Steven Swigart's Blog

The Bike Song

sbswigart — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 05:15:10 +0000

Makes me want to ride my bike.

Motion Graphics, John Whitney 1961

sbswigart — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:57:37 +0000

A demo from John Whitney in 1961 of his works labeled “Catalogue.” Supposedly Whitney created his own mechanical analogue computer to create motion graphic title sequences used for TV and film.

Sketchpad, Ivan Sutherland 1963 Thesis

sbswigart — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:47:44 +0000

Curious what common industry tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, CAD, Wacom tablets, and among many many more have derived from? I am. This demo from the 1960′s even has an example of 3D drawing, in Part 2, it’s simply amazing. Sketchpad was originally developed for Ivan Sutherland’s 1963 MIT doctoral thesis. Also I imagine Apple’s iPad is called the iPad because of Sketchpad being the grandfather of interactive graphical interfaces, a type of homage possibly.
Part 1:

Make sure you wait for the credits at the end of Part 2, the music is grand.
Part 2:

And a quick demo with commentary by Dr. Alan Kay, whom is another extremely influential computer scientist.

And you can download the PDF version of Sutherland’s 1963 MIT Technical Report on Sketchpad:
Sketchpad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System

Stop the Suburbs

sbswigart — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 20:21:42 +0000

From the Economist:

Between April 1st 2009 and April 1st 2010, metro Atlanta’s growth rate was at its lowest level since the 1950s. On an aesthetic level, this is no bad thing: the city grew too quickly for its infrastructure. Fewer people and cars might make the place more pleasant for those of us who live here. But going from a boomtown to a coasting-along city—from New York to Boston, say, or Shanghai to Hong Kong—is a jarring shift, particularly for Atlanta, accustomed as it is to seeing itself as the driving engine of the South.

Globe Genie

sbswigart — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 19:57:31 +0000

Just press shuffle:

http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/

Typeface in Motion

sbswigart — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 06:30:29 +0000

Via FastCompany

TouchDesigner Interactive Based Marketing Art

sbswigart — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 06:01:44 +0000

An interesting video from Wired about interactive art developed through using new tool, TouchDesigner.

Here is another example of TouchDesigner, incorporating live musical performance and dance:

Simple Interactive Art

sbswigart — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:30:53 +0000

Scott Snibe is an artist that creates interactive applications, mainly and most recently for the iPhone, some of which in turn allow users to create basic art works of their own. NYTimes has recently written a piece on him that is worth a read.

From NYTimes article:

But the advent of mobile devices with touch screens and tilt sensors changed all that. Beginning last January, Mr. Snibbe dusted off some of his old code and got to work. He has since released three mobile applications — Bubble Harp, Antograph and Gravilux — and has become one of the first artists to make it big in the iTunes app store. All told, his three apps have been downloaded over 400,000 times.

The majority of those downloads, though, came when he released Gravilux without charge; eventually, he set the price at 99 cents per download for the iPhone version of Gravilux and Antograph, with Bubble Harp and the iPad Gravilux retailing for $1.99. He would not say how much he had made, save to allow that he covered the “significant” start-up costs.

His Gravilux application — an elegant, black and white field of dots that follows the user’s finger around the screen — was released in May. In 24 hours it soared to the top of the app charts. Apple selected Gravilux to be a featured app, a coveted slot.

I’m a big fan of Gravilux, it’s a bit like a modern meditation garden. One can play their favorite tune in the background while interacting with simple dots that react to ones finger, like particles reacting to gravity in space, it’s really quite nice…

Here are some still images from my Gravilux:

Time Warner Cable on New Media Integration and the iPad

sbswigart — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:08:59 +0000

Part 1/4

Part 2/4, Part3/4, Part 4/4

Movie Marketing

sbswigart — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:19:00 +0000

Some interesting movie marketing at a local Atlanta news station, featuring Jason Schwartzman and Michael Cera.