IMG_8477.CR2, originally uploaded by jason.mcdermott.Worlds Collide happened on Sunday night at the Wall in Kings Cross, along with an updated installation of my pixeltag project. The night was a lot of fun and pixeltag was very well received, so all’s well that ends well!Tony Curran was kind enough to invite me to exhibit on the night and I was more than happy to oblige. I’d been looking to make some changes to the pixeltag project after Real Perspective closed at Tap Gallery in mid-January. Whilst being pleased that pixeltag got off the ground for Tap, I wanted to take it further – adding things like transparency, gravity and higher resolution. Previously all the programming had lived inside a Max/MSP patch, but lately I’ve been seriously considering some changes to my virtual repertoire.With this in mind, I made the rather ambitious plan to re-program pixeltag for Worlds Collide using Processing (which I had only briefly touched before), all within the space of a week! I’ve posted previously about my baby steps and early processing sketches that were forming the basis of my knowledge of how Processing works, and I’ll be blogging in more depth regarding the helping hands I had in putting the project together again from scratch, but suffice it to say after a couple of solid days learning and reprogramming, pixeltag came together better than I expected it to!The project saw a large audience at the Wall, with many people having the chance to play with the system. The updated pixeltag had additional features such as object-specific gravity and opacity parameters, all of which lead to a far greater dynamic in creating drawings on the fly.More images from the night are to come, as well as perhaps another installation in the near future.
Archive for January 2009
pixelTag Revisited
Here are a few screenshots of the latest and greatest for the pixelTag project.I’ve taken the time to port some of the interaction and visualisation out of Max/MSP into Processing. So far the button presses are working fine as well as the r/g/b/a colour selection options and the size choice.pixelTag will be unleashed on an unsuspecting public on Sunday night as part of Worlds Collide at the Wall in Darlinghurst.
pixelTag, as exhibited at Tap Gallery, 2008.
pixelTag, using input from wii remote in Max/MSP + output from Processing.
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Processing Sketches
I’ve gone crazy overnight, writing out as many of the sketch examples included in Dan Shiffman’s Learning Processing book~So far I’ve worked my way through to chapter 5 (of 23) and so far it’s still making sense!Some of the sketch exercises I’ve completed are inserted below;
Not exactly life changing so far, but it’s good to get my hands dirty experimenting with various types of mouse/key interaction with the sketches. I’ve got until Sunday to put some more work into getting the pixelTag project written up as a max/msp processing monster – we’ll see how that goes 
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Baby Steps
I’ve started from scratch, learning Processing using Dan Shiffman’s handy book Learning Processing.Above is the first little creation from the book, a little creature called Zoog, which I’ll be wiring up to respond to mouse clicks and all kinds of computer interactivity. It’s not much to start with, but it’s fun to get my hands dirty with Processing and learn some coding fundamentals.Anybody who’s interested in meeting Zoog can make him too, just copy + paste the following into a Processing sketch;
void setup() {size(593,225); // this is for image size considerations, nothing else!smooth();}void draw() {background(255);// set moderectMode(CENTER);ellipseMode(CENTER);// Body// rect(x1,y1,width,height);stroke(0);fill(135,181,209);rect(100,100,20,100);// Head// ellipse(x1,y1,width,height);fill(255);ellipse(100,70,60,60);// Eyesstroke(0);fill(0);ellipse(85,70,10,20);ellipse(115,70,10,20);// Legs// line(x1,y1,x2,y2);line(90, 150, 80, 160);line(110, 150, 120, 160);// Armsline(90, 110, 70, 120);line(110, 110, 130, 120);}
I’m looking to take Processing as far as possible, whilst being fully aware of it’s live performance abilities. So far Max/MSP owns the live performance aspects of my work, but I’d like to take things a little bit further and combine realtime interaction with some more considered string/array logging/analysing capabilities. I’ll be posting future updates on my baby steps into Processing, so watch this space.
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Pivot
IMG_8230.CR2, originally uploaded by jason.mcdermott.Pivot played last Thursday night at Beck’s Festival Bar in the Hyde Park Barracks, as a supporting act for Metronomy.Having only recently discovered this Sydney 3 piece, I was blown away by their intense live set and furiously innovative sound.Highly recommended!
