Once, digital image editing was a fringe medium. Now, almost everyone who uses a computer does basic image editing. So, I’m pleased to get to talk today at Macworld Expo about live visuals and reactive/interactive animation. I chose some relatively simple examples since time was short, just to cover the basics. I think some of these might be useful to people at the show and away from it, so I’ll share them here.

Visualism 101

DJs and computer musicians have turned electronic and electrical music into live, improvisatory forms. Likewise, motion graphics, video, and animation are evolving from being exclusively linear, pre-composed works into reactive, interactive, and performative media. This medium is so new that there’s no name for it yet. You’ll hear about video artists, a tradition extending back to innovative visionaries like Nam June Paik. But “video” is only one of a number of media now at the digital artists’ disposal, from lighting to digital animation and 3D graphics. (Nam June Paik certainly didn’t fit so narrow a category, as a composer, artist, and performer.) You’ll hear “interactive designers”, but to most people that means website interfaces. And you’ll hear “VJs”, but that suggests people mixing two to four channels of pre-rendered video, as a DJ would with sound. (And it could mean a host on MTV)

All of these terms are useful in cases. But at Create Digital Motion, we prefer the term “visualist”, for artists whose love of live visual media crosses these arbitrary boundaries.

Visualism Examples

Visualism extends to a broad variety of artists. Here are just a few to whet your appetite:

1. Toshio Iwai: Mixing art and gaming. Tenori-On interactive music controller, ICE Installation, Tokyo. Toshio Iwai understands the way gaming interactions have become a part of our culture, and has become a hero to musicians and visualists on this site for his forward-thinking approach to digital media.
2. Daniel Shiffman, NYU: Transforming video into 3D worlds and back again. Interactive installations translating motion into particle systems. (Dan is also a reader of this site, so, hi, Dan!)
3. Nikolai Cornell: Futuristic installations. Nikolai’s interactive mirror proves how powerful a few simple, inexpensive sensors can be when used artfully.
4. ART+COM: Computational art. Reimagining computation and data itself as beautiful, ART+COM is one of a growing generation of artists whose work is helping digital media to change rapidly.

That’s not even getting into the enormous range of VJs and visual performers. A number of us will be sharing our work Thursday night at Macworld, including renowned VJ Grant Davis.

Links to Tools

I routinely browse through the tags here on CDM just to see what topics have come up regarding a certain app or piece of gear:

Quartz Composer
Flash
Processing
Max/MSP/Jitter

If you want free/open source tools, here are some important resources:

Quartz Composer (I set up a simple blog for a class I was teaching)
(Boot Camp / virtualized Windows users) FlashDevelop (see also their official site)
Processing.org
Arduino sensor interface
Open Source Flash

Pd (Pure Data) (Pure Data is the open source cousin of Max/MSP/Jitter)

And lastly, the primary resources for the two tools with which I spent the most time today:

Adobe Flash Developer Center
Apple Introduction to Quartz Composer Programming Guide

I’m also developing online curricula on some of these subjects; the place to watch will remain this site. Thanks to everyone who came, and feel free to comment here publicly or contact me directly via this site’s contact form.

I’m here in San Francisco all week at Macworld, a hub not only for the Mac platform but the visualist/VJ scene as well. I’ll be reporting all week (and next, as I catch up) for both CDMotion and CDMusic. This is a huge chance to learn about Flash (Flashforward is hosting a special Macworld edition), as well as Jitter, Processing, Quartz Composer, and Motion, some of which you can catch at a free event/party Thursday night even if you don’t have a Macworld badge.

And, of course, over the next two weeks and beyond I’ll be exporting as much of this goodness to the CDMs so everyone can enjoy it.

I’ll be around all week, but here are the events in which I’m personally involved (Cross-posting this from CDMusic; feel free to catch me at any event):

Tuesday

11:30 AM Zoom-In Podcast Recording: I put on my pundit hat and get to pontificate about whatever it is Steve has planned for Apple’s shindig tomorrow. I’ll have a link to the finished show.

1-1:45 PM Real World Digital Audio at Peachpit Press: I’ll be doing a short, free demo and Q&A for my book Real World Digital Audio at the Peachpit booth. Check out the full event schedule at Peachpit, as it looks like a really terrific lineup. Graham Nash (yes, he of Crosby, Stills &, Crosby Stills … & Young and Crosby & fame) will even be there, though talking digital photography, not music. (Peachpit has a huge lineup of CDMotion-friendly books, so I may be cramming a few into my suitcase and offering reviews and interviews with the authors soon!)

Wednesday

11 AM-12:15 PM Playful Animation and Motion Graphics that React: I’ll be talking interactive visuals and VJing from video to animation, with examples in Jitter, Processing, and Flash. This requires a User Conference or better badge to attend. (Stay tuned for more resources here on Motion.)

6 PM - 2 AM Backlit Lounge Music Party: Create Digital Music will be co-sponsoring Backlit Lounge, a regular music event in SF that features a number of CDM readers. I’ll play a feature set at 10pm, likely to be Ableton Live-based with some keys. Free to everyone — no Macworld badge required.

Thursday

7:30 PM - 1:30 AM Video Lounge: It’s edutainment: sessions on live visuals, followed by an open jam, with cheap drinks! The Video Lounge will feature presentations from myself, top international VJ Grant Davis (VJ Culture) on using Apple Motion as a performance apps, and Quartz Composer developer Pierre-Olivier Latour on his own software. I’ll be talking about assembling visual sets using Jitter and performing them with tthe Wii controller for some wireless control.

Friday

Music Technology Market Symposium: A market symposium makes it sound like we’re going to be talking about how to make money. Don’t be fooled. An all-star lineup will spend all day playing, demoing, and chatting. I hope to follow this up with some CDM interviews, so expect this to continue right onto CDMusic.

New flickr Group!

flickr addicts, you can now post images to CDM’s new flickr group. Tag them with Macworld, and everyone can find your hands-on images of the iPhone and unflattering photos of me performing. I’ll be uploading regularly to the group, as well.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/cdmo/
(There’ a music group, as well, naturally.)

More on the flickr group soon; since Mo is by definition a visual site I hope all of us will have projects to share up there soon.

Some people at Macworld Expo assume “digital art” only means someone working in Photoshop. Thursday night of the show should give them a terrific introduction to live visuals, with plenty to appeal to advanced users, beginners, and eye candy lovers alike. The third annual Video Salon at Macworld will feature a lead visual programmer for Apple and creator of Apple’s free developer tool Quartz Composer, prominent VJ Grant David (VJ Culture), a book launch, an open jam, and, well, me. Grab a drink, a friend, and cozy up for some optical cocktails.

I’m proud to co-sponsor the event on behalf of Create Digital Motion. (Hey, that means if any of you show up, I may buy you a round. Particularly if I screw up during my bit!)

VIDEO SALON, SF
Jan. 11th 2007
7:30PM-12:30AM
Demos start at 8:00
Open VJ Jam starts at 10:00
150 Folsom St. (@ Spear)
San Francisco CA 94105 [Map]

If you’re in San Francisco, either as a resident or in town from Macworld, I hope to see you there. And definitely spread the word to anyone you know going to the expo. I’ll of course have full coverage here on CDM for all those who can’t make it.

Grant writes:

Quartz Composer demos by lead programmer/founder Pierre-Olivier Latour and graphic artist Alessandro Sabatelli.

Presentations by Peter Kirn on Jitter, v001, Flash and Nintendo Wii controller.

Grant Davis (VJ Culture) presents Motion2 and MIDI demo

We will also have copies of the long anticipated VJ Book: “Art and Technology of Live Audio/Video”. Written by Xarene Eskandar. $39.99 list; under $30 street

Cheap drinks :-) Bring your laptops and unplug, free wireless. Plus, bring your media for jamming. We have a new format for this Video Salon. We will have formal presentations for the first two hours, and then open the floor to the traditional Video Salon style VJ Jam.

See also the free Backlit Lounge music party I’ll be playing on Wednesday night.

For those of you in San Francisco for Macworld, three events two watch for:

• Tonight (Tuesday): Drinks are on Discreet at the BAMG meetup — featuring red-hot visual effects artist Culley Bunker (Black Eyed Peas, Spiderman 2)
• Thursday: Edirol is sponsoring the Iron VJ battle at 9:30 PM, presented by the Video Salon (one of the country's hottest VJ events)
• Friday: iThink has a huge lineup of the Bay Area's coolest electronic musicians, plus digital art and video

Going to any of these events? Let us know what goes down: send photos,
text, impressions, whatever (hit contact me on the top link on the
site). Look forward to hearing from you!