Interactive Digital Multimedia
ARS 361, Spring 2005
Instructor: Barbara Lattanzi

A hybrid generative and interactive visual display, compiled as an .swf file and viewable on your website.

Assignment due Tuesday, March 1

Concept:

"Software Art" is a new form of creative practice in which the artistic medium is software code. Usually (but not always), the code itself is not the part that is exhibited to the public; instead, the artist compiles the code into an executable program, just like all of the other software you use... "Generative" software art, as it is usually understood today, is artwork which uses mathematical algorithms to automatically or semi-automatically generate expressions in more conventional artistic forms. For example, a generative program might produce poems, or images, or melodies, or animated visuals. Usually, the objective of such a program is to create different results each time it is executed.

"Aleatoric" artwork incorporates randomness in its execution or composition. People have used randomness as an artistic tool for a long time before computers existed! All sorts of aleatoric techniques have been used to assist in the creation of poetry, stories, music, and drawings. There have been many reasons why artists have done so. Some artists, like the Dadaists, were interested in rebelling against the strictures of academic rules, while others, like the Surrealists, or some Zen artists, wished to circumvent the censuring influence of consciousness."

-- excerpts from interview with artist Golan Levin

Parameters:

• inclusion of user input (keyboard or mouse or some combination)
• minimum of 7 movieClip symbols (animations or static graphics, vectors or bitmaps)
• use of random function within at least 5 movieClips
• change of properties based upon user input
• use of one or more variables to hold manipulable bits of property data (e.g., a number value of a property such as _alpha)
• use of one or more conditional statement(s)
• use of at least one list (called an "array")
• Use of text, bitmap images, or audio is optional

Note that these parameters are meant as a guideline. You may include bitmap images or graphic text, and the project can develop around any theme, or simply remain a play of abstract elements. The technical goal is that you demonstrate familiarity with the powerful features of ActionScript. The ultimate goal is that you construct an inspired system that relies both on the viewer and the machine for a dynamic "exchange" of communication and control.