Online Curator

Processing is a free program for all major operating systems that allows anyone to manipulate their computer in ways before unimaginable. It doesn’t actually change the computer, but it allows the user to program software, plugins and applications that can do nearly anything the programmer can imagine, as long they can figure out the code to make it happen. On top of this it can be used to make images, sounds, videos, and games and because of this many programmers have learned how to utilize the software and make it into art. Due to it’s tremendous capabilities Processing offers many options to artists that are impossible through conventional art forms, therefore making it an influential new media.

Strata
Robin Lawrie




Strata is an art installation that was made by a group of people working with processing. The artists took pictures of famous religious paintings and made them appear to shatter and get destroyed. They took these pictures paintings from churches and cathedrals and went over the whole image and sliced it into hundreds of tiny triangles that they could then manipulate separately from the rest of the painting. They then went about changing the picture into a 3D object, resembling mountains, and then had all the triangles explode outward. Once completed they installed it in churches and cathedrals again, probably so it could have some deep rooted, break free from religion message.



Oasis
Yunsil Heo and Hyunwoo Bang



Oasis is a really neat piece, being part art, part toy. It involves a screen underneath a layer of black sand. When the black sand is pushed away to reveal the screen beneath tiny aquatic animals come to life and swim around their environment. As you expand or condense the area the life forms either become more crowded, or are given more space and more life forms will grow. Another neat aspect is if you apply sharp movement to the screen, the life forms will react as though they were startled fish. I'm not sure exactly what they did to have the lifeforms understand their boundaries, but it's pretty neat either way.


Visual Complexity: 
Mapping Patterns of Information
Manuel Lima
 

Visual Complexity is a book by designer Manuel Lima, which is filled with information pattern maps. These are images generated based off data, which allows people to have a visual reference of what the data means. The book is filled with these images that can be anything from olde fashioned family trees to inspirations and other artists works that "evoke and translates networks." The reason I believe that this is art, is because the book is filled with these brilliant little visual maps that are thought provoking, even only at a glance.

ElectroPlastique
Marius Watz
VIDEO

ElectroPlastique is a piece that was developed by Marius Watz and tends to be more of what I think of when I hear "video art." It is merely colors and shapes moving, bumping into one another and changing because of it. This can be done through processing using algorithms and mathematical equations. This technique can also be used with video feedback, which can lead to some very cool effects in your art.

Body Dysmorphia



Body Dysmorphia is a project using Processing and the Microsoft Kinect. It is not so much art as it is someone just experimenting but I chose to include it anyways to show what it can do. The main reason it can be used as art is because it promotes interactivity which turns any piece into performance art, whether the person interacting knows it or not. He goes through several different phases including a semi-invisble camouflage, more fluid movements and a oil painting like filter. Processing can be used with the Kinect to do all sorts of things, which makes the combination of the two a unstoppable duo.