Golan Levin {to my home site} | ||
Real-Time
Systems for Fluid Abstract Expression
Still Images Documenting Interactive Drawing Environments Aesthetics and Computation Group MIT Media Laboratory |
||
The expressive and evocative capacities of abstract form are important complements to those afforded by other visual media such as text and information graphics. My theis work has focused on the design of real-time environments which allow people to create abstract shape, color and sound in ways which are direct, engaging, physical and communicative. The images below are stills captured from my animated environments while they were being used. Several of these full-screen software pieces have been sonified, and can be used as real-time sound synthesis instruments in addition to visual performance environments. All software is written in C++ and runs in the IRIX and WindowsNT operating systems. |
Floo (1999) disperses and deflects soft-edged tendrils in response to the user's movements. A simplified form of this program has been implemented in a Floo applet. | 640x512 / 280k |
640x512 / 257k |
640x512 / 321k |
640x512 / 227k |
||
Flocculus (1999) is a Latinate term for hairball. In this environment, ductile hairs drawn by the user swirl around a shifting, imaginary drain. A modified version of this environment, the Floccugraph, renders photographs in hair. | 640x512 / 83k |
640x512 / 70k |
640x512 / 176k |
640x512 / 80k |
800x512 / 122k |
|
Meshy (1998) is an interactive drawing environment in which the user's strokes scaffold a gauzy mesh of animated elements. Users can gesturally tease and torque the mesh in real-time. A smaller version of this program has been implemented in a Meshy applet. |
800x600 / 77k |
800x600 / 136k |
800x600 / 184k |
800x512 / 110k |
800x512 / 78k |
800x512 / 97k |
Directrix
(1998) is an interactive drawing environment in which users can quickly
generate animated "pseudo-parabolas". These complex curves are
the result of an interplay between a set of dynamic and static gestures
performed by the user. |
800x600 / 108k |
800x600 / 95k |
800x600 / 75k |
600x480 / 154k |
||
Aurora
(1999) permits the user to create and manipulate a shimmering, nebulous
cloud. This glowing formlessness rapidly evolves, dissolves and disperses
as it follows and responds to the user's movements. |
1280x1024 / 74k |
1280x1024 / 92k |
1280x1024 / 81k |
1280x1024 / 88k |
||
Curly (1998) repeats a user's strokes end-over-end, enabling simultaneous specification of a line's shape and quality of movement. Each line repeats according to its own period, producing an ever-changing yet consistent animated texture. | 640x480 / 8k |
640x480 / 33k |
640x480 / 93k |
|||
Escargogolator (1997, created in collaboration with Scott Snibbe at Interval Research Corporation) smoothly exaggerates or diminishes one's strokes according to their local curvatures. The strokes inexorably rewind to their points of origin. | 640x512 / 19k |
640x512 / 48k |
640x512 / 35k |
640x512 / 24k |