radarboy

But fear not. We will clothe you.
We’re happy to announce T-ShirtMaker Ver. 4 – the Berlin edition. Design your own custom pixel tee goodness.

http://www.radarboy.com/tshirtmaker/

I’ve decided to start release some of the stuff I’ve been working on lately, building up towards my show. I have so many experiments sitting on my hard drive that never see the light of day.

So here we have Sound Reactive Circle 1.

I wanted it to be able to play in the browser, but for some reason couldn’t get it to work, event though I signed the applet. Next time….

A video is here. For more of my work see the radarboy FLickr page.

Here’s the code. Build in Processing. It includes a Mac, PC and Linux application.

These screengrabs are part of a vast pool of sound reactive stuff I’ve been working on over the past year, which is finally getting into a presentable form.

After a long haitus, I completely rebuild the old award winning RBVJ in Processing – but it wasn’t as simple as I anticipated, and it’s still not 100% stable. Once it is I will release the code.

I’m not a programmer, I’m a designer/artist, whatever. However I do enjoy quite a few aspects of programatic design – the fact that code can lead you to unexpected places and taking on a life of it’s own can really surprise you.

I am really most inspired by the visuals of Raster Norton and Ali Demirel, which are pretty close to my own work in both style and substance. I’ve also been thinking plenty about space and I think, along with minimalism, these theme play out a lot in my work. I think the graphics also reflect the way my music production is moving.

I have always believed that club graphics should simple – there is too much noise in the world already – and the simplicity of the graphics allows us to go with the music and find meaning on our own, rather than being shoved down a visual mishmash. Not that these kind of graphics should necessarily be just shown in a club context, but that’s another whole conversation.

The plan is to combine the visuals with my live music/DJ sets – eventually controlling both light and sound through Ableton/OSC/Max.

Soon on a wall/dancefloor in Berlin. And beyond.

Project Links:
Gallery: Here’s the first of a three part set of screengrabs from my work:
http://radarboy.com/george/visuals1.html
Video: (Coming Soon – next week hopefully)

Some technical stuff:
I’ve decided to totally ditch Flash – it is just too verbose, annoying and slow. I actually considered moving completely over to Open Frameworks for speed, but eventually decided Processing was the best bet. Given the strides being made in ProcessingJS – the JavaScript port of Processing, the recent launch of Processing for Andoid and news that Processing 2 will be even better friends with OpenGL. Open Frameworks’ inability to publish on the web was also a clincher. Anyway, I digress.

T-Shirtmaker Fax Edition, May 2007.
Radarboy held an analogue design competition. Rules were simple. Send us a fax and win a t-shirt.

I know things here have been a bit quiet of late – I’ve been in South Africa sorting my visa issues. But very big things ahead. Say no more. Say no more.

King of Africa: King’s Car. By Heidi Chisholm (ex Daddy Buy Me a Pony).
Black and yellow print on white American Apparel, 100% pure cotton. Slick.
Available at http://www.kingofafrica.com.

Also check out the King of Africa blog.

An exploration into the murky world of electronics and artificial life, the Digital Zoo was an installation held at the Stills Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland, as part of the Edigburgh Festival.

Based on the concept of the Tamagotchi, the African Big Five of the digital Zoo, were born at a night of many free drinks, courtesy of our sponsors, lo-fi.org. The Zoo animals depended on physical interaction from visitors to the gallery, remote SMS feeding and general loving, from data pulled from their web to keep them alive. Visitors on the web could watch live webcam action of the Zoo animals going about their daily lives.

As art imitates real life, most people preferred to play with or abuse the digital prisoners rather than take on the responsible tasks like cleaning the poo out of their cages and giving them their medicine. And all five didn’t last even a week. Though, by that time the Radarboy team had already left the Moors and headed back to home, through the marvels of remote computing we were able to revive/rebirth the creatures to endure further abuse by the Scots and visiting American tourists. Today the digital elephant, rhino, leopard, lion and buffalo remain cryogenically frozen waiting to be resurrected when we have the time and an suitable offer to bring them back to life.

Documentation of the Zoo is here.

The first three King of Africa tees have been printed and are out circulating among a few royal sidekicks. Designed by Heidi, Radarboy and Brandt. Store imminent and site coming… (in Africa time), but in the meantime, please comment and communicate via our Flickr page.

A visual exploration of peoples lives. 24 participants, each given an hour of the day to document what they are up to.

An oldie, but still kinda interesting…