Kashiwa Sato: Interface for kashiwasato.com

It’s rare that something gets blogged on Generator.x simply because of its wow factor. There are plenty of design blogs out there to take care of that end of things. Even more rarely are “cool web sites” reported here It’s quite rare these days to see anything that’s really all that surprising in any case.

Despite all this, something just clicked when the Flash-based portfolio site of Japanese art director Kashiwa Sato came up while blogsurfing. Simultaneously minimal and gorgeously over-the-top, it has to be one of the sexiest interfaces out in a long time. The elements used might be nothing new, but the combination is unusually potent.

The front page of the site displays a large grid of projects, each listed with a title and short description. But what steals your gaze is the animated color bars over each project, combining to turn the page into a constantly moving RGB space. Each color bar contains a selection of colors from the project in question, brilliantly giving a unique visual identification. The resulting look is not just gorgeous and visually complex, it also instantly communicates a sense of Sato’s design aesthetics.

[Via Yukio Andoh]

David Dessens: *#07 video

David Dessens (see previous entry) has posted a new video called *#07 using his trademark combination of GPU shaders and mathematical formulas. As usual he manages to imbue his synthetic structures with warm organic qualities, using color and irregular forms to great effect. See also this blog post for more images.

The video is for an as-yet unnamed HD video project, and is rendered in non-realtime using VVVV. Dessens has also been experimenting with creating high resolution images for print use. It will be interesting to see how he develops this work.

David Dessens (aka Sanch): Linear / Math surface destrukt

David Dessens’ work with VVVV has been generating a lot of interest since the first appearance of his shell-like objects on the VVVV pages. With the launch of his own blog Sanch TV he displays a range of hugely impressive formal experiments, bursting with voluptuous curves and saturated color. It is proof not only of Dessens’ personal talent, but also of VVVV’s qualities as a production tool.

Most of his experiments involve the use of vertex shaders, filters that affect geometry but which are executed directly by the graphics card (GPU) rather than the computer’s internal processor (CPU). The GPU is a specialized chip dedicated purely to graphics operations, and farming out computation to it results in lightning-fast execution. Some of Dessens’ experiments are based on shader implementations of mathematical "supershape" surfaces. These meshes are then distorted and manipulated further. But even working with standard mathematical formulas as raw material, Dessens manages to produce images with a unique visual style.

At the moment Dessens’ interests lie mostly in live visuals, but it will be interesting to see how his work develops. He is currently artist-in-residence at VVVV developers Meso, which should be a guarantee of more interesting work from him in the near future.

Be sure to see Dessens’ showreel, generated purely in realtime. As an extra bonus for wannabe VVVV hackers, he also posts shaders and patches on his blog.

Tom de Smedt: Supercurly / Photobjects (done with NodeBox)

NodeBox was blogged here last year, but checking in on the project there are a number of developments that warrant an update. To refresh your memory, NodeBox is a code tool for visuals based on the Python language. It is being developed by Lucas Nijs, Frederik De Bleser and Tom De Smedt, all teachers at St-Lucas Art College, Antwerp.

Taking inspiration from Processing, NodeBox lets the user get to work coding graphics using a simplified syntax, without worrying about the underlying technology. Unlike Processing, NodeBox is based on vector graphics rather than pixels. That means that it is an excellent tool for exploring 2D graphics intended for print, and in particular typographic experiments. The exported results take the form of PDF files, ready for use in Adobe Illustrator or any professional vector graphics package. NodeBox can also export Quicktime movies for animations.

The NodeBox Gallery shows off some good-looking sketches. Tom de Smedt has published two good examples: Supercurly uses the modular font Superveloz by Andreu Balius to construct organic compositions, while Photobjects is a database of images which can be queried for images connected to certain keywords. These are then used to create randomized collages of images.

NodeBox is now up to version 1.0 release candidate 7, and is sophisticated enough to count as a real production tool. Sadly it is only available for Mac OS, but the source is released under the MIT license in case anyone wants to have a go at porting it. NodeBox is based on DrawBot by Just Van Rossum.

Related links:

• research.nodebox.net: The NodeBox research wiki.
• Trapdoor: More projects by the NodeBox team and associates.
• Replica: Even more projects and texts by the NodeBox team and associates.

Takeshi Murata: SHIFT cover, issue 085 (1 left), Melter 02 (2 right)

The veteran Japanese webmag SHIFT has impeccable taste in cover designs. Every issue has a commissioned piece by a designer or artist, who is interviewed for the magazine. Typically, they focus on digital media or motion graphics, so the covers are usually web-friendly animations or interactive pieces.

While searching for images by Takeshi Murata, I just stumbled over this gem: SHIFT cover, issue 085. It’s from December 2003, and it’s lovely. Murata made the cover in connection with his animation Melter 02 being selected for the .MOV festival in Tokyo, using the same (non-programmed) technique.

Based in LA, Murata creates “experimental and psychedelic animations” by his own description, somewhere between the disciplines of art and design. This kind of hybrid approach is typical of the LA motion graphics crowd, with some spectacular results. Designers like Geoff McFetridge, Logan, Geoff Kaplan etc. experiment with personal work and use it to develop eclectic styles. (Which then gets them hired by big companies, so it’s not all love and flowers…)

takeshimurata.com is a little thin on info, so be sure to read the SHIFT interview with Takeshi Murata and watch the Melter 02 clip.

Name: Organum

Greg Niemeyer, Ryan Shaw, and Dan Perkel’s interactive sound installation/game Organum Playtest 3.0, currently in Banff at the “Art Formerly Known as New Media” exhibition, offers an interesting example of the relationship between sound, movement, space and bodies. The exhibition, curated by Steve Dietz and Sarah Cook, will be at the Walter Philips Gallery until October 23, 2005. The Organum project has been a truly multi-media endeavor, beginning with a film, a book, and an exhibition of stills, and then moving on to the creation of a multiplayer game. On the Organum website, the project is described as “a playground for anticipated changes, adaptations and evolutions of the human body.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Ryan Alexander: K is for Killblor

Killblor? Whatever. Ryan Alexander’s delightfully eclectic sketches are back online at onecm.com after a hiatus. His work might easily be the closest thing computational design has to Steven Heller’s "Cult of the Ugly", full of things that exists just because they do.

Titled “Haha you thought it was drawings”, his collection of computational sketches display a playfulness that would make Ed Fella proud, combined with elegant yet eccentric motion. Be sure to check out his sketched artwork as well to see how he executes the same visual ideas in code, by pen or whatever comes in handy. Ryan worked for a while at Motion Theory, a LA-based motion design company who have used custom software solutions (often done in Processing) for a number of motion pieces for groups like R.E.M., Papa Roach etc. Now he’s at Hello Logan, a seriously great outfit co-founded by mad Russian genius Alexei Tylevich.

Storynest: Keats

A list of interesting projects with links to their authors’ websites for further exploration.

Ixi software

Ixi software is a collective of artists that have created numerous small software projects for interactive music composition using novel graphical interfaces built on visual programming platforms such as Python, Processing/Java, Director and Flash. Both the sound generation (in Pure Data and Supercollider) and graphical interfaces employ algorithmic and generative strategies. Their agenda is to create non-musical interfaces, that is, interfaces which do not reference traditional musical cultural heritage. They state:

Mark Pursey: Drivey

The first information you’ll read on the drivey.com web site is: “NOTE: It’s not yet a game — just a graphical demo!” While that’s certainly true, Drivey is a pretty sexy demo. So sexy, it got slashdotted and went down for a while due to bandwidth constraints.

Put simply, Drivey is a Windows executable that puts you behind the wheel of an anonymous fast car, zooming down a monochromatic 3D road environment complete with street lights and overpasses. It’s completely computationally generated, and very smoothly at that. So what’s the link to generative design? Well, the use of negative space is very nice indeed…