spot blog

Electric Sheep at Siggraph

Electric Sheep will be on display in the Educators Incubator Room 502A. Ralph Abraham will be running it through Oozic to put it in 3D with music.

There will also be a sketch on GPU-Accelerated Fractal Flames on Thursday 1:45-3:30 Room 515A by Simon Green.

Alas I will not attend in person.

Aggregation Images

From this year's siggraph gallery, Andy Lomas Aggregation Images. thanks TM.

Goban Screensaver Updated

I finally updated the goban screensaver to work with current versions of gnome and xscreensaver.

Family Vacation

A chill week on the beach with 8 children and 13 adults... turns out a neighbor had wifi so it it's not the the total escape it used to be. The whole area is now overdeveloped. Next time we'll go further afield. I only took a few photos, mostly just had a good time and relaxed.

Not Going

I'm not going to Burning Man this year for the 2nd time. I am however sending a proxy: my software/video artwork will be at the FnF camp. I did attend in 99, 00, 01, 02, & 04. Those who go, have a ball and take lots of pictures! The gallery linked from the image of the man on the right is particularly good. Thank you everyone who makes it happen. I love you all madly.

Asia Grace

Asia Grace is a photolog of Kevin Kelly's travels in Asia, mostly 20 and 30 years ago. Proofs of every shot with stories are on the web site. Here is the page with the shot on the right, and here is the shot that brought me there (via Boing Boing).

Whow.

GPU-Accelerated Flames

Looks like there's a sketch in this year's siggraph on GPUFlame for GPU-Accelerated Iterated Function Systems.

Upcoming Publication: Fractal Dimension of Electric Sheep

The Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology & Life Sciences is meeting in August at the University of Denver for their 15th Annual Conference. A paper by Ralph Abraham mathematics University of California at Santa Cruz, Fred Abraham Blueberry Brain Institute, Scott Draves Spotworks, Clint Sprott physics University of Wisconsin, and Pablo Viotti politics University of California at Santa Cruz will be presented. The paper examines correlation between aesthetics and fractal dimension and how it changes over time. Preliminary results here.

EvoMusArt06

Budapest in April 2006: the 4th European Workshop on Evolutionary Music and Art. I'm on the program committee again this year.

Speaking at YLEM Forum

this wednesday evening i'll be speaking at the YLEM Forum at the Rx Gallery. i'll give an overview of the sheep system, demonstrate a dedicated sheep appliance with the latest generation of sheep, and preview some recent results of research with Ralph Abraham et al.

YLEM Forum: Patterns in Nature
Wednesday, July 13, 7:30 pm
RX Gallery and Bar
132 Eddy St., San Francisco, CA 94102
2 blocks from Powell St. BART
FREE, Open to the public (No one under 21 allowed) and wheelchair accessible.
Sponsored by YLEM: Artists Using Science and Technology

Contact: Trudy Myrrh Reagan, trudymyrrh@earthlink.net, 650-856-9593

This forum features Trudy Myrrh Reagan - patterns evident in nature, John Edmark - the math that underlies natural patterns, Scott Draves - software that mimics nature, and Deborah Kennedy - complex ecological interactions .

Cellular Design

John Edmark will talk about his explorations that led to laser-cut sculptures and mosaics with cell-like structures. He will describe how spiral geometry, Phi (the golden ratio), and the Fibonacci numbers have all contributed to his creative process. A number of his pieces—several of which are kinetic and interactive—will be on display.

John is a lecturer at Stanford’s Department of Art and Art History, where he teaches design. He has an M.S. in Design from Stanford and an M.S. in Computer Science from Columbia University. Before moving to the Bay Area, he did research at Bell Labs on 3D virtual environments .

My Life among the Patterns

Hexagonal patterns, branching and erosion, fluid flow, you name it, Trudy “Myrrh” Reagan has been using them in her art since 1970. Her strategy has been to use craft or painting media as analogs for the phenomena she admires. Learning why patterns propogate as they do has led her into the realms of science and philosophy.

Myrrh is the founder of YLEM, and before that, a founding member of the California Crafts Museum, (now merged with the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, SF). She will share not only her work and philosophy, but some hands-on pattern making activities. http://www.myrrh-art.com

Environmental Interconnections

The elegant and often intricately crafted conceptual installations, performances and artworks by Deborah Kennedy communicate complex environmental themes through visual drama and metaphor. The artist's use of lighting, sound and symbolism brings issues such as the impact of pesticides on honeybees, the interdependence of life and the importance of sustainable technology to the public.

Kennedy, a passionate educator, uses art as a teaching tool. Her own research into ecology creates a solid framework "to work at the growing edge, where we as a global community are struggling to create new visions that will help solve our environmental problems. My hope is that these new perceptions will help us change how we think about ourselves and our role in the world. Then, perhaps, we can begin to change our actions as individuals and larger communities." http://www.greenmuseum.org.

Programming Dazzling Patterns

Scott Draves a.k.a. Spot is a visualist and programmer residing in San Francisco. He is the creator of the Fractal Flame algorithm, the Bomb visual-musical instrument, and the Electric Sheep distributed screen-saver. All of Draves' software artworks are released as open source and distributed for free on the internet.

His award-winning work has appeared in Wired Magazine, the Prix Ars Electronica, the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, and on the dance-floor at the Sonar festival in Barcelona. In 1997 Spot received a PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University for a thesis on metaprogramming for media processing. Today he regularly projects live video for underground parties and at clubs, and self-publishes SPOTWORKS, a DVD of abstract animation synchronized with electronic music. http://www.spotworks.com

Full information at: http://www.ylem.org,
JPEG illustration available upon request ###

Independence Day

Five nights on Black Rock Desert with Camp FKO.