News

11/06/05: I have apologised to QBN. The have a broadcast protocol which I flaunted. May seem like a u-turn of principle but I can't argue with a law I was too lazy to read upon signing up. Sorry guys.
06/06/05: Processing has won the the Golden Nica in the Net Vision category at the Prix Ars Electronica! Well done guys. Two of my pieces are now showing in the AVA building at University of East London's Docklands campus. They are Box Emitting and Process, linked under Processing. Went to the onedotzero Generative X festival last Sunday. Very good stuff. Wishing I hadn't splashed out on the spongy-light Motion Blur book but couldn't resist - it comes with tasty DVD.
10/05/05: Pete Doherty had a stalker. Ew. I feel unclean about photographing him now. It makes me comparable to a Libertines fan. I only snapped him because I thought he was a nob-head.
08/05/05: Crikey. I've recieved a strike from Newstoday. This stems from me looking at the broadcast section and seeing a string of flickery experiments. I decided to poke fun at it by posting a page (I've now changed) accusing the poster boy of broadcast spam. The result was an angry tirade of broadcast threats, the experiments disappeared and now this. The poster boy is actually quite a good designer (and one of the Newstoday broadcasters - oops). I'm tempted to apologise but I've never had someone apologise to me for critisizing me, and I think I would discourage that sort of thing anyway. I'd lose respect for them for not standing up to me. The funniest thing about my strike was that it ended with the phrase, "QBN loves you." Touché. Update: they've removed anything I've posted, I feel like I've spoken out against Big Brother. I'll be off to room 101 next.
06/05/05: If I run out of money to pay for my site there's always this. P87 is terrific (and full of bugs but who cares). I've been polishing up my new project with it, I'm loving the new 3D tools. It's the interactive exhibit piece: Box Emitting. The microphone enabled version is the latest installment, I've been harrassing the Forum on how to punch the data from it into byte files. All new technology to me. Plus I'm working on a timelapse photography project with some tutors (now that I've blogged it I hope I won't have to mention it again).
25/04/05: One last P68 sketch as the new bug packed version of Processing is out. Have enjoyed the fun of putting up a couple of my sketches as photo-etchings and exhibiting them. Am pretty fed up with making funky slow Photoshop filters now. I'm going to concentrate on the possibility of a timelapse project and an interactive microphone and camera exhibit. I was working up the interactive exhibit as some kind of virtual play-with ribbon. I've since decided that I like the idea of having a kind of seismograph thing that will moniter sound when the projector is obscured.
30/03/05: I've literally ran out of ideas now. I can't find diagrams for linking more than one stepper motor to a PIC so I'm clueless as to how I should proceed. Have made some more types of robot-acid to destroy pictures, could do with making some to react to web-cam and sound. Hrmm. Need to sit down with the sketchbook and think about it.
12/03/05: Robot progress is gradual. Now I've got C communication with the bugger I need to figure out how to link the stepper motors to the driver chips and those to the PIC. Recent exhibit went down well, am trying out one of my prints as a photo-etch to carry on the theme of destruction and make a quality object rather than a soul-less print out. Developing the idea of photo manipulation seems like a good direction, am considering a return to working on the troubled Bresenham vectoriser and developing an experiment with some a-life that will feed on the saturation in an image.
19/02/05: Need to get this robot built. Soon. If only the PIC would bloody work.
08/02/05: Updating my CSS...
01/02/05: A couple more particle jobs and now I'm playing with the ole web cam. Hooked up to some code these things are great toys, sorry that none of it works in a browser. Am making a Flash line drawer. Gonna see if I can finally get the pattern I've been trying to get the computer to emulate done. I reckon it's a matter of teaching the library of symbols I use.
22/01/05: Have made a couple of single neuron applets that sway a plotter and a php counter based applet that spawns bacteria based on the amount of hits that page gets. Am going to put my head down now and see if I can turn the extractor on to CSS and to make some motion tracking stuff.
??/01/05: May have to scratch the welcome note idea, IPs are subject to change over night. The Gay Cat DVD has been sorted out now, at last the non-webbers can see what I've been slaving over. Am going to scale down my neural net ambitions to see if I can communicate with just one neuron for the time being that will react to the mouse (following up to my end of year show robot exhibit that I want to react to gallery visitors Angela Bullock style). Will post.
14/01/05: Just had a big spring clean of the site. I've also started learning a bit of PHP. Send me your IP and I'll include a personal welcome note at the top of the page.
13/01/05: Yeah, let's bugger about with the layout some more. Not really having a lot of fun with the old neural net gig. Can't get my head around some of the theory, taken a break and done some other stuff.
06/01/05: Not sure what to do with the spider now. BT is giving a crap connection so I can't test it. HAROLD the drawing robot is up, thought I'd find out out how to code in Flash.
30/12/04: Hope you all had a merry Christmas and I wish you all a drunkard New Year. Stumbling along with the web-spider, progress is slow and painful. See how painful in the links.
23/12/04: Looks like I'm going to have to learn how to implement a neural net. I did a look up on the old positronic brain theory but it seems to operate using BS conduits, much like the transporters in Star Trek. Oh Well.
17/12/04: Thought the site needed a bit more of a golden section division. Gay Cat is up and replaces my crappy "Point" flash project. Smalls are off as well I'm afraid but you're not missing much. Laura's blog is linked and currently I must mention that I'm working on a .html reactor. The result should be a fun applet that can turn your favourite web haunts into pretty pictures. I hope to get a prototype up in the next month.
08/12/04: This art-bot lark is an arse. I've been pondering on the subject of boredom and how it makes me make pictures. So I've been working on a method to express the proposed art bot getting bored.
04/12/04: Gah, ahm freezin me tits off. Still, the onslaught of booze that is Crimble is on the horizioh. I shall just have to pray for another big private view at the White Cube again. Freezing cold Japanese beer can't be beat ('specially when free). So close to finishing the Gay Cat cartoon off.
21/11/04: I've just downloaded Greypaint for the Palm. I shall now endeavour to get some daily drawings done. Accessible from the daily smalls link. The Gay Cat cartoon is in production and shall be posted when finished.
12/11/04: Demo done. Still got bugs. Can't be arsed.
07/11/04: A working demo including downloadable code of the vectoriser will be available once I've ironed out the bugs. For now I've posted an acrobat file in the work section so people can appreciate the craziness it produces. My blog is a bit meaningless and I do indeed surf a bit so I'm going to start dropping in choice links in the blog. They will all open new windows. (19/03/05: moved to favorites page.)
25/10/04: Currently working on something to turn bitmaps into a mesh of vectors. Have put some file sizes on all the work links now. My old art work is uploaded. Prepare for fuzzy photos and bad photocopies dating back to 1994.
02/10/04: A bit buggy but the new bot is uploaded. I'm going to have myself a really big cup of tea now and probably kill some orcs on my palm top (iRogue).
21/09/04: Bejesus Everquest is expensive, doesn't deserve my student funds. Almost got my notes sorted for the bot, just need to iron out some issues I have with the code then I can paste the whole thing together.
03/09/04: Been busy killing orcs and learning object orientated code. No new bots until I get this next one sorted then I'll post something. Till then check out the nice art at Happy Times (linked).
10/07/04: Bugger logic gates. Bugger C++, the compiler don't work on my machine. Am developing a pattern generator, it will rock when it is strong enough but the crappy line version is uploaded for now.
09/06/04: Joy, I have had a complete rethink with the machines and am now developing a whole new logic gate system. Developing a form so people can play with it will be an arse. Plus either my code or Processing is too slow for this whole logic gate thing. I might have to take a look at C++ or OpenGL. Ralph's band site is alive, well and linked (I think he needs to change the size of the pop ups though) and you can check out fine artist Iavor's work from here too (he swam through the Tate Modern earlier this year).
02/06/04: A big fat appology to my ISP. Just found out I couldn't upload jack from halls. At least I'm all online and pretty now. Up yours Tripod. No more legions of pop ups and banner ads for me. Thanks to everyone who's put up with me harrassing them over the past few days. I can rest easy now. Updates will be slow and far apart but I'm not exactly cutting edge anyway.
29/05/04: Marvelous, new hosting space. At least I'm not covered in poxy ads anymore.
28/05/04: Yes I've updated. I'll have to hold my self back from telling everyone in the known universe. The point project is linked, along with the fo-shizzle movie. Currently I'm working in Processing trying to get the computer to do the job of doing surrealist automatic drawings for me. I've made a couple of basic attempts with one based on the random number generator and one based on Perlin noise. I'm now seeing if there's a way to replace the noise numbers with trigonometry ratios. Preloaders for the flash movies is gonna have to wait. Drawing Brains are linked but they're lacking a means for users to alter the variables so anyone who wants to play with them needs to paste the code into Processing.