This reel is a demonstration of what can be done with the latest math/drawing/physics/utility code library from toxiclibs, which is made to work with the popular graphical programming language Processing. Creating art with code is becoming easier to achieve, while producing more advanced results. This is largely due to the open source coding community’s spirit of sharing code libraries and snippets.
I’d like to share some of my favorite code-based artists – people who are pushing boundaries and creating beautiful art, often with nothing but the code they’ve written.
Toxi – The creator of toxiclibs, and well-known amongst the graphical programming elite. He’s helped push the Processing community forward for years, and you can see some of his old work here. He’s recently created an agency to commercialize his creative techniques.
Flight404 – Probably one of the best-known code artists, he’s made a name for himself with his beautiful and intense audio-reactive music videos. His Flickr page is nice too, and the newer versions of iTunes have his code running as the default “iTunes Visualizer”.
Dave Bollinger – A respected member of the Processing community, he creates beautiful static imagery and animations from his code. I highly recommend browsing his Flickr stream – I’ve lost hours staring at his works.
Jared Tarbell – Another brilliant coder who’s been around for years, constantly creating stunning new generative art. You can run many of his programs from his site, and watch his code draw intense and pretty pictures.
Movax – A good friend of mine, and another member of the elite Processing community. His audio-reactive visuals have been taken on tour by the Black Eyed Peas and Plaid, and have been used in live situations with Amon Tobin, Mochipet and a number of electronic artists (includingmyself).
These guys are my inspiration when it comes to generative and audio-reactive code, but they’re just some of the names at the top of the game. If this type of art strikes your fancy, check out the links in this post and dig deeper.
I just finished an identity and simple blog redesign for Casey Keasler over at K.I.D. Collective! Along with an identity and site redesign, I created an icon set to represent the span of topics she covers on her blog, as well as her skills as an individual. Everything from her personal design projects, like landscaping and interior design, to her recipes and current music favs. Check her out!
The brainchild of author, writer, designer David McCandless, Information is Beautiful is an amazing site stuffed with fantastic infographics and visualizations about virtually every subject imaginable. Information is most definitely very beautiful here.
I saw this on the news over here a while back and for some reason it popped into my head again. So I figured I might as well share the ridiculousness of the Kami Kami Sensor with the rest of you. Why should I have all the fun? Basically it’s a bite counter being used in some schools and I think even available for the public. But wait, there’s more. Not only does it count how many times you chew your food, it beeps when you hit 30 bites and then plays a melody at 1000 bites, YEAY! Unfortunately the way I eat it would probably take about three months to hear that melody….
The title of this post is a mouthful, but for me, it’s a good description of what’s been cool and interesting in electronic music in the past few years. These genres share intertwined histories, and have recently come together in beautiful ways. Rooted in hip-hop, drum & bass, idm, garage, dub, experimental, and lots elsewhere, they’ve changed the definition of cutting-edge underground electronic music. The most established and interesting producers like Starkey, Joker, Rustie, Harmonic 313, Disrupt, Rusko, Martyn, 2562, Hudson Mohawke, edIT, Flying Lotus and Kode 9 (and Lazer Sword as mentioned by Lifter Baron’s recent post) all succeed because they blur the lines and have cultivated their own bass-heavy, beat freaking, experimental sound.
The documentary above is a few years old, but captures the vibe of the rise of dubstep, which is the most popular of these new-ish genres. Its fan base has exploded, while the creativity of its producers has surged. All the while, most other dance music has become a bit of a formulaic bummer. This is the state of the art.
If you want a taste of the real goods, check out these 2 half-hour mixes that helped propel the art forward last year: Joker’s mix from Skream’s radio show, and
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Found Gracia Lam through my flickr. She had favorited a scan of one of Tauba Auerbach’s work. From there I found myself on her great portfolio full of witty illustations.
UNTITLED #20(TRIP) at the Denver Art Museum video re-cap courtesy of Vincent Comparetto. A month or so back I was fortunate enough to pull a few screens with Rick Griffith & Matter, John Fellows, Scot LeFavor, Markham Maes, at the UNTITLED #20(TRIP) event. We formed “The Syndicate” and printed our asses off for a few magical hours combining the mystical forces of all our powers! I’m definitely hoping to work with all these talented cats again in one way or another sooner rather than later.
BWLT would like to welcome Chris Henley on-board as our newest editor/contributor. Mr. Henley is a UK based Art Director / Designer / Photographer / Seer of Sideways. After a few weeks of healthy negotiations he has agreed to come on and provide a continuous stream of posts filled with insight, rants & rambles, along with other assorted bursts of creative joy.
Who is Chris Henley? Well he produces work under the name 24exp. His book filled with stunning creative & conceptual executions that wonder in and out of the realms of graphics & photography along with some of what’s in between. His work is firmly grounded in the mantra of part time creator, full time thinker. Chris is a designers designer… just the way we like ‘em!!!
Above all else he is a like minded peer that will provide insight into the ins and outs of creative life in the UK and abroad.
Follow Chris on Twitter : Photostream on Flickr : Interwebs URL of Choice!
Fixed City is a documentary that offers a snapshot of the fixed gear culture as of 2009 in Germany. Looks like a German premiere is currently scheduled for mid August… not sure when this will be hitting the states.
Our good friend Sean Herman was in a crazy accident a couple weeks ago while riding his bike. After being fixed up he was, as one would expect, slapped with a heinous bill. He used his creative super powers to remedy this obstacle with an album free for download with the option for donation towards his nasty hospital bill. Check out the EP as well as read more about the situation here.
Celeste and I have been using it to share our home library with our iPhones, laptops and office computers and vice versa. Works pretty well and is zero dollars. It lets you share with 30 people at once. Take a peek at Simplify Media here. Hooray for technology!
Celeste and I took a road trip to Denver last week for the ARTCRANK show and to catch up with some people who were starting to forget we exist. The ARTCRANK event had a pretty large turn out and sold quite a bit of the available art. Even though it was a short trip, we got to see just about everyone we would have wanted to bump into and ate at just about every place on our list. Check out some pictures.
