spot blog

"Nice collection of weird stuff"

I got this link from my friend Max who called it a "Nice collection of weird stuff". I can't think of a better description.

Lecture/Demo at SFAI

MIND BENDING PERCEPTIONS

A Weekly Tuesday Showing
@ the Lecture Hall ~ 8 - 10 pm

TUESDAY Nov 1st we have a special guest :

Scott Draves, AKA Spot, will demonstrate and explain the ELECTRIC SHEEP and SPOTWORKS. Electric Sheep realizes the collective dream of sleeping computers from all over the internet. It's an open-source screen-saver that collaboratively renders and evolves abstract animations. SPOTWORKS is a DVD of original animation synchronized with electronic music.

Spot's 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.

http://electricsheep.org/dreams
http://spotworks.com
http://scottdraves.com

San Francisco Art Institute (Main Campus)
800 Chestnut Street, San Francisco 94133
(between Jones and Leavenworth)
415.771.7020

Muni : #30 from Market/Union square Drops you off at Columbus and Chestnut.

Linux Format Magazine writes about FLAM3

Linux Format Magazine ran a four page story about the FLAM3 software, including a tutorial on animation.

New Galleries

A family vacation and wedding, then Synergenesis.

Word of the Day: Quincunx

quincunx /kwin'kunks/ n. An arrangement of five objects with one at each corner of a rectangle or square and one at the center, like on dice, playing cards, and dominoes, like this:

The quincunx has an interesting history.

Dreams in High Definition and Light Rhythm Visuals on Tour in Japan

I'm going on tour in Japan with Light Rhythm Visuals from October 12th to 27th. I'll be demoing the latest Dreams in High Definition, the brand new and super enhanced version of Electric Sheep. If you would like to arrange a meeting or host a demo session please contact me by email to spot AT draves DOT org. If you are not in Japan but know someone who is who should see this, please send mail too.

Official tour info here. Current schedule below. I'm confirmed to play Ageha the 15th and at the events on the 18th and 19th.

10.15 Ageha — vj performances at mega club
10.18 On@Off — intimate audiovisual play for vjs and artists
10.19 La Fabrique — vip meetings/audiovisual screenings
10.20 Nagoya University Lecture — Pixels for Progress: Using Media Art to Effect Awareness
10.22 Simoon — lightrhythm vs rotunda dance party
10.22 Superdeluxe — macaronique ver.1-underground party
10.29 Club Asia — TBA

The best place to come and see the "Dreams" is probably La Fabrique.

This is really a special trip for me because I spent the summer of 1993 in Tokyo doing research for NTT-Data (yes before cell phones even). After I completed the job my boss Yoko gave me free reign in the lab. My workstation there was a 100Mhz SGI connected to a video disc writer. This was a vastly more powerful computer than I had ever used before, and I had it all to myself. So it was at this time that I completed the version of the fractal flame algorithm that has since taken over my life.

Thank you Yoko and Naka I hope you read this somehow and If you do, drop me a line and let's hook up!

Blot Sex

Dave Hart is a friend of mine from PDI/Dreamworks and it was he who suggested "Density Estimation" that eventually was implemented by Erik Reckase (and now released in 2.7b1). Dave has makes own algorithmic art, my favorite so far is the Blot Sex series.

Thanks for sharing, Dave :)

Synergenesis II

This Saturday October 8th Synergenesis will manifest itself for the 2nd time and it looks like practice is leading us to perfection :) It's a whole day affair with lectures and workshops and art gallery during the day in the Project Artaud and then at night dance celebration nearby in Cell Space. I will be showing the latest High Definition Dreams in the gallery then on viz for the party. Last year's Synergenesis was a crystaline convergence of the highest order and I expect this year's will be better. Not to be missed.

Fractal Patterns in People Magazine and the NYTimes

My pop culture mole pointed me at the last People Magazine which had a blurb about Threshold, the new show on CBS that has sheep in it (see previous mention). The review says

If you hear people discussing "fractal patterns", they've been watching Threshold.

And yesterday on the flight back from DC I read the Sunday NYTimes. Let me interject that it was actually quite hard to find the Times in Washington/Dulles Airport. The Post was on every corner, but I had to walk all over the terminal and check every shop to find my beloved rag. On the plane, each section was snapped up by passers-by as I finished it, and by the end of the flight I had a guy sitting with me and reading ahead of me. Anyway, there was a review of the show in the Arts section that included this line:

Sure enough, the extraterrestrial being pursued by the "Threshold" team isn't a bug-eyed little green man, but rather a mysterious signal that propagates itself through everyday technology - radios, computers, MP3 players - and creates chaos wherever it turns up.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Could the sheep be the alien signal? Perhaps I am being confused by the ego signal, but it does appear I better watch this show. Anyone wanna send me a DVD? Between this, Serenity, and Blueberry I can't keep up.