art pieces are created based on specific marketable goods and cater to niche audiences of collectors and enthusiasts. The works are then exhibited on the auction website, eBay, under search terms that coincide with the vernacular from which each piece derives. Potential buyers may experience the thrill of shopping and the excitement of competition by vying against one another to win the art piece. The culminating action occurs at the close of each auction once rival bidders complete each piece by determining its value. "

View Active Listings

Erik's Project blog

Commodities is a great conceptual net art piece and fine example of how you don't need to be a technologist or extreme programmer(apologies to Erik if he is an extreme programmer) to create a very clever and well done net art project. I'll put my money where my blog is and bid on this one!

Twitter Mountains by Yann Le Guennec

Don Relyea

Twitter Mountains by Yann Le Guennec

Yann Le Guennec runs http://www.datapainting.com/ and you can see a wider variety of his work there. He uses data to make pictures. He maintains a blog as well, you can see it below:

http://www.yannleguennec.com/blog/2009/03/23/twitter-mountains/

Via Rhizome Announce

Recent publications in Itch Magazine and Art Digital Magazine

Don Relyea

Big thanks to Max Eternity for publishing a piece on my work in his Art Digital Magazine, the article was titled "Don Relyea: Art Technologist". This Issue features work by me ( Don Relyea ), Jay Montgomery and Eric Heller. It is a very well put together artist run publication. Also a big thanks to artist Chris Ashley for recommending me!

Also last week my "Stick 'em Up" piece on the bailout was published in Itch magazine for their issue on Money and Greed.