Week 1: October 8-14

I started my Christie / CAFKA (Contemporary Art Forum of Kitchener + Area) Residency on October 9. I have a workstation at Communitech with Touch Designer software and Sketchup. I learn that both of these software programs have programming abilities. For Sketchup I can use Ruby and possibly Java. For Touch Designer TScript and C++.

So why am I learning this new software? For this residency I want focus on interactivity, 3-D modeling and real-time graphics. I have experience with these things but I want to take it to the next level and use something that works well with the display options that are available to me. I am also doing a video animation for the three storey Christie MicroTile wall at the new University of Waterloo Stratford Campus. I�m sticking to what I know best for this project. Next week I�ll be creating something for the wall in one of the labs for the Grand Opening Tour. I�ll be using the same process that I have developed for creating content for MicroTile wall.

This week I learned how to create a model in SketchUp. I�m having what I�ll call programmer�s itch. I have a nagging thought that with code I could achieve a lot so much faster. Luckily there are scripting examples online.With Touch Designer I�m trying to figure out what it is capable of doing. It is an Object Oriented Program that uses networks to pass information. It reminds me of Max/MSP which I have seen people using for live multimedia and digital artworks. My plan is to listen to as many tutorials as I can and follow along until I understand enough to do something myself. If I get restless I just play around given what I have learned. I am also thinking that it would be handy to be able to bring in information from a database. This will allow me to incorporate things I already know how to do in other programs.

Photography by Stefan A. Rose