<div dir="ltr">Thanks for the great response, Jim! I'll 'pm' you...<div><br></div><div>--Graeme</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 1:19 PM, Jim Andrews <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jim@vispo.com" target="_blank">jim@vispo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span class="">On 11/7/2016 10:56 AM, Graeme McCaig wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Hey Jim,<br>
<br>
I have a philosophical question for you:<br>
Do you consider Aleph Null (the system) as "an artwork"?<br>
Or would you only call the images it produces the art?<br>
</blockquote>
<br></span>
Hi Graeme,<br>
<br>
I've been creating things that are both tools, to some extent, and works of art, also, for some time. Such as dbCinema. And The Pen. And Jig Sound. And Nio. These works are more interesting as works of art than as tools. So too with Aleph Null, I think. In a good tool, almost none of the content is pre-ordained. In Photoshop, for instance, or Word, the software is not generative of the content, normally. It simply helps you create and process the content. Also, Word and Photoshop are not about the creation of a new form of art. Users of that software may indeed create new art with the tools, but they could as well do it without software or without those specific pieces of software.<br>
<br>
The content in Aleph Null is more pre-determined. Most of the nibs have very specific looks. Specific to the Aleph Null software. Though I do want to implement, for instance, the ability to use your own images in the nibs that process a folder of bitmaps.<br>
<br>
The ability to produce interesting stills/screenshots is important in Aleph Null, but color music is in a flow of time, not simply a still. The color music is in the animation.<br>
<br>
Aleph Null is mainly toward the creation of color music. Which, itself, is not a new concept. Actually it goes back to Arcimboldo in 1590, at least, as described in <a href="http://vispo.com/alephTouch/docs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://vispo.com/alephTouch/do<wbr>cs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf</a> <<a href="http://vispo.com/alephTouch/docs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://vispo.com/alephTouch/d<wbr>ocs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf</a>> . But it's a particular form of color music. Any particular instrument of color music tends to produce a certain relatively circumscribed stylistic range of works of color music. Which, in total, are the main work of art the software produces. Similarly, in my stir fry texts at <a href="http://vispo.com/StirFryTexts" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://vispo.com/StirFryTexts</a> , you can read a stir fry for twenty minutes and get the feeling that you don't need to read any more of the exceedingly numerous permutations; you've read it after you get a sense of the original texts and how they stir together. The 'poem' produced by a stir fry text is the total set of permutations, not a particular one of them.<br>
<br>
Also, the stir fry software is itself a work of art, I would say. Same with the Aleph Null software. For the above reasons. But the set of possible works of color music producable with Aleph Null is bigger than the set of texts producable with a stir fry, normally.<br>
<br>
I remember seeing an interview of Stanley Kubrick, who was asked about his approach to directing films. He said that he tried to attend to all the dimensions of the film. It's visuality. It's story. The dialog. And so on. All the dimensions. That's basically my approach to the creation of the online interactive art I make. I've spent a long time not only on the drawing algorithms--although they could still use a lot of work--but on the interface, concept, design, and code of the controls. If you try it out on mobile, you see the controls work quite well with touch and are a big part of the look. I want the experience of using Aleph Null as an instrument of colour music to be satisfying, exciting, transporting. It has some distance to go, admittedly. But it's on the way.<br>
<br>
Revealing the controls gradually, one by one, as the player learns what the controls do, will help with the experience. That will sort of 'narrativize' the experience, or at least one-thing-after-anotherize it.<br>
<br>
I've also spent a lot of time on making the experience doable on the net. It works on all the browsers and platforms I test it on. I know net art has been more or less abandoned. But it's still important to me. It's a global beacon of alterity and individuality.<br>
<br>
Also, I'd like to implement a 'gallery mode'. Currently it only has an 'interactive mode'. By default, it would display 'gallery mode' in which it would display varietously without the player having to play it. When a player touches it, it would switch from 'gallery mode' to 'interactive mode'. And when the player has finished playing it, it would go back automatically, after a couple of minutes, into 'gallery mode'. In 'gallery mode', it would play playlists of configurations. A playlist will be a list of configurations. A configuration will be a particular setting of all the controls. Interactive mode will contain a feature whereby players can save configurations and string them together to form playlists. Implementing 'gallery mode'+'interactive mode'+ finger painting will make it quite attractive on big touch screens and, hopefully, make it attractive to galleries and possibly being able to sell installations of it.<br>
<br>
This email is already too long. I'll stop here. Yes, let's get together for a coffee. Backchannel me at <a href="mailto:jim@vispo.com" target="_blank">jim@vispo.com</a><br>
<br>
ja<br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span class="">
<br>
Also--<br>
do you want to get a coffee or whatever and chat sometime?<br>
<br>
cheers<br>
Graeme<br>
<br></span><div><div class="h5">
On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 10:58 PM, Jim Andrews <<a href="mailto:jim@vispo.com" target="_blank">jim@vispo.com</a> <mailto:<a href="mailto:jim@vispo.com" target="_blank">jim@vispo.com</a>>> wrote:<br>
<br>
A slideshow of 185 screenshots from Aleph Null 2.0:<br>
<a href="http://vispo.com/alephTouch/slideshow" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://vispo.com/alephTouch/sl<wbr>ideshow</a><br>
<<a href="http://vispo.com/alephTouch/slideshow" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://vispo.com/alephTouch/s<wbr>lideshow</a>><br>
<br>
Compare them with 200 screenshots from Aleph Null 1.0:<br>
<a href="http://vispo.com/aleph/jim" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://vispo.com/aleph/jim</a><br>
<br>
You can also play with the machines themselves, if you want, here:<br>
<br>
Aleph Null 1.0:<br>
<a href="http://vispo.com/aleph/an.htm" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://vispo.com/aleph/an.htm</a><br>
<br>
Aleph Null 2.0:<br>
<a href="http://vispo.com/alephTouch/an.html" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://vispo.com/alephTouch/an<wbr>.html</a><br>
<<a href="http://vispo.com/alephTouch/an.html" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://vispo.com/alephTouch/a<wbr>n.html</a>><br>
<br>
The main idea in both of the machines is that a brush has a<br>
configurable "central color". Dominant color. And, also, each<br>
brush has a configurable "color range". The smaller the color<br>
range, the closer all the colors the brush draws are to the<br>
central color. The greater the color range, the more colors the<br>
brush draws. In Aleph Null 1.0, you can only have one brush at a<br>
time. In Aleph Null 2.0, you can have as many brushes as you want.<br>
The drawing algorithms are a bit more accomplished in Aleph Null<br>
2.0; the brushes have more interesting transparency/alpha and they<br>
draw more smoothly. Also, Aleph Null 2.0 has many more selectable<br>
nibs for a brush, and some of those nibs are dbCinema-ish in that<br>
they use images as paint, not simply color/gradient. Also, Aleph<br>
Null 2.0 works well on mobile.<br>
<br>
Here is a doc I wrote about Aleph Null 2.0 that was recently<br>
rejected by the NFB. It outlines further features I'd like to add<br>
to Aleph Null. Possibly 3.0. If I can:<br>
<a href="http://vispo.com/alephTouch/docs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://vispo.com/alephTouch/do<wbr>cs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf</a><br>
<<a href="http://vispo.com/alephTouch/docs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://vispo.com/alephTouch/d<wbr>ocs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf</a>><br>
<br>
ja<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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