12:30
The concept of the artist software work camp is spreading. Piksel in Bergen has been a hit with the live visuals performers and developers, now the French city of Poitiers is host to Make Art 2006 later this month. The event is organized by the Goto 10 collective, who describe Make Art as a “festival dedicated to the integration of “free and open source” software in electronic art”.
This is an event for and by people who make stuff as well as talk about it, so expect a hands-on approach. The schedule includes a Pure Data workshop, an exhibition and a program of lectures and software presentations. Most of the tools presented tend towards applications in sound or community building.
Now what is needed is for someone to organize an open source work camp for the visual people, rallying the Processing, VVVV and Open Source Flash communities. Any takers?
I’m under the impression that there are already plenty of “software camps” for people playing with software libraries for visual synthesis: for example, you can take classes regarding Max with Jitter at Harvestworks or CNMAT, and there must be dozens of events for designers and artists interested in flash. I’ve attended several free events for PureData with GEM. I think that what’s really needed is less emphasis on restrictive high level software libraries that force users to work in a particular way (Processing and Flash immediately comes to mind), and more encouragement and resources for those of us who would take the time to develop real skill with the more powerful, low level software APIs. For example, the OpenGL, OpenComputerVision, and PortAudio libraries are all fantastic tools for artists who would prefer to work without any real limitations.
Interesting perspective. In my experience, low level is great. But high level is great too. It all depends on what skills you have, and what you want to do.
You’re right about software camps in the sense of workshops etc. What I had in mind was perhaps something more along the lines of the Piksel setup, where participants create both new tools and work created in those tools. Currently, the Processing, VVVV and Open Source Flash communities are a bit lacking in such events.