machine | Art, Design, Code

Artists using physical computing and processing from today’s class

Artists from today’s class:

Immaterials: Light painting WiFi by Timo Arnall, Jørn Knutsen and Einar Sneve Martinussen

My little piece of Privacy by Niklas Roy

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.

Machine Concept

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

Select your machine (or multiple if you like)
1. Research its history. What can you use about past context(s) to influence your project?
2. Find related imagery. Seriously, visit a library if you have to.
3. Be ready to report your object(s) in class
Create a step-by-step drawing of the processes of your machine mash-up
1. Make notes about design, interface, code, etc.
2. 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

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
1. Historical examples and archives of machines
  1. The IBM Archive Inspiring machines from the history of the IBM
  2. Wired.com search for “machines”
2. Formal disfunction

1. 1. Glitches
    1. 404, asdfg (careful), and wwwwwwwww by jodi.org
    2. Form Art by Alexei Shulgin
    3. Choose
    4. Going down (2002) by Claude Closky
    5. scrollbar (2002) by Jan Robert Leegte
    6. untitled scroll #2 (2007) by Chris Collins
    7. Scrollbars (2009) by Andrey Yazev
  2. Viruses
    1. Text Squeezer, Misspeller by John Maeda
    2. degenerative by Eugenio Tisselli
    3. Generation Loss by hadto
  3. Bots and automation
    1. theBot (Shockwave plugin required) by Amy Alexander
    2. Eliza
    3. doctor Emacs Terminal psychotherapist

1. Physical machines
  1. Life Writer by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau
  2. Dupage and Department of Rhythmanalysis: On Location by Kevin Hamilton
  3. Alan Storey
  4. Arthur Ganson
2. Functional online applications
  1. Visualizations and aesthetic representations