From jim at vispo.com  Fri Nov  4 00:58:24 2016
From: jim at vispo.com (Jim Andrews)
Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2016 22:58:24 -0700
Subject: [x] 185 screenshots from Aleph Null 2.0
Message-ID: <e71861a2-2461-cdee-5dec-e9e70028e3c6@vispo.com>

A slideshow of 185 screenshots from Aleph Null 2.0: 
http://vispo.com/alephTouch/slideshow

Compare them with 200 screenshots from Aleph Null 1.0: 
http://vispo.com/aleph/jim

You can also play with the machines themselves, if you want, here:

Aleph Null 1.0:
http://vispo.com/aleph/an.htm

Aleph Null 2.0:
http://vispo.com/alephTouch/an.html

The main idea in both of the machines is that a brush has a configurable 
"central color". Dominant color. And, also, each brush has a 
configurable "color range". The smaller the color range, the closer all 
the colors the brush draws are to the central color. The greater the 
color range, the more colors the brush draws. In Aleph Null 1.0, you can 
only have one brush at a time. In Aleph Null 2.0, you can have as many 
brushes as you want. The drawing algorithms are a bit more accomplished 
in Aleph Null 2.0; the brushes have more interesting transparency/alpha 
and they draw more smoothly. Also, Aleph Null 2.0 has many more 
selectable nibs for a brush, and some of those nibs are dbCinema-ish in 
that they use images as paint, not simply color/gradient. Also, Aleph 
Null 2.0 works well on mobile.

Here is a doc I wrote about Aleph Null 2.0 that was recently rejected by 
the NFB. It outlines further features I'd like to add to Aleph Null. 
Possibly 3.0. If I can: http://vispo.com/alephTouch/docs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf

ja





From r.graeme.mccaig at gmail.com  Mon Nov  7 12:56:38 2016
From: r.graeme.mccaig at gmail.com (Graeme McCaig)
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2016 10:56:38 -0800
Subject: [x] 185 screenshots from Aleph Null 2.0
In-Reply-To: <e71861a2-2461-cdee-5dec-e9e70028e3c6@vispo.com>
References: <e71861a2-2461-cdee-5dec-e9e70028e3c6@vispo.com>
Message-ID: <CAHBxmxo06w=sYzGsz869WkR9J+Te-P=o4a0TzFBRWXpU8UzeFQ@mail.gmail.com>

Hey Jim,

I have a philosophical question for you:
Do you consider Aleph Null (the system) as "an artwork"?
Or would you only call the images it produces the art?


Also--
do you want to get a coffee or whatever and chat sometime?

cheers
Graeme

On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 10:58 PM, Jim Andrews <jim at vispo.com> wrote:

> A slideshow of 185 screenshots from Aleph Null 2.0:
> http://vispo.com/alephTouch/slideshow
>
> Compare them with 200 screenshots from Aleph Null 1.0:
> http://vispo.com/aleph/jim
>
> You can also play with the machines themselves, if you want, here:
>
> Aleph Null 1.0:
> http://vispo.com/aleph/an.htm
>
> Aleph Null 2.0:
> http://vispo.com/alephTouch/an.html
>
> The main idea in both of the machines is that a brush has a configurable
> "central color". Dominant color. And, also, each brush has a configurable
> "color range". The smaller the color range, the closer all the colors the
> brush draws are to the central color. The greater the color range, the more
> colors the brush draws. In Aleph Null 1.0, you can only have one brush at a
> time. In Aleph Null 2.0, you can have as many brushes as you want. The
> drawing algorithms are a bit more accomplished in Aleph Null 2.0; the
> brushes have more interesting transparency/alpha and they draw more
> smoothly. Also, Aleph Null 2.0 has many more selectable nibs for a brush,
> and some of those nibs are dbCinema-ish in that they use images as paint,
> not simply color/gradient. Also, Aleph Null 2.0 works well on mobile.
>
> Here is a doc I wrote about Aleph Null 2.0 that was recently rejected by
> the NFB. It outlines further features I'd like to add to Aleph Null.
> Possibly 3.0. If I can: http://vispo.com/alephTouch/docs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf
>
> ja
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> x mailing list
> x at vispo.com
> http://vispo.com/mailman/listinfo/x_vispo.com
>
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From jim at vispo.com  Mon Nov  7 15:19:58 2016
From: jim at vispo.com (Jim Andrews)
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2016 13:19:58 -0800
Subject: [x] 185 screenshots from Aleph Null 2.0
In-Reply-To: <CAHBxmxo06w=sYzGsz869WkR9J+Te-P=o4a0TzFBRWXpU8UzeFQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <e71861a2-2461-cdee-5dec-e9e70028e3c6@vispo.com>
	<CAHBxmxo06w=sYzGsz869WkR9J+Te-P=o4a0TzFBRWXpU8UzeFQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7190e474-6c7e-819c-342f-9efe69c701d0@vispo.com>

On 11/7/2016 10:56 AM, Graeme McCaig wrote:
> Hey Jim,
>
> I have a philosophical question for you:
> Do you consider Aleph Null (the system) as "an artwork"?
> Or would you only call the images it produces the art?

Hi Graeme,

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.

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.

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.

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 
http://vispo.com/alephTouch/docs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf 
<http://vispo.com/alephTouch/docs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf> . 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 
http://vispo.com/StirFryTexts , 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This email is already too long. I'll stop here. Yes, let's get together 
for a coffee. Backchannel me at jim at vispo.com

ja

>
> Also--
> do you want to get a coffee or whatever and chat sometime?
>
> cheers
> Graeme
>
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 10:58 PM, Jim Andrews <jim at vispo.com 
> <mailto:jim at vispo.com>> wrote:
>
>     A slideshow of 185 screenshots from Aleph Null 2.0:
>     http://vispo.com/alephTouch/slideshow
>     <http://vispo.com/alephTouch/slideshow>
>
>     Compare them with 200 screenshots from Aleph Null 1.0:
>     http://vispo.com/aleph/jim
>
>     You can also play with the machines themselves, if you want, here:
>
>     Aleph Null 1.0:
>     http://vispo.com/aleph/an.htm
>
>     Aleph Null 2.0:
>     http://vispo.com/alephTouch/an.html
>     <http://vispo.com/alephTouch/an.html>
>
>     The main idea in both of the machines is that a brush has a
>     configurable "central color". Dominant color. And, also, each
>     brush has a configurable "color range". The smaller the color
>     range, the closer all the colors the brush draws are to the
>     central color. The greater the color range, the more colors the
>     brush draws. In Aleph Null 1.0, you can only have one brush at a
>     time. In Aleph Null 2.0, you can have as many brushes as you want.
>     The drawing algorithms are a bit more accomplished in Aleph Null
>     2.0; the brushes have more interesting transparency/alpha and they
>     draw more smoothly. Also, Aleph Null 2.0 has many more selectable
>     nibs for a brush, and some of those nibs are dbCinema-ish in that
>     they use images as paint, not simply color/gradient. Also, Aleph
>     Null 2.0 works well on mobile.
>
>     Here is a doc I wrote about Aleph Null 2.0 that was recently
>     rejected by the NFB. It outlines further features I'd like to add
>     to Aleph Null. Possibly 3.0. If I can:
>     http://vispo.com/alephTouch/docs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf
>     <http://vispo.com/alephTouch/docs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf>
>
>     ja
>
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     x mailing list
>     x at vispo.com <mailto:x at vispo.com>
>     http://vispo.com/mailman/listinfo/x_vispo.com
>     <http://vispo.com/mailman/listinfo/x_vispo.com>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> x mailing list
> x at vispo.com
> http://vispo.com/mailman/listinfo/x_vispo.com




From r.graeme.mccaig at gmail.com  Mon Nov  7 15:21:40 2016
From: r.graeme.mccaig at gmail.com (Graeme McCaig)
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2016 13:21:40 -0800
Subject: [x] 185 screenshots from Aleph Null 2.0
In-Reply-To: <7190e474-6c7e-819c-342f-9efe69c701d0@vispo.com>
References: <e71861a2-2461-cdee-5dec-e9e70028e3c6@vispo.com>
	<CAHBxmxo06w=sYzGsz869WkR9J+Te-P=o4a0TzFBRWXpU8UzeFQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<7190e474-6c7e-819c-342f-9efe69c701d0@vispo.com>
Message-ID: <CAHBxmxqX5Pi9JwLMHPXgzeRADLmwFz=M0M3bDKVMTOxcj5rD9A@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks for the great response, Jim! I'll 'pm' you...

--Graeme

On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 1:19 PM, Jim Andrews <jim at vispo.com> wrote:

> On 11/7/2016 10:56 AM, Graeme McCaig wrote:
>
>> Hey Jim,
>>
>> I have a philosophical question for you:
>> Do you consider Aleph Null (the system) as "an artwork"?
>> Or would you only call the images it produces the art?
>>
>
> Hi Graeme,
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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 http://vispo.com/alephTouch/docs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf <
> http://vispo.com/alephTouch/docs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf> . 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
> http://vispo.com/StirFryTexts , 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> This email is already too long. I'll stop here. Yes, let's get together
> for a coffee. Backchannel me at jim at vispo.com
>
> ja
>
>
>> Also--
>> do you want to get a coffee or whatever and chat sometime?
>>
>> cheers
>> Graeme
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 10:58 PM, Jim Andrews <jim at vispo.com <mailto:
>> jim at vispo.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     A slideshow of 185 screenshots from Aleph Null 2.0:
>>     http://vispo.com/alephTouch/slideshow
>>     <http://vispo.com/alephTouch/slideshow>
>>
>>     Compare them with 200 screenshots from Aleph Null 1.0:
>>     http://vispo.com/aleph/jim
>>
>>     You can also play with the machines themselves, if you want, here:
>>
>>     Aleph Null 1.0:
>>     http://vispo.com/aleph/an.htm
>>
>>     Aleph Null 2.0:
>>     http://vispo.com/alephTouch/an.html
>>     <http://vispo.com/alephTouch/an.html>
>>
>>     The main idea in both of the machines is that a brush has a
>>     configurable "central color". Dominant color. And, also, each
>>     brush has a configurable "color range". The smaller the color
>>     range, the closer all the colors the brush draws are to the
>>     central color. The greater the color range, the more colors the
>>     brush draws. In Aleph Null 1.0, you can only have one brush at a
>>     time. In Aleph Null 2.0, you can have as many brushes as you want.
>>     The drawing algorithms are a bit more accomplished in Aleph Null
>>     2.0; the brushes have more interesting transparency/alpha and they
>>     draw more smoothly. Also, Aleph Null 2.0 has many more selectable
>>     nibs for a brush, and some of those nibs are dbCinema-ish in that
>>     they use images as paint, not simply color/gradient. Also, Aleph
>>     Null 2.0 works well on mobile.
>>
>>     Here is a doc I wrote about Aleph Null 2.0 that was recently
>>     rejected by the NFB. It outlines further features I'd like to add
>>     to Aleph Null. Possibly 3.0. If I can:
>>     http://vispo.com/alephTouch/docs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf
>>     <http://vispo.com/alephTouch/docs/AlephNull2NFB.pdf>
>>
>>     ja
>>
>>
>>
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     x mailing list
>>     x at vispo.com <mailto:x at vispo.com>
>>     http://vispo.com/mailman/listinfo/x_vispo.com
>>     <http://vispo.com/mailman/listinfo/x_vispo.com>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> x mailing list
>> x at vispo.com
>> http://vispo.com/mailman/listinfo/x_vispo.com
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> x mailing list
> x at vispo.com
> http://vispo.com/mailman/listinfo/x_vispo.com
>
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