January 17th 2021
Miscellaneous & Sundries.
Happy New Year to all my readers! Apologies for not writing earlier and I do hope that you will remain in touch despite my rather long silence. For this first newsletter of the year, and as a means to make up, I’ve decided to share with you a list of recent findings and resources on creative coding and computation at large. For those who follow me on Twitter, you’ll no doubt recognise some. However, I have dug out some little nuggets from the archives of my memories. I hope they open some doors for thought and get you inspired during these challenging times.
I’m currently interested in reading more critical writings on the subject of code and computational approaches in art and design. For those out there who may have things to share, I’d love to hear from you.
Teaching & Learning
I’ve been teaching computational graphic design for almost ten years now and have a number of personal resources I’ve developed for teaching. You can consult my Designing Programs website for a general introduction. From the start of this academic year I’ve been using my Computational Graphic Design Manual as an exercise in my teachings. I hope to share some of the results from this soon along with another iteration of my Tools & Rules Course. That said, I also try to document student work with photos. You can see a selection of print based generative work that my wonderful students at ESAD Amiens produced since 2015 here and some type work here. Inge Druchrey’s Teaching to See which is followed up with an insightful text on Design Observer by Jan C.Almquist is a resource I often consult for teaching some of my courses. Maurice Meilleur’swonderful talk on Jurriaan Schrofer with a diverse selection of examples that dive deep into Schrofer’s typographical constructions. Nicolas Tilly’s stunning Web Animation resource website packed with gold nuggets of info for interaction and motion on the web.
Eye Catching Work
Andreas Gysin’s real-time interactive ASCII art playground. And for those who are even more retro, check Eric F’s Tweets. London based Studio Variable released the powerful nodes.io which beautifully mixes web technologies with a node graph interface. Since the arrival of Axidraw there seem’s to be no let up of generative drawings with this tool. #plottertwitter has become a major trend. The resource website called DrawingBots has recently launched and curates a number of artists and tools. RNDR’s Quarantine Stories and A Digital Ritual. Dance Tonight by the ever talented Jonathan Puckey and Moniker’s Speaking In Pandemic Times. Big up to Leander Herzog’s beautifully minimal web works. For graphic design fans and those who may, like me, enjoy digging into past history of elemental form and shapes, this online archive is a gem. Joel Simon’s Derivative Works presents collaged faces and let me finish off with a machine learning font.
Exhibitions & Events
Art && Code Homemade online. Immaterial/Re-material traces the history present and future of computer art. The highly critical and poetical work of Trevor Paglen’s Bloom at Pace Gallery challenges our views on algorithms. Robert Henke’s CBM8032 is a retro-modern audio visual delight, presented during the CTM festival in 2020. Alchemical by Casey Reas at Bitforms Gallery along with his recent moving image work, Compressed Cinema. Julien Gachadoat’s Lignes was well received and he continues to deliver with the Axidraw. If you are looking for more resources on exhibitions and spaces around the World then The Digital Art Museum is the place to be. The Lumen Prize 2020 winners on video is worth the watch. And to finish off with some typography, check fonts and faces.
Articles, Essays & Publications
Golan Levin and Tega Brain have just published Code as Creative Medium with MIT Press. Tyler Hobbs writes about managing social media as an artist. Sarah Myer’s West writes on AI and The Far Right: A History We Can’t Ignore. Jer Thorp’s Living in Data sees the light of day. Montreal’s magazine Espace takes a look at AI in art. Kyle McDonald has written an insightful article entitled Working With Faces presenting his numerous iterations of critical work in the field of face detection. If you want an introduction to generative AI then OpenAI has a clear article. I’ve been on the search for critical writing and recently came across Nora N. Khan’s Seeing, Naming, Knowing which is a short book on machine vision. How Does A Human Critique Art Made By AI?Consumption And The Machine by Ben Bogart. And least but certainly not last, I can highly recommend an old read (relatively speaking) but one that is full of references in line with computational practices - CreativeAI On The Democratisation & Escalation of Creativity.
That’s all from me for now but I do promise to be a little more present this year. Ideas brewing as always, it’s creating the time to make them happen that is tricky. I am always happy to hear from you and I’m responsive to email so please reach out. Reading from my readers is what I look forward to.
As a bonus for those who have read my newsletter this far, Rhizome’s Oldweb.today gives you that back in the days surfing experience. Enjoy and take care.