PHP Machine

Our use of the internet is increasingly enhanced by online applications that reenact offline scenarios; sharing a video or photographs with friends, doing research by looking-up terms, keeping a log of your activities. The interaction is not new, only the context.

In this project you will be challenged to recreate a modest online app that mimics a real-world machine or activity. Create a web page or series of pages that mimics the function (or disfunction) of a machine either explicitly or through the use of metaphor. The machine you choose can be as simple or as complex as you like, but should be able to receive input, capable of acting on that input, and showing output or action. The more extraordinary the result the better. You will be graded on form AND function.

PHP Machine: Concept

Create an HTML page (linked from your profile page) containing the following information:

Select your machine (or multiple if you like)

Research its history. What can you use about past context(s) to influence your project?
Find related imagery. Seriously, visit a library if you have to.
Be ready to report your object(s) in class

Create a step-by-step drawing of the processes of your machine mash-up

Make notes about design, interface, code, etc.
Present your drawing and research in class

At least three sketches (pencil/photoshop) of machine drawings

Notes and research about the machine you have chosen for the PHP Machine Assignment

PHP Machine: Prototype

At this point you should have a functioning prototype of your PHP Machine. Create an HTML page (linked from your profile page) containing the following information:

A link to the original concept
A link to a functioning prototype or separate parts of PHP Machine
Images of preliminary designs for the interface to the PHP Machine
Other notes and research about your project

FINAL: Present Your Machine

The project should:

Use one or more PHP pages as well as web forms that allow users to input data or make selections.
Your page should be elegant and well-considered in its layout. Use images and CSS to define and position type and form elements.
Your page(s) can be as creative as you like. The design and images you use should be related to the concept of your artwork.

Examples

Historical examples and archives of machines

The IBM Archive Inspiring machines from the history of the IBM
Wired.com search for “machines”

Formal disfunction

Glitches

404, asdfg (careful), and wwwwwwwww by jodi.org
Form Art by Alexei Shulgin
Choose
Going down (2002) by Claude Closky
scrollbar (2002) by Jan Robert Leegte
untitled scroll #2 (2007) by Chris Collins
Scrollbars (2009) by Andrey Yazev

Viruses

Text Squeezer, Misspeller by John Maeda
degenerative by Eugenio Tisselli
Generation Loss by hadto

Bots and automation

theBot (Shockwave plugin required) by Amy Alexander
Shredder by Mark Napier
Eliza
doctor Emacs Terminal psychotherapist
Carnivore by R-S-G
Electronic Disturbance Theater

Physical machines

Life Writer by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau
Dupage and Department of Rhythmanalysis: On Location by Kevin Hamilton
Jean Tinguely and the Tinguely Museum
Alan Storey
Arthur Ganson (TED lecture)
Theo Jansen
Hornmassive and Solar Oralizer by Matt Hope
Rechnender Raum by Ralf Baecker

Functional online applications

Translators

5.13 24.11 13.16 9.13.5 5.13 24.11 (Shakespeare encoded by Nabokov: 5=T), “Speak Memory”, Nabokov’s autobiography
The new season of the BBC show the IT Crowd has L33T subtitles