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left: Blossfeldt Fractals (detail) - William Ngan & Right: Crystalpunk Automaton - Wilfried Hou Je Bek
Metaphorical brings to us a new work based on the photographs of Karl Blossfeldt and generated using a species of algorithm similar to L-Systems. Check out the dynamically generated Blossfeldt Fractals here, you can also read about the [...]

Originally by paul from dataisnature.com on November 8, 2006, 10:43am

In a special edition of El Pais Digital reporting the Arco festival in 2001, the Spanish artist Ricardo Iglesias, one of the net art pioneers in his country, said that nothing or almost nothing (”only cliché”) can be said about net art in five or six lines. However he mentioned a series of isolated topics that

Originally from Neural.it :: media culture, hacktivism on March 7, 2007, 4:34pm

How does generative art relate to semiotic? Does the randomic association between the signifier and the signified blur the process of meaning construction? If you adehere to the interpretative perspective, that includes the context as well as the interpreteur as parts of the communication process, it doesn’t.

Originally from Neural.it :: media culture, hacktivism on February 27, 2007, 7:28am

‘Rediscover analog’ sounds like the guideline for many contemporary digital artists who research in the audio-visual field. Combining this attitude with the desire of going over the limits imposed by a specific technology you get a project like ‘Synchronator‘, analog sound and video signal hacking by Dutch artists Bas van Koolwijk and Gert-Jan Prins. The duo,

Originally from Neural.it :: media culture, hacktivism on February 25, 2007, 6:08pm

In a supposed free-speech society, control over public spaces is paradoxically becoming tighter and tighter and advertising looks more and more like propaganda. Surrounded by ads communicating always the same messages, people are getting used to such a standard. Art then intervenes to alert

Originally from Neural.it :: media culture, hacktivism on March 22, 2007, 11:27am

After investigating on ’semantic capitalism’ and ‘taylorisation of speech’ with the project ‘Google Adwords’, Christophe Bruno reflects on the economic dynamics of collective hallucination. According to the French net artist “The Web, specifically in its version 2.0, is an implementation of control

Originally from Neural.it :: media culture, hacktivism on March 19, 2007, 5:45am

Spin Cycle by Spencer Kiser is a turntable that allows the user to navigate color and aural spaces. It’s a plain ordinary turntable, surmounted by a webcam. On the same turntable, there are some colored plexiglass discs (shoot by the camera). Depending on chromatic combinations and on the dj’s juxtapositions, sounds are produced. During

Originally from Neural.it :: media culture, hacktivism on March 13, 2007, 3:34am

Stringlattice() (detail) & Matrix() (detail)
Reese Inman uses computer algorithms to provide a map or blueprint for the construction of her paintings. Like a freeze frame from Conway’s Game of Life, and intricate mappings of other rare Cellular Automata, her paintings shimmer with pixillated light. From afar its is possible to imagine the final output [...]

Originally by paul from dataisnature.com on March 26, 2007, 3:31am

Circular Tensions, Homage to Oskar Fischinger - Harry Smith
Donjuanauxenfers has uploaded ‘Early Abstractions’ a cycle of early experimental films and animations by the great Harry Smith. There are a number of short individual films on the compilation although they are presented as one long stream in this context.
Part 1 contains three films that are [...]

Originally by paul from dataisnature.com on November 16, 2006, 7:31am

This is the first post in a new section which looks at heroes and instigators of computer and video art. The series will begin with Lillian Schwartz.

Lillian Schwartz is a pioneer of computer generated art. A trained illustrator and painter, she began experimenting with the computer as a tool for the creation and manipulation of works of art. Throughout the seventies and eighties she created numerous visionary films exploring abstract computer animation usually with killer soundtracks. Over this time she collaborated with other talents such as Kenneth Knowlton, John Claude Risset and Max Mathews as well as other leading scientists, engineers, physicists, and psychologists and developed work with Bell Labs and Experiments with Art and Technology (EAT).



I was lucky enough to see many of her outstanding works at Lovebytes festival many years ago and again in Leeds at the Evolution festival a couple of years later. Her work is often incredibly playful and defined an abstract aesthetic which celebrates computer imagery on its own terms.

“Speaking from my own experience, it depends on my mood at the time of editing images into their final film form that decisions as to which of the many elements are brought out of their general order, out of their appointed array, and raised together to a new order and form.
Even among the more recent artists Delacroix, Cezanne, and Matisse, the same desire for system and regularity for an ordered universe seem to dominate.”

Lumen Arts and curator Greg Kurcewicz have put together a touring film and video programme of her work - A Beautiful Virus Inside the Machine - which is still shown occasionally.

Look out for it if it passes through a town near you…..

Originally from seen on March 21, 2006, 6:58pm

Lately i have become interested in perlin noise, a function which attempts to construct randomly varied values which mimic the naturally ocurring randomness of nature. Many natural phenomena display this random variation from the waves in the ocean to the distribution of grass on a field. Developed by Ken Perlin who used it to control the texture generation in TRON, it is now used in computer graphic applications to produce effects such as fire and clouds.


an example of perlin noise to create natural environments
rendered with terragen

Using the software VVVV i have been experimenting with perlin noise - rendering it onto a grid and controlling it with oscillators.

when moving they appear as natural waves with slowly evolving patterns. Its remarkable how human eyes see nature in numbers.
In future i intend to develop the process to produce a controllable morphing landscape synth.

more pics to follow….

Originally from seen on March 15, 2006, 1:22pm

Went to the Vasulka exhibition at VIVID in Birmingham.
Lots of video goodness - No 54, Artifacts, C-Trend, Violin Power and The Art of Memory all stood out.

Violin Power

Remember theres more to come - Part 2 will focus on their installation art and features Theatre of Hybrid Automata and Machine Vision.ont>
It runs from 13th April until 6th May at Vivid.

Theatre of Hybrid Automata

There will also be a talk and workshop by the Vasulkas in April.
More details to follow….

Originally from seen on March 20, 2006, 1:40pm

Going to birmingham tomorrow to visit VIVID
They are showing a series of films by Woody and Steina Vasulka

“Steina and Woody Vasulka are widely acknowledged to be leading exponents in the field of media art. Their body of work is unique; spanning the entire range of formats and confirgurations of electronic media; single and multiple screen video, live performance, real time processing, installation and interactive technology. From an historical view point (insofar as we can consider the short history of media art) their contribution is evolutionary.”

The film screening which finishes on Saturday is part one of an ongoing exhibition.
Part two consists of exhibtions of their installations and culminates in a talk hosted by the artists, followed by a pratical workshop exploring interactivity.
Ive just banged my application in the mail. Fingers crossed.

Originally from seen on March 16, 2006, 5:48pm

Over the coming months ill be posting a lot of images from my explorations with the fantastic software - vvvv from Meso.

“vvvv is a toolkit for real time video synthesis. It is designed to facilitate the handling of large media environments with physical interfaces, real-time motion graphics, audio and video that can interact with many users simultaneously. “

It is a modular programming environment with similarities to Max/Msp except its pc only, and free, with a supportive group of practitioners and healthy development scene.

At the moment im mainly learning from hacking existing patches apart and together but as i learn more ill be posting the results and resources up here. For now a few screenshots from my exisiting experiments……..

Originally from seen on March 16, 2006, 5:08pm

CD + dvd C0C0S0L1DC1T1
The beginning of the first video works by Julio Soto, ‘The Possibility Of Utopia’, looks like taken from Peter Cook’s radical project ‘Plug City’ or from another artwork shown at the famous Archigram exhibition in 1973. It’s a very imaginative meta-narration that takes place in the unknown

Originally from Neural.it :: media culture, hacktivism on March 9, 2007, 4:53am

Absolutely loving flickr at the moment. Finally digital photography gets its viewing medium.
Heres some recent finds……

Primary and Circular by Joshua Blankenship

Bouganvillia-Close by fr and unknown by i forgot

To the left from Grant Hamilton’s amazing Geometries set

Scarborough, Clayton Bay, Sand 9 and 10 by Seen fave Trek Eye

Originally from seen on May 3, 2006, 6:00pm

2 images from Untitled Gray Ground series 1973 acrylic on linen

During the seventies, Mark Wilson actively exhibited paintings and drawings in New York. His style featured geometric imagery with a distinctly technological flavor. Upon purchasing a computer in the eighties he has refined and expanded his approach to plotted and printed works controlled by software he created.

Untitled 1982 plotter drawing

CTME20 1986 plotter painting

He uses a technique that he calls ‘pixel mapping’, which is a way of solving the problem, inherent in the early graphic displays, of the mis-match between the display and the plotted print. The plotter is capable of addressing a hugely greater number of points on a large sheet of paper, than the computer screen can display, providing at the same time the potential for much subtler line and area. By using the pixels on screen to represent whole geometrical elements, such as squares or circles, rather than a single dot, Wilson has created his own technique and visual language.

CSQ856 2005 archival ink jet print

With the recent development of Archival Ink Jet printing Mark has been able to create images of increasing complexity and definition.

Originally from seen on April 20, 2006, 1:26pm

Quaternion Julia Set Fractals are a special group of fractals which exist in the 4th dimension. They are an extension of the traditional julia set fractals except they use 4 dimensional numbers as opposed to two dimensional.

When rendered they produce unworldy movements and shapes with a complex ever changing geometry which can be explored and transformed by changing the input of the equation.
Thorsten Fleischs film Gestalt blew me away when i first saw it as it explores this landscape of bizarre shapes and transformations. He also wrote a fantastic text introducing this hypothetical dimension.

Gestalt Thorsten Fleisch

Recently Tonfilm has created a patch for vvvv using code by Keenan Crane which renders Quaternion Fractals completely the pixel shaders of modern computer graphics cards.
I have been experimenting with this patch and have started posting the results on sisterblog SVVN

Originally from seen on April 12, 2006, 3:36pm

Going to VIVID tomorrow to see the talk by the Vasulkas in anticipation of our workshop with them on Friday.

All Vision Steina Vasulka 1972

There is also an ongoing exhibiton fo some of the couples installation based work - including Machine Vision, The Brotherhood Series and Theatre of Hybrid Automata. Exhibition runs 13th April - 6th May, Wed-Sat, 12 - 5.30pm.
Should be amazing - ill update on the contents of the visit next week.

Originally from seen on April 12, 2006, 3:28pm

Mutations, Lillian Schwartz and Dream Work, Peter Tscherkassky

More moving image treats in store for Leeds residents this month with another Olson event.
The program this time features work by Martin Arnold, Peter Kubelka, Peter Tscherkassky, Lillian Schwartz and various others in the comfy confines of the Hyde Park Picture house in LS6.

Cibernetik 5.3 John Stehura

Im particularly looking forward to a rare screening of Cibernetik 5.3 by John Stehura.
“Perhaps the first digital computer animated movie ever made and probably the only example of an artificial Intelligence used to simulate a filmmaker. An IBM 7094 computer, after being instructed in genetics and graphics, generated approximately 50 billion machine instructions to design the first 2/3’s of the film.”
In the early 60’s work on Cibernetik 5.3 was inspired by the discovery of DNA by Watson and Crick – the algorithms used to animate the primitive shapes were based on genetic modelling. In evolving spatial environments shapes come into being, organisms made of light.

The screening is on April 23 2006 12 - 2pm , what better way to spend a sunday dinnertime.

These guys really know their films - and also provide a delectable selection of free cake to enjoy whilst watching the entertainment - superb!

Originally from seen on April 1, 2006, 10:34am