One of the goals on my list for 2010 is learning my way around Processing, which is an open source programming language that was designed to be a kind of electronic sketchbook for artists and designers and allow you to program interactive animations, model and visualize data, and more.
I’ve run across some really neat things that people have done with it, and I’m rather fascinated. It looks like it can do some pretty powerful (and attractive!) data crunching:
Flickr tag visualization by Smilehyun
Perhaps more inspiring for those of us who are dipping our toes in for the first time, however, is the ability to do some really interesting things with it using very short programs.
Oh gracious, my poor neglected blog! Techshop Portland got their laser cutter, and ever since then I’ve been spending most of my spare moments over there, and not writing much of anything longer than a tweet! (And yes, if you do want to hear from me a bit more often, you can do so by following @Spiralshannon, or subscribing to my twitter rss feed.)
So, anyway, things have been pretty exciting over here. I’ll be selling at Crafty Wonderland this Sunday – my first craft fair! I have a new set of designs based on work I’ve been doing with Context Free Art – software that allows you to create images by writing algorithms, and which is pretty easy to learn if you have even the most basic programming background (which is all I have… I’ve done the barest touch of javascript coding, but I taught the “Advanced BASIC” class at a computer camp back in college.) I’ve only photographed one item out of the new set, and it was selected to appear in the promotional email for this weekend’s show, which has me a bit giddy.
There’s more to tell, but honestly I think I’ll have a better chance of getting back to posting regularly if I don’t force myself to sit here and write about it all right this minute. Besides, I have to finish getting everything ready for the craft show! So, if you’ll be in Portland on Sunday, come check out the show (11am to 4 pm at the Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside) and get to be among the first few people to see the rest of the new pieces. If not, sit tight and I’ll start posting them next week, and I promise I’ll be back to write more soon!
