I think ports, hacks, and tech projects are fantastic. I’m a believer in experiments and proof of concept. So when I saw the port of Processing to JavaScript, I was impressed. I think this stuff is valuable, even if it’s imperfect.

Processing.js could indeed be useful in some cases, and it’s a testament to developer John Resig’s prowess as a JavaScript guru. But it’s limited by the restrictions of JavaScript. That isn’t a deal-breaker — it just means you need to adjust expectations and use this tool as what it is.

Unfortunately, the word "JavaScript" is magical to a lot of the Web development community in a way that seems to make them lose sight of reality.

Processing.js Aftermath [John Resig blog]

That’s sad. Because if "Java" remains a four-letter word (erm … well, you know what I mean), it really will be a massive blow to the open future of rich client media.

The Reality

Processing in Java is …

• Extensible (you can easily add Java libraries to add features)
• Massively compatible (you need only Java 1.3 or later, which believe it or not is already on the majority of machines — on CDM, we see roughly the same penetration as we do for Flash)
• Fast (significantly faster than JavaScript for processor-intensive operations)
• 3D
• Functional in the browser and as desktop software on every platform
• Compatible with desktop features (hardware support, MIDI, synthesis, audio, video … see the extensible bit)

Processing in JavaScript is …

• Limited to JavaScript’s capabilities — and thus not nearly as extensible
• Massively incompatible (IE7 doesn’t work at all. Firefox 3 is recommended, even though it’s not out yet.)
• Slow, often unstable, and CPU-hungry
• Browser-only
• Loses all desktop functionality (hardware support is significantly less than what you get with Flash)

This is not to say it’s not a good idea, or that it’s not fun to play with. In fact, none of the above restrictions take away from the coolness of John’s project — I’m really glad he did this, and I think it has a lot of potential. But let’s see how the JavaScript-happy blogosphere takes the news…

During the high-definition wars, your feelings about new higher-capacity storage discs may have ranged from ambivalence to dread to simple disinterest. (Well, that’s how I felt, anyway.) But with Blu-ray triumphant comes this realization: "hey, brain, we’ve suddenly got increasingly-affordable ways of burning high-capacity media!" Drive upgrades on the PC side cost what DVD burners once did, and if you’re hooked up to a TV, the writer can be your player, too. (There’s already a Lite-On internal drive for around US$350, and I expect these prices will plummet as production ramps up.)

That’s burning, anyway — authoring is obviously essential.

This brief video, uploaded to YouTube by Fairlight co-founder and designer Peter Vogel himself, gives a brief history of the development of Fairlight’s legendary video hardware, the CVI. The CVI was a theoretical (in name, at least) visual counterpart to the ground-breaking CMI digital sampler instrument. And, like the CMI, the CVI had a major impact on artists and produced some of the best digital creation of the 80s — and some of its most-repeated cliches.

Vintage Fairlight Computer Music Instrument Videos [Retro Thing; see also Create Digital Music]

But here’s an important difference: has the evolution of visual hardware and software really equaled what’s happened since the CMI on the sound side? Music hardware and software has evolved and exploded since the CMI. The only real visual hardware today available to consumers that’s not a mixer is Roland’s CG-8, and it’s arguably narrower in scope than the CVI, despite being two decades newer. Even in software, the idea of a visual instrument you can play is still evolving. Now, I suppose you could argue visualists have more to play with — powerful 3D capabilities, for one — but perhaps that’s why visual gear has been slow to catch up.

What do you think? Is there a visual - musical cap in digital tech? Or am I trying to compare two things that really can’t be compared, whether Australian designers gave them parallel acronyms or not?

Sure, the name of the site may be Create Digital Motion, but don’t get me wrong — we know digital is evil. Or, specifically, digital gets real evil at certain times. There are the latency-inducing, problem-causing HDMI cables when VGA or S-Video or Composite would do the job, the “look at our brand, new storage format” trend that turns out to be “look at the hideously onerous, new copy protection method we’ve just invented.”

We know a little bit of our soul died when we brought in all this digital tech to our work. (Happy side note, though: my eyes now glow red. It’s totally awesome at parties.) So, we now proudly present The Battle for Analog, a completely nonsensical look at the analog world we might leave behind. (Well, unless you carry some mobile VHS decks to a gig, which could be a great idea … a little magnetic distortion live, anyone?)

And to kick things off, we’ve got a look back at VHS’ stand against the puppy-killing DVD, via our friends at the All Retro, All The Time, Retro Thing. So, at the risk of “boneheaded nostalgia” as someone described this in comments on RT, I present this mock VHS PSA from musclebeaver, with music from the Transformers music proudly playing in the background:

And, uh, yeah, it does appear to have been crafted in After Effects. Where is that Export to VHS option in CS3, anyway?

PS - I think Blu-Ray winning out over HD-DVD is finally Sony’s revenge for losing on superior Betamax.

New York City, despite its reputation, is actually a pretty peaceful place to live in a lot of ways. Most visitors here never make it out of Times Square, though even that experience to me is more Vegas than Blade Runner. But even here, the days of electronic synesthesia as something alien are over. It’s a far cry from the 1960s, when, even if they were only slightly drugged up, audiences would actually begin to believe light shows and synths were an alien invasion. Today, even people on an acid trip are jaded.

So I found this quote interesting, from Rhizome, in regards to Hong Kong’s decade-old new media bash, the Microwave International Arts Festival:

In inspecting our flashing city that is Hong Kong, sound, light, and images are constantly coming at us from all directions, collectively attacking our senses…

[the festival will resurrect] the pleasure elicited by the audio-visual interactions will help visitors recover the fascinations in our daily lives that have so been overwhelmed and numbed.

It’s an interesting thought, and I think says a lot about where performance may be headed. I got to see Simian Mobile Disco last month, and they were able to run a near-blinding light show, synced to the beat. People loved it, mostly, but even there, the effect was wearing off, and I actually heard some complaints. (Not from me. I never get tired of overstimulation.)

What I came away with, though, was that there’s a real opportunity to make the sensory in digital art something very different. I think the initial birthing of digital art and media art may finally be concluding, and we can begin to aim for something approaching maturity. (The fact that various entities are now preoccupied with writing histories is a good sign: the artists can get on with doing something new.)

If you are in Hong Kong (and if you aren’t, schedule that layover between LA and Singapore), the festival looks great. A nice mix of electronic music and digital motion. Hmmm… digital music and digital motion? But will it work?

Rhizome News: Resensitizng to Light, Image, and Sound

Ever miss 1995? In 1995, this passed for online entertainment: static web pages, some 20-somethings hanging out in casual- and swim-wear, and the ability to talk back to the “cast.”

Welcome to the Spot. We’re a bunch of friends sharing a beach house in Santa Monica, California.

Everyday we put up this website and tell the world about our lives through our daily journals.

We can also interact with you - but only if you come in!

The Spot, at the Internet Archive

Well, okay, actually, it didn’t really pass; I remember checking out its launch that year as a novelty but think few people really stuck with it. It returned, undead, in 2004. No one cared (wisely). Well, now The Spot is back again. Except it’s on the Rupert Murdoch-owner MySpace, has video, and has actually widened, not narrowed, the gap with trashy reality TV shows like Laguna Beach. (Ha! See, manufacturing Cheez Whiz isn’t as easy as you thought, is it?)

Roommates (Don’t click that. Really. I could believe Roommates could cause gastrointestinal distress even for a die-hard trash TV fan — maybe especially for them.)

But, somewhere out of this hideousness, is there a lesson for how we think about “new media” (as we called it in 1995)?

Boy, there isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think how much more productive I could be if every single one of my creative apps ran online.

Wait.

Scratch that. No, I’ve actually never thought that.

Online applications can be fantastic. I’m using one right now. Having Flickr for photos and Vimeo for videos, and so on, can vastly expand the potential of what you can do with media. And I certainly see casual users of those applications preferring online services in some cases. (On the other hand, I also know even a lot of casual photographers who would rather sit in Aperture or Lightroom and tweak their photos than struggle with a Web app — for them, the Web is about uploading and sharing, not editing.)

It’s just really hard to see why pros would need to do everything online. And here’s the fundamental problem: why are we talking about taking applications online rather than taking online to applications? Witness Adobe’s Bruce Chizen making vague predictions about the far-off future — ten years, to be exact. By that point, we might as well start talking about how we’ll all be flooded by global warming and under attack by the Mutant Bug People who have dominated the Earth. But in ten years, says Adobe, their products will be fully online. Why? Uh … haven’t figure that one out yet, evidently.