WEEK 1
jan 30

Screen: John Simon, Matthew Ritchie

AIC visit, 3:15pm

Introduction
What is programming?

Concepts: Basic syntax and structure of Lingo. Properties, random number function, comments, basic conditional. See LINGO handout 1.

Demo: 1)Brick wall drawing problem

Single-pixel drawing animation in Lingo

Homework: Lingo #1, Emulate. Build a software emulator that defines a process of composition. Your emulator will recreate elements of an artwork you like. EG, Animate a painting---be prepared to show the original "inspiration". See Mondrian example.

Ideas: El Lissitzky, Piet Mondrian, Jenny Holtzer, Sol Lewitt, quilters of Gee's Bend, Mayan textiles, Chinese porcelain patterns...

Read:
1) Casey Reas, "Programming Media," available online here.

2) Casey Reas on "Software Structures"

SUGGESTED: Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad, New Media Reader, p.109-117 (on reserve at Flaxman).

Casey Reas review: http://www.artificial.dk/articles/reas.htm

WEEK 2
feb 6

Screen: Casey Reas's Software Structures commission

Concepts: Using Lingo variables and conditionals-with and/or. See LINGO handout 2. Variables, and arrays demoed.

Demo: 1) Single-pixel drawing animation in Lingo using variables and conditionals

Homework: Art emulator due WEEK 3 for critique.

Read:
1) Skim this week's entries on Chris Ashley's web blog for ideas on how to construct an electronic sketchbook. Since March 2000 Ashley has posted writing and a HTML drawing to a weblog nearly daily, and since July 2002 has posted an HTML drawing everyday.

Choose a reading: A or B

(A) ALGORITHMS  AND THE ARTIST by Roman Verostko (1994).

(B) "Metaphorical Mappings: The Art of Visualization," by Donna J. Cox, in Aesthetic Computing (MIT Press, 2006)
edited by Paul A. Fishwick.

SUGGESTED: Read The History of Computer Programming Languages, online.

WEEK 3
feb 13

Critique:
Lingo #1
Emulate

Screen: Many Eyes website, and other visualization projects

Concepts: Using variables/fields to store data, using lists to store data (Lingo)

See Lingo handout 3.

Demo: Custom brush making using editable text fields, arrays, interactive slider

Demo: Temperature drawing with interactive slider

Homework: Lingo #2: Information visualization. Design a visual algorithm to display data gathered from a sensor, the net, or an interactive slider. (2 week assignment, due WEEK 5)

IDEAS:
1) Temperature: Create your own animation using editable text fields to set attributes of drawing object that creatively shows temperature in celsius and farenheit.

2) Carbon dioxide: Create and algorithm to draw the amont of greenhouse gas in the air.

3) Weather: Create a drawing with an interactive slider that allows the user to control a drawing that displays any of the following: local temperature, windspeed, barometric pressure, etc. 

Read:

Martin Wattenburg, Introduction to Visualization: From data to pictures to insight (2005)

WEEK 4
feb 21

Concepts: Using external or environmental data to modify a drawing. Also, modularity-Writing a custom handler in Lingo. Demo Week 4.

Demo: 1) Making a drawing from light (EZIO board) 2) Making a drawing from temperature (Vernier probes)

Optional: Using web data to modify a drawing, using the getnettext handler using Lingo. Demo Week 5.

Homework: Lingo #2: DataViz. Design a visual algorithm to display data gathered from a sensor, the net, or an interactive slider. Due WEEK 5.

Read:

Matthew Fuller, Behind the Blip: Software as Culture. pp. 11-37. Available online here. Also, this reading is available on portal.

Optional (but HIGHLY recommended):

Ben Fry's dissertation: Computational Information Design (temporarily available on portal)

WEEK 5
feb 27

Critique:
Lingo #2
DataViz

Concepts: Video-tracking in Director; multiple demos of drawing using computer vision

Homework: Lingo #3: Installation proposal with computer vision. Collaborate with one other individual in the class to develop a concept for an interactive media wall that utilizes computer vision in some way. The content of the media wall and the method of interaction is your decision. Ideas will be presented via your websites. Please include a list of what your software would need to "do" to run the piece.

Read:
Golan Levin's "Vision" (on portal)

Optional:
Interview with Myron Krueger by CTheory

Harold Cohen, Coloring Without Seeing

WEEK 6
march 6

Discussion:
Lingo #3: Computer vision

Concepts: Introduction to Processing; coordinates, drawing graphic primitives, drawing attributes; time functions; how to comment scripts.

Demo: Drawing primitives with Processing; Processing 1

Homework: Processing #1, Time: Design a drawing that tells you the time in hours, minutes and seconds without text. COMMENT YOUR CODE. (1 week project only). CLICK FOR EXAMPLE.

Share: Bring an example (URL) of an artwork you love that is made with code.

Read:
1) Processing Defined by Josh Nimoy and also available at this link here.

2) Software Structures project map by Casey Reas and Reas's open statement

WEEK 7
march 13

Critique: Processing #1, Time

Concepts: Processing variables and datatypes; conditional statements; mouse and key interactivity, video capture.

Demo: Processing 2

Homework: Processing #2, Interact. Create a simple interactive animation from either a grabbed video frame or image in Processing. In your sketch use a function that we have not covered in class and be prepared to explain its use. Due WEEK 8. SEE CLASS DEMO ON INTERACTION FUNCTIONS.

Reading: selection from Digital Biology
by Peter J. Bentley; topic: genetic algorithms

Optional:
Wikipedia, OOP programming

WEEK 8
march 20

10:30am, visit to the AIC Prints and Drawings collection

Critique: Processing #2, Interact

Discuss: genetic algorithms and programming

Concepts: Processing iteration; while and for loops; control: moving shapes on and off screen; custom function; recursion

Discussion: Genetic algorithms

Demo: Processing 3

Homework: Processing #3, Pattern. Develop a pattern (animated or static) based on a texture or form found in nature or in the city. Due Week 9. CLICK FOR EXAMPLE.

Read:

"Viewers Make Meaning," in Practices of Looking: An introduction to visual culture, Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, Oxford University Press, 2002,p.45-70.

Browse: Activist knitting software : Cat Mazza's Knit Pro (skim through website)

WEEK 9
march 27

Critique: Processing #3, Pattern

Concepts: Processing arrays; also functions: return type, function name, parameters, classes, constructors

Example: Class Demo I

Demo: Processing 4

Homework: Processing #4; CodeDoc assignment/Connect three "points" in space

Screen: CodeDoc at the Whitney Artport

Read: CodeDoc curatorial statement and look at exhibition.

WEEK 10
april 3

Critique: Processing #4, CodeDoc

Concepts: Classes, Processing debugging; message board etiquette.

Demo: Processing 5

Processing 6

Homework: Processing #5; Edit and streamline. Refine any of your Processing sketches by incorporating a custom function or class.

OR

Create an animation that visualizes any form of information. Ideas: see the Many Eyes site for sample data. SEE WEATHER/TEMP APPLET.

Read: Lev Manovich, Data Visualisation as New Abstraction and Anti-Sublime, (2002). You have to find the article and click to download the word doc.

Optional:
Edward R. Tufte and the
Computer Literacy Bookshops Interview, 1994-1997

The Median Isn't the Message by Stephen Jay Gould

WEEK 11
april 10

guest, 1:15 pm, Kirsten Johannsen, "algorithms, art, and space"

Discuss: Processing #4: Revise

Open for suggestion; PM studio work on final projects

WEEK 12
april 17

(holmes in montreal)

Studio work on final projects; No class in 416.

CRITIQUE WEEK may 1

CLASS MAKE UP for 4/17; graduate critique week

WEEK 14
may 8

No class May 3rd (Critique Week).

Final critique May 10th Room 416.