particles, space and 3D

November 14, 2008 at 7:23 am · Filed under design

A few quick sketches. I am still learning the possibilities of Processing for doing simple and quick sketches. There are a few projects I want to use this in but, having no background in computers, it takes awhile to get my head around the electronic palette - objects, arrays, classes and such.

This here is a very quick experiment where I composed a palette with 5000 particles moving around semi-randomly in 3D space with their color subtly affected by the movement in the 3D-space (the z-axis). Instead of doing anything more fancy, the aim here was merely to experiment with the possibilities of this and to prove the concept,. Even this might look a bit more complex, in fact, I actually only used rectangles and ellipses to compose these images. I let the program run for a few hours and see what comes of it.

Comments (1)

theory:praxis in emerging digital technologies and cultures

November 5, 2008 at 3:27 pm · Filed under play

So its official now: we are currently working on a book for Routledge India where me and Soum (with guest star Angad Chowdhry) will co-write a chapter on the work we do.  While I really have no idea at this point how the chapter will be organized — I increasingly believe in improvisation and semi-random iteration when generating new ideas — momentary closure was nonetheless achieved on the note that had to be sent to the publishers.  Can we use genetic algorythms as new metaphors for thinking?  What is the use of literary narratives of time such as sideshadowing and foreshadowing for understanding the future of technological development?  Though perhaps a bit academically dry for my tastes, I thought I’d like to share these here.

Comments

the pirates and their loot!

November 3, 2008 at 9:52 pm · Filed under design

Amongst the most insane places to visit in Mumbai is Chorbazar (or, ‘thieves’ market’), where you could purchase everything from parts of dismantled ships, to statues stolen from dilapidated monuments, from original hand-sketched posters of extremely old bollywood films, to books and magazines that date back to early 1900s.

This image was taken in an anonymous warehouse that you had to enter through a backdoor…

The ‘loot’ comes from everywhere, each store has its own network spread across the country and outside (you would find stuff from Sri Lanka, parts of Africa…)…

Obviously, photography is not allowed. However, a few gentle words helped break into their world.

As I started digging into the history of the place, I found that the Wikipedia entry about the place itself had been hijacked! An excerpt below :-

Comments