MPM 35 Visualizations and Generative Processes

Week1
Interesting Links:
House of Cards, Radiohead music video
Hans Rosling (2006 TED Talk)
Chris Jordan, statistical portraits (TED talk)
Forever by Universal Everything at the V&A Museum

Week2: Foundations Data Models, Visual Encoding, Design Principles
Topic Links :
NameVoyager
Ayca Akin - Dear Diary
Edward Tufte
Jacques Bertin
Colin Ware
A good series of articles on Gestalt theory
Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the closure law
JunkCharts
They Rule by Josh On

Recommended Reading
Read Chapter 1 of Ben Fry’s Visualizing Data. (http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/9780596514556)

Assigned Assignment: Many Eyes

Week3: Processing review - Basic concepts
* Drawing
* Color
* Variables
* Animation
* Loops
* Arrays
* Interactivity
In Class Examples:
- how to draw with basic interaction using mouse events

-array: moving sphere(s) that wraps around the edge of the window

- draw image, draw image every other pixel & interactivity (change using mouse position)

-drawing many objects using a loop (interactivity using the mouse)
-the draw() function is also a loop


Recommended Reading
First few chapters of the Processing Handbook (http://www.learningprocessing.com/)

Week4: Processing Review - Advanced Concepts
* Functions
* Text and Strings
* Motion
* Objects, Classes
In Class Examples:
-functions, creating custom “commands” that can be reused

-graph
-class can represent more abstract things
Putting it all together: start with moving bars, add color, add interactivity: mouseOver, rect boundary check function, explain multiple conditions, add text
-is there a way to do this differently? - each bar has a position, a width, etc.., model each “bar” as an Object, for instance.

-letter: map the mouse position to an ASCII character, between 65 and 90 (A..Z), & color the vowels yellow

Related Links :
Personas
Lexigraphs

Assignment: Interactive Self-Portrait

Week5
Links:
Mark Hansen & Ben Rubin:
*Listening Post (videos part 1, part 2 and part 4)
*Moveable Type
Golan Levin & Al:
*The Secret Lives of Numbers
*The Dumpster
Jonathan Harris & Sep Kamvar:
*We Feel Fine (TED talk)
*I Want You To Want Me (video)
Jonathan Harris - Universe
Lev Manovich - Cultural Analytics

Getting Data From the Web
Basic tools:
loadStrings(), loadImage()
Basic terminology (URL, HTTP, REST, CSV, XML)
List of Web APIs
Processing demos: accessing the Technorati and Last.fm APIs.
In Class Examples:
-an data acquisition example, this time using Last.fm’s REST API. Last.fm’s 20 top artists for Canada are retrieved and displays their pictures. Overall popularity affects the width of the picture.

Assignment: Final Project Proposal

Week6: Social Networks
Visualizing conversations, crowds, and networks of people
Visualizing historiesFernanda Viegas (Chat Circles, Mountains, Themail, etc…)
Space memories
Artifacts of the Present Era
Last Clock
Social dynamics
Vizster
Boundary Functions
Mark Lombardi (this and that)
Linkology
Wisdom of crowds
TagMaps

Reading for next week: Artistic Data Visualization

Related Links:
XKCD - Map of Online Communities
Google’s Social Graph API
Twitter visualization: more REST API, some mathematics and bezier curves.  
In Class Examples:
-show the control lines, show the points, establishing random connections in a set of 20 nodes, using bezier curves
- map the connections between a Twitter user’s,  friends
- the “api” has some functions that wrap some of the twitter API functionality
- basically, Twitter only lets you do 150 requests per hour. If you abuse it they will start blocking your IP.  The code in the cache tab is store requests as XML files on the computer, so that if we’ve already asked for some information, we can get the cached answer instead of making a Twitter request.. Otherwise everytime we run the sketch, we’d be making dozens and dozens of requests, and we’d run into the 150 limit very very quickly.

Assignment: Final Project Proposal Due Oct 28th

Week7: Information Aesthetics
Related Links:
Ben Fry (video of a talk at See#3 conference)
Martin Wattenberg - Thinking Machine
George Legrady - Seatle Central Library
Imaginary Forces - MoMA Screens
Digg Labs
Aaron Koblin - Flight Patterns, NYTE
W. Bradford Paley - Code Profiles, Map of Science
Boris Muller - Visual Poetry

Assignment: Research Blog
VisualComplexity.com
Infosthetics.com

Week 8: Algorithmic Art
Related Links:
Brian Eno and Will Right talk about generative systems (full talk, 1h38m)
Generative drawings
Desmond Paul Henry
Jared Tarbell
Casey Reas
Joshua Davis (Process video for BMW Z4 prints)
Genetic algorithms
Karl Sims
Theo Jansen

Reading: Exploring Emergence

In Class:
Traer physics, Twitter graph redux

Week9: Emergence, Complex Systems, Noise
Related Links:
Cellular Automata
Bill Vorn - Evil/Live 3
Fractals & Recursion
Mandlebrot, L-Systems
Driessens & Verstappen - IMA Traveller
Jackson Pollock - Fractal Expressionism
Scott Draves - Electric Sheep
Emergent Behavior / Complex Systems
Boids
Braitenberg vehicles (simulator)
Hybrid Spaces
Adam Brown & Andrew Fagg - Bion
Ken Rinaldo - Autotelematic Spiders
Simon Penny - Petit Mal
Robert Hodgin

In Class Example:
-Drawing Perlin noise in 1 dimension, with a second dimension used to represent time.
Controls: mouseX controls the resolution of the noise; mouseY controls the animation speed (step)
-2D dimensional perlin texture; mouseX / mouseY control the “drift”, an offset that moves us  in the perlin noise space - dragging the mouse up/down controls the animation speed; dragging the mouse left/right controls the noise resolution