It seems like there are four overlapping sections on which work is being done: hardware, software, content and aesthetic & form.
Hardware
We got all of the important hardware – new SSD disk drive, NVIDIA GTX960 card that will hopefully give us enough power to create visuals in 1080p resolution at 60Hz/FPS, and a full HD (1080p) monitor with multi-touch screen capabilities – this will serve as good preview as well as breaking some ground in design of custom control interfaces. I still hope to get a Happy Hacking Keyboard, but need to check on the budget. I’m planning to work on a wooden (perhaps with additional aluminium) enclosure for the touch screen (also thinking about portrait orientation of the screen), and we need to test synced (no tearing at 60fps) DVI output to a projector while also using the touchscreen on a secondary HDMI output.
Software
Basic platform is up: UbuntuStudio, Emacsen, SuperCollider compiled with multitouch support, Trin & Zarquon machines connected and talking, Processing works on both machines. A more comfortable solution with sync between machines should be done. Currently I write everything on my trusty ThinkPad X220 and folder should be synced instantly when both machines are up – and I want to avoid cloud-based solutions.
I’ve tested 1080p/60Hz flicker. Was testing multitouch library for Processing, but didn’t work for particular monitor. Submitted issue on their github. Succesfully tested SuperCollider GUI and wrote a granulator and GUI for it. Brainstormed about million possibilities with GUI interface. Proof-of-concept’d TABs-like hiding and showing of full Views of GUI elements.
Content
This area is very much in flux. Many ideas, and no clue how to tacle them. There’s still so much experimenting to be done with visuals – so it’s hard to imagine how to go about it. One idea that stuck is the element of Silicone. On one hand as something that enabled superconducting revolution (transistors) and all the subsequent technological innovation (and its dangers) and on the other a main material for plastic cosmetic surgery – especially breasts. Technology and pornography then? The other topic was/is anarchism in various forms, situations, historical facts…
Aesthetics & Form
Apart from new updated Processing Handbook, Microsound by C. Roads, and new “Making Music – 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers” by Dennis DeSantis, I also brough to the table fat book Wim Wenders: On Film (Essays and Conversations), and Michael Chion: Audio-Vision. Wenders was at best interesting and inspirational, but it was curious to read on his fear over video-technology, but after a while something quote conservative or perhaps modernistic started to shine through his words and explanations. I was especially struck by his idea that film conveys Truth, much more than video for example. While Wenders was mildly dissapointing, Chion almost enraged me. His writing is incredibly superficial. While I still have a bit of motivation to go through the book and pick out certain concepts that he invents/presents and think them through via my own phantasmic-aesthetic process, it’s hard to not say that most of his arguments about why certain concept is interesting or ‘true’ are simply false or at least completely out of place.
Progress Reports
Development Log & IF3
See also section development log and the tag IF3.
