mouse
this sketch started out as a splatter effect, which was triggered whenever the mouse rapidly switched directions. at first the splatter particles were just generated, but then i gave them a velocity of double the mouse's velocity. then, while tinkering with the code to trigger the particles, i accidentally wrote it such that they were triggered every frame, and i liked the result so much that i left it that way.
launch applet
drips was inspired by the awesome projector-bombing projects the folks over at the Graffiti Research Lab have been working on. without a 4,000 lumens projector, however, i am forced to project my awesome doodles in a dark room, all alone, and then cry myself to sleep afterwards.
launch flash
one of my earlier flash experiments, which shows my love of circles, in all their varied forms. there are seven nodes and seven circles. each node is both the center of one circle, and a point on the perimeter of another. grab the nodes, throw them around, and watch the circles go crazy.
launch flash
another flash piece involving circles, or rather, sections of them. this one was inspired by those cheap plastic spinny toys, where LEDs blinking at different frequencies create nifty patterns.
launch flash
audio in
catapults is similar to waterfall, but differs in how the particles are arranged. instead of each emitter being tied to a specific frequency, it's tied to a volume level. because size and velocity are also dependent on volume, particles follow similar paths, creating a consistent overall pattern, in contrast to waterfall's fluid appearence.
launch applet
waterfall evolved out of spatter, when i started toying around by making it audio-reactive. each point on the sides of the sketch are tied to a specific frequency, lower frequencies at the bottom, higher at the top. each point emits particles, whose size and velocity are dependent on the volume of the signal in that point's associated frequency.
launch applet
most audio-responsive artworks are focused only on the present moment - they have little, if any, representation of temporal patterns in the music. seismograph is a very simple piece conceptually, but it presents the structure and organization of music effectively. i find it really neat to see how certain band's music will have a consistent visual appearance, and how things like slides, vibrato, and different instruments will look.
launch applet
this was my first processing project, and as such, i didn't have much of a goal in mind when i started it, other than to become familiary with the language. the shifting shape in the middle was a result of fooling around with the 3D drawing methods and the push/pop matrix functions. i added audio-reactivity to figure out how to use the sonia sound library (it has since been rewritten to use the ess library, which is now what i use for sound manipulation in processing). a good way to get a cool effect out of this is to feed in some music with a good bass line (such as portishead or massive attack), turn off the shifter, and watch the circles move with the bass.
launch applet
video in
the impetus for this project came from watching people take long-exposure photographs of firedancers - they looked cool, but everything but the path of the fire was lost. with this sketch, i hoped to be able to illustrate the trails, while keeping the motion of the dancers. this version can only use webcam images as input - so if you don't have a webcam, it won't work.
launch applet
auto
snowdrift is named after what inspired it. while cross-country skiing one day, i paused by the side of the trail. since there's so much snowfall on mt. hood, the trails had been more or less plowed through the snow, giving the trail a waist-high wall on one side. the top of the wall was quite similar to a sine wave, only less regular, and the image stuck with me.
launch applet
i think wanderers is best described as the strange love child of an etch-a-sketch and a lite-brite. it was based on some of my doodlings of the loop-de-loop symbol on the command keys of apple keyboards. initially, the wanderers could turn at any point, but later i added a constraint to give it the more pleasing grid arrangement.
launch applet
this sketch is a variation of wanderers - the code itself is almost identical. i only made two alterations - i removed the circles, and reduced the spacing of the grid that confines the wanderers - yet its visual appearance is radically changed. at first it looks a lot like an atlas or city map, but after it's been running for a while, it turns into something very organic, with an overall structure similar to clouds or perlin noise. what i find most interesting about this is that every instance has the same start point and end point - it's really just a terribly inefficient method of filling the screen with a pattern. what makes it visually intriguing are the states in between its beginning and end.
launch applet
as patchwork is a variation of wanderers, so is moss a variation of patchwork. first, i completely removed the constraint on the wanderer's motions. second, and more important, instead of starting the wanderers in an even arrangement, they're all thrown in the middle. they work their way towards the edge of the image in a slow progression reminiscent of a creeping mold.
launch applet