A new season of awesome events of design & digital culture took  place during this months, always amazing to see how artists and designers push the boundaries of  technology to create new stuff  as an example of this we have the opening titles sequences  of the events  which are always amazing.

OFF 2010 , Paris Opening Titles

This year OFFF´s Opening Titles were in charge of  The Mill NY ,who  took the opportunity to debut their new  integrated design and animation team. The languid journey they take us on through the forty-five titles for this years OFFF conference and also displays the immense animation potential of   this new division of the Mill.

About the piece

Jeff Stevens(Director): The original, over arching concept was strength vs beauty and the affinity that each has for the other. At the same time, I wanted to create something that was abstract yet ‘seemingly’ natural. So, creating an environment that was underwater mixed with air began to take shape. Texture was important to me, so when Kim began illustrating, the contours and rawness of materials started to create a landscape and pattern for all of our characters. The best part was that nothing needed to be real. We could have suggested more reality but I think the blend of species, environment, and biomechanics perfectly summed up that affinity I was looking for.

OFFF Paris 2010 Titles from OFFF on Vimeo.

MAD MXX , Madrid Opening Titles

MAD MXX an event that gathers the  best designers and creative minds,to share their ideas with more than 2000 people.This years edition opening titles were commissioned to Physalia Studio which made use of  a 3d scaning scanning technology for creating the   visual effects of the oppening sequence, which were popularized in Radiohead’s House of Cards video and open source code.

Don´t forget to watch the making of  video at the bottom , It´s always nice to watch the creative process of this kind of works which helps a lot to understand how they were created. If you are interested in creating a similar project I will strongly suggest you to visit Create Digital Motion blog you´ll find more information and resources to make your own 3d scanning scenes.

MAD MMX – Opening Title Sequence from Physalia Studio on Vimeo.

MAD MMX – Opening Title Sequence. Making Of from Physalia Studio on Vimeo.

Quayola is a visual artist based in London. His work simultaneously focuses on multiple forms exploring the space between video, audio, photography, installation, live performance and print.

Description (from site)
The Natures project consist in a series of multi-screen installation pieces and a live audio-visual performance in collaboration with musicianMira Calix and cellist Oliver Coates. Natures explores the dialogue between “the natural” and “the artificial”, creating a world where these two elements coexist harmoniously. Interpreting plants’ organic behaviours, computer-generated elements become part of the natural world and vice versa.

Natures #3B from Quayola on Vimeo.

Natures #2A from Quayola on Vimeo.

Theorizing the Parametric – Manuel DeLanda

Parametric Techniques -Roland Snooks , Marc Fornes , Casey Reas

Parametricism – Patrik Schumacher / Zaha Hadid Architects

Machinic Processes – Francois Roche / Re&Sie

I have been playing around with processing for a  year now and I thought it would be nice to post some of the best libraries I have  used for my experimental projects , for those who don´t know processing is a programming environment for designing generative graphics , animation, games and complex interactive applications. Processing comes already  integrated with several libraries  that extend the power  of  processing beyond working simply  with graphics and images , However, the ever-growing community  of processing has created libraries that allow you to use audio, video, and connect processing with other technologies and devices which allow the creation of practically anything you can imagine.

Here´s a list of the best libraries I have tried out and that you definitevately have to take a look at , I also would  like to thank everyone who takes the time to create this libraries that makes the life of people like me so much easier and fun.

Traer Physics : A simple particle system physics engine for processing. I’ve designed this to be application / domain agnostic. All this is supposed to do is let you make particles, apply forces and calculate the positions of particles over time in real-time. Anything else you need to handle yourself.

JMyron: Myron is the cross-platform, cross-language, open source, video capture and computer vision plugin. One core C++ object gets cross-compiled as a handful of high level language “wrapper” libraries. The wrapper for Java and Processing is called JMyron. The wrapper for Macromedia Director is called WebCamXtra. The aim of the project is to keep computer vision free and easy for the new media education and arts community.

PeasyCam: PeasyCam provides a dead-simple mouse-driven camera for Processing.

ControlP5: ControlP5 is a GUI and controller library for processing that can be used in authoring, application, and applet mode. controllers are easily added to a processing sketch, can be arranged in separate control windows, and can be organized in tabs or group.

Anar: A cadKIT™ for Processing (v1.0) for Object Oriented Geometry. Based on (anar+) parametric modeling scheme is a KIT of libraries.

Toxiclibs: An independent, open source library collection for computational design tasks with Java & Processing developed by Karsten “toxi” Schmidt (thus far). The classes are purposefully kept fairly generic in order to maximize re-use in different contexts ranging from generative design, animation, interaction/interface design, data visualization to architecture and digital fabrication, use as teaching tool and more.

NextText: A port of the library for the Processing development environment. Keeping in mind the goals of  Processing, the library includes greatly simplified syntax and allows the creation of interesting sketches with very few lines of code.   And for programmers who want to push the envelope further, all functionality of the Java version of the library is maintained, so it is still possible to create intricate and more complex applications.

Hemesh: An imple­men­ta­tion of a half-edge datas­truc­ture for manip­u­lat­ing 3D meshes in Pro­cess­ing.

P5Sunflow: An easy way to make your Processing sketches look sexy as hell. Well, only three-dimensional ones, but whatever. Sunflow is a ray tracer written in Java. It’s pretty awesome.

I f you know of  another cool library please let me know on the comments below so we can add it to the list.

Firefly is a specialized set of tools created by Andrew Payne from LIFT architects dedicated to bridging the gap between the Arduino interface and Grasshopper. The first release comprises a new toolbar with two custom components. The Serial Read component allows you to retrieve any value coming over the Serial Port. This component is essential for anyone wishing to stream real-time sensor information into Grasshopper. The Serial Write component allows you to write a string value to the Serial Port. This can be a very effective tool for sending parametric data to your Arduino board to control some sort of actuator.
Robofun with Arduino, Grasshopper, FireFly from Chris Wilkins on Vimeo.

The guys from Morphocode have been working on their Rabbit plug-in for Grasshopper and have come up with the 0.2 version of it that has some interesting improvements you can download the tool from their site and remember to give your support if you have the chance.

RABBIT 0.2: New Cellular Automata features:

* user defined initial configurations
* automatic/manual control of the CA evolution
* CA memory – stores all configurations/states of the CA calculated for different time steps(t=0,1,2,3…)

With RABBIT 0.2 you could visualize 2D Cellular automata in 3 dimensions – the third dimension is a function of time.
RABBIT 0.2: New LSystems features:

* user defined LSystems
* fractals: Koch curves, Space-filling curves, …
* Branching LSystems
* 2d/3d Turtle interpretation

Axolotl from triligan on Vimeo.

Project Description
Axolotl was conceived and developed as an academic project at ITP program of NYU. The name ‘Axolotl’ was inspired by a short story by Julio Cortazar, about a man who develops a deep emotional obsession to passive creatures he observes in an aquarium. Axolotl is an interactive installation based on a life-like algorithmic animation of creatures responding to the presence of observers. The project is an exploration of the possibilities to portray life, through motion and form, and is aiming at getting people to reflect on the way that we perceive life, and look at what kind of emotional response can be evoked to the perception of a life-form, knowing that it is artificial. The creature of Axolotl is projected on an aquarium, an object that is associated with looking at animals, be it fish or other animals and serves the purpose of the piece.

Implementation
The choice to design an under water creature allowed for more freedom of motion in all dimensions and the ability to come-up with an abstract shape that can still be perceived as a living being.
The whole process for the animation and interaction of Axolotl was done using the Processing environment.
Motion: Oscillating sine waves were the main driving force used in the process of animating the creature, in addition to many small features that added the desired life-like, unpredictable nuances of motion. The animation code was implemented using calculations of physical forces like gravity and inertia. That allowed for the creature to move in an organic smooth motion, and also had the tentacles respond to spatial motion in 3 dimension.

Installation and Sensing

The sensing technique to make the animation responsive uses face detection, as an indication for presence of observers, looking at the creature. The Processing environment was used for this aspect as well, using the OpenCV framework. It took a lot of experimentation to fine-tune the threshold values in order to get the desired sensitivity. In addition, motion tracking code was implemented to maintain smooth and consistent face detection.
The two aspects – animation and sensing are communicating using OSC (open sound control) protocol.
The whole piece is an integrated audio-visual experience with sound elements tied up to the different states and behaviors of the creature.
At this point there are two main behavior modes to the creature, one being ’shy but curious’ and the other ‘totally terrified’. More modes are being explored as of writing this lines and will be implemented soon.

Presented at the ITP Spring Show 2009.

His video and art photography pieces are absolutely mind blowing and inspirational. He has an interesting approach to generative art creating amazing worlds from simple polygonal elements that grow in complexity as the time passes by, creating very colorful and hypnotic morphologies.Take a look at some of his work and have your say.

White Box from makoto yabuki on Vimeo.

AS ONE from makoto yabuki on Vimeo.

CONFINE(S) from makoto yabuki on Vimeo.

Jen Stark is a young emergent  artist who was born in Miami, FL in 1983. Her work has been exhibited extensively in many places  around the US, with solo shows in NYC, Seattle, Miami, Washington DC, and Chicago and is part of the permanent collections of MOCA North Miami and The West Collection among others. Through the use of simple paper-cutting techniques she creates complex structures. er ideas are based on replication and infinity, echoing patterns and intelligent designs found in nature like some sort of analog generative art.
Sometimes as creative people we try so hard to make provocative an inspiring work, using lots of elements and tools, but talented people like Jen ,remind us that great things can come from the most simple elements , in this case materials you can find in every elementary school.
If you want to know more about her you can check out the video below or check out her website.

The Beginning of the End / 26″ x 40″ / felt-tip pen on paper / 2009

“Reciprocal“ / 40?x40?x7? / varnished acrylic on wood / 2009

So I tried to see if I could achieve this kind of aggregations using a 4-pod element like the one I saw on that project , to do it I revisit a code I saw once at Kokkugia´s wiki about recursive aggregations and tweaked a little bit to adapt it to the 4-pod elementmentioned before. The aggregated component was modeled using T-Splines for rhino as I´ve said in other occasions is great for organic modelling.The code it´s a little buggy and generate some replications in the same places but for a one day experiment I think is ok . If you are curious of trying it out and improve it please let me know.=)

In the next days I will be posting some experiments for surface tesselations on surafces using  Grasshopper if you want to keep updated you can suscribe to my RSS Feed

Script File:RecursiveAggregation01.rvb

Rhino File :Recursive4-Pod.3dm

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