Agenda
- Introductory matter
- Reminder: In general, I will be present at 2:30 each day (10 mins early).
- Reminder: I will be here on Monday 09/07 (Labor Day). Fun extra class!
- Responses to Exit Ticket (below)
- LikeLike opening (Friday 09/04)
- Viewing of Maps
- Circles and Triangles (Exercise first: how many ways…?)
- Loops lecture
- Technical lectures: creative coding; shaping functions
- Exit Ticket for 09/02 (below)
Other Items:
Running a local server
For local development (on your laptop rather than at the online editor): If you wish to load external assets in p5.js, it’s necessary to run a local server. See: https://github.com/processing/p5.js/wiki/Local-server#python-simplehttpserver
Using Visual Studio Code with p5.js:
- p5.js Plugin is here: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=samplavigne.p5-vscode
- Make: Command-shift-P to select Create p5.js Project.
- Run: Command-L Command-O to run live server.
Responses to the 8/31 Exit Ticket
-
If we’re working on something and running into trouble, is there a place where we can post and expect help? (I’m guessing slack?) Office hours and Slack, or contact me by email if it’s “serious”. Only 12% of you came to my office hours, and 0% of the class has posted issues on Slack…so I assume you’re all doing great, right?
- I’m a little lost on the direction to go for the map generator assignment but I will attend office hours. Cool. Did you?
- do these have to be serious questions? Could I ask for life advice? Sure, but that may be better suited for office hours.
- What is a recent project that YOU have been interested in/amazed by? (by you or not by you!) There are many, but I think this project by Manoloide is a masterwork, and I’m fascinated by these machine-generated leaf images by Helena Sarin.
- Why does documenting your process matter for computational art? Because it’s so ephemeral. Web pages disappear, operating systems become obsolete, software libraries stop compiling. If it’s worth making, it’s worth documenting properly, especially if you’re a young person constructing a portfolio. Unless the ephemerality is the point (“you had to be there”).
- Will we have any kinds of in class practices or live coding sessions? Potentially. I’m concerned about Zoom fatigue. We will definitely have in-class work sessions. (By live-coding, do you mean, two people coding in the same document? Do you mean, writing code while it is executing?)
- What lighting and camera do you use? Looks very fancy. I purchased an extra Logitech webcam, a document camera, and a ring light. I also have a nice purple wall.
- What was your greatest take-away from your undergrad college experiences at MIT? It took me years to recover from the trauma of attending MIT. It sucked to be the only art major in the entire university. Community is important. The reason I helped create the BCSA degree program at CMU, and the reason I support open-source tools like p5.js, is to help nurture that community.
- In what other ways can programming complicate the processes we have for creating successful art (for example, accident-making vs. errors in syntax)? How have artists differentiated their creative programming processes from their non-creative programming processes? How have they merged them? This great question is too big to answer briefly, but I will be sure to address this, as appropriate, during lectures. Thank you.