In the words of Dr. Frankenstein, “It’s Alive! It’s Alive!”

It’s taken a week of fooling about with the language but finally my organism kind of lives! The code is commented below:

Okay its been like a week since i last updated this but have had some serious commitments! Anyhow now im back and its time to kick bottom! My organism project is coming along swimmingly, time for a quick update!

Firstly :

We found some live, changing xml data! This was proving to be a bit of a problem as most xml sources consist of text rather than values, until I remembered the arch-os data! This takes data from Portland Square on the University of Plymouth campus, relevant to network traffic, the visual camera systems and other data sources!

Info on this can be found at http://www.arch-os.com.

The raw data can be seen here:  http://arch-os.scce.plymouth.ac.uk/xml_data.php?source=all_vis.

Secondly:

Deciding on a graphical interpretation of this data in a truly artistic form! This was relatively simple as Chris Speed really liked an image of concentric circles we presented a few weeks ago! Now just to represent this in processing. Could be a while til this is perfect!

Thirdly:

Processing, a week ago this would’ve seemed alien to me but after a week of a back engineering, playing around and many hours spent looking at the reference section on the processing website things are finally making sense! I can finally load the arch-os, Portland Square, into processing!

Well processing is a lot harder than i thought and i have pretty much no previous with java, but a few things are starting to fall in place. Ive tried looking a the source for a few of the exhibition pieces and reckon i should be able to understand most of it soon but thats only half the battle, figuring out how this organism will react to certain data needs to really still be defined. Really need to meet up with simon but this weeks not really to good for me time wise. We’ll see how it goes.

Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is developed by artists and designers as an alternative to proprietary software tools in the same domain.

From the processing site(processing.org)

Well as i said before we raided the library for some artistic insperation and found some! The most important is at the top

Colour Circles

Binary Colours

Woke up this morning feeling as groggy as an irish man after st patricks, somehow managed to stumble to baabbage 221 to see Chris Speed at 9.30 about this project. He seemed to like our idea adn doing a quick search of the library art section has provided us with some artistic direction for the project. Will try to get some copies up here soon.

Chris recomended a little java based programing application called “processing”. I recommend giving it a quick look especially the exhibition pages(www.processing.org). So after searching for processor for ages managed to find it and download it.

Now just need to learn java! I think ill be looking at the source code of some other projects first.

Well time to get reunited with my most favourite of drinks, STELLA. Gotta try stay on track.
Today i met up with simon in the roundabout and tried to hash out a few ideas over a few pints. We actually got quite a bit done progressing from idea to idea quick quickly building upon a single idea. ! THE USE OF LIVE XML DATA! Now i know you’re probably thinking “wow! xml thats exciting” but just hold your horses.

Xml can just as exciting as a tamagotchi, well thats lying a bit but just wait. The basics of our idea is to take live streaming xml data, of a particualr source i.e. a radio playlist, from the web and visualise it using flash to creat aspecific reaction. I know its not much but one small idea can change the world, or something to that effect.

Something is born, or so they say! Anyhow back to this organism of mine, looking at the brief scared me half to death but hopefully something will be born. Brainstorming has never been a great pleasure for me but this time it really helped sort things out for me.

A lifeform doesnt have to eat, sleep and feel in a physical way, they can all be transposed into other type of behavior. In many ways you can see this blog as an organism, i.e. it eats when i feed it a new post and it sleeps when no one reads it. Most things can be stripped down into the basics of an organism. Thats about it for now but going to go for a few pints with simon soon and try sort something out. Who knows this could actually be fun!

Ever been thrown in at the deep end? Then you’re probably felling how i did on Tuesday morning! What makes it worse is the fact that drinking all night at Oceana and not really sleeping at all, gave me the worse hangover ever!!!!

Anyhow on to the organism project, well being hungover while listening to the brief didnt really help but my understanding of it is to create a virtual life-form that thrives of off some form of indirect user interaction! I.E. NO BUTTONS!

Just in case that confuses you here’s the actual brief:

Working in pairs generate “a living creature in structure, behavior, etc…”. The final organism should be a form of interactive media, able to work on any platform from mobile, desktop, internet, ipod etc. The intention is to make the organisms accessible on a web site so the shockwave movie should be embedded in its own web page. This will have a dramatic effect on the size of your organism, be realistic.

The rational behind this exercise?:

A: to generate a problem which is not technology driven, i.e. the idea drives the project. You should not start working on the computer until the ‘life forms’ spec is generated. You will then have to find ways of realising it within the limits of the technology.

B: to force you to consider a truly timebased, multidimensional, interactive problem. A life form needs to feed and be fed, sleep, move, multiply, expel waste etc. It will be sensitive to certain conditions and have a life expectancy. Do not use buttons, instead concentrate on a process of interactions. In defining a life form do not fall into the trap of using cartoon characters, question existing models, redefine and innovate! What is digital life?

Make what you will of that!

Welcome to the inner workings of my head! In this blog will followthe ideas, complaints, thoughts and documentation for my IDAT 204 module! This will show the timeline of my transformation from a nervous wreck to a confident media designer! Well hopefully!!!!!