Comments (2)

By evan, 3 February 2010 11:15 am

Doodle 3 by Martin Schneider

Hi gang,

Our last Processing course was so successful that we have been scrambling to schedule another one to accommodate all of you who couldn’t get into the current run.  Now, we’re happy to announce that we will be running another 5-week introductory Processing workshop at the lovely organic pub, gallery, and performance space called The Flea Pit, on Columbia Rd. near Shoreditch and the top of Brick Lane.  Workshops will take place on 5 Tuesday nights from 7-9PM, starting March 9th Tues March 2nd and ending April 13th (skipping April 6th) March 30th.

The course itself will be a relaxed but project-focused introduction to Processing and interactive art and design in general.  We will spend the bulk of the first two sessions on basic methods of working with code, general workflow, and feeling your way around the Processing environment, then focus more on project ideas and specific technologies such as sensors, 3D, OSC, and video.  We will be flexible based on the needs of the people attending.

This will be a small workshop, so please reserve soon!   The cost will be £130 for the entire 5-week course, paid upfront.  You  will need to bring a laptop, preferably with Processing installed (very easy to do!).  Please email reserve@openlabworkshops.org to reserve spot.

The class will be taught by resident Processing guru Evan Raskob and a few special guest lecturers.

Happy coding!

Comments (1)

By evan, 28 December 2009 2:24 pm

Processing for Visual Artists

Openlab Workshops presents a 5-week long introductory course in Processing and interactive art.  From 28 January until mid-March, take two Thursdays each month and learn some generative visual art chops.  Learn Processing from the ground up, exploring ActionScript and Arduino in the process.  This will be a project-led course with a relaxed atmosphere and small class size.  We will invite special guest lecturers, in addition to the regular staff, taking you through creating basic sketches up to creating videos, interactive art, and games.  At the end of the course, you will have a working project (game, installation, video piece) of your own design, and some knowledge and inspiration for future projects!  Compare with the V&A’s £240 Processing class for 6 weeks.  Main instructor: Processing guru and lecturer Evan Raskob.

Cost and Reservations
Reservations are limited.  The cost (before January 15th) will be £125 for 5, 2-hour-long sessions (£150 after Jan. 15th).  Sessions will take place on two Thursdays each month, form 7:30-9:30PM at Space Studios, Hackney.  (It’s easy to get to Space! Hackney Central is easily accessible from most stations, and various buses serve the area.  The Bethnal Green Tube station is about a 10-minute walk. We will provide you with more information).  Please email reserve@openlabworkshops.org to reserve a spot!

More Information
We will start from the beginning and cover the basics of Processing and interactive art – drawing to the screen, creating sketches for the web, some basic programming practices.  Then, since the workshop is project-focused, we will work with participants on more specific topics, including some of the following:  creating and analyzing sound; working with and saving to video; webcams; network communications using OSC (including communicating with SuperCollider).

If you have any questions at all, please email us and ask at info@openlabworkshops.org !!

Private sessions are also available – please email for details.

(By the way, the header image was generated in Processing)

Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/openlabworkshop

Comments (0)

By evan, 17 November 2009 5:21 pm

Hi folks,

Last one of the year! Going out with a bang.  Third Thursdays workshops return to Space Studios in January, keep your eyes peeled for upcoming events!  Thanks for all your support this year, we couldn’t do this without you.  You are the sunshine in our lives, the wind beneath our wings, the spark in our step, the heat in our fire, the evil metal heart in our bloody-minded killer robot.  See you soon!

http://openlabworkshops.org

When: Thursday 19 November, from 6pm-10:00pm

Where: Space Studios, 129 – 131 Mare St, Hackney E8 3RH

Nearest transport: Bethnal Green (tube), London Fields (Overground), Buses – see http://www.spacestudios.org.uk/contact/SPACE/

Cost: £15 for the entire night, or per workshop (see below).
How to pay: At the door, or via Paypal to be guaranteed a space (limited to 30 people per workshop).  Please email or Paypal reserve@openlabworkshops.org to reserve a space in any workshop.

~=~ SCHEDULE ~=~

6PM – Graphic Design Using Inkscape with Jake Rayson

Graphic design for the masses!  You know that you need to do that flow chart, wireframe, presentation, or cute portrait of your cat using vector graphics (so you can blow it up to wall size and scare the fur off her back), but you don’t want to plunk down £1000+ for Adobe CS5.  That’s where open source vector graphics program Inkscape comes in.  Jake will take you through the basics, and was nice enough to provide a detailed list of them:

1. Welcome to Inkscape v0.47!
2. Creating images: Bitmap vs. Vector
3. Using images: Print vs. Web
4. Shapes: fill, stroke, transform.
5. The wonder of Bezier Curves.
6. Creating type.
7. Crack Compound Paths.
8. Combining bitmap & vector.
9. Export for Web!

Please download Inkscape from http://inkscape.org/ before the workshop, but if you can’t, then we’ll have some copies laying about.

7:45PM – Animation in Processing with Alias

So you know Processing and/or Flash, now how do you make your pretty graphics move around the screen in ways more interesting than left-to-right and then right-to-left?  Cue Alias and “Animation in Processing.”  In this workshop, we will cover the basics of getting things moving in Processing, starting with simple 2D sprites, moving on to more complex concepts like using tween equations, and finally touching on 3D animation using OpenGL.  This is an intermediate level workshop – a little knowledge of Processing is advisable, but you should be able to pick things up if you are reasonably familiar with the basic concepts.

~=~=~=~For More Information~=~=~=~

Please reply and tell us if you don’t want to receive more of these emails at this address. We’re not into spamming people…

Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/openlabworkshop

Sign up to our events announcements list!

You can also keep up with all general Openlab events, performances, workshops, etc. on our low-traffic email list: http://lists.pawfal.org/listinfo.cgi/openlab-announce-pawfal.org

Comments (0)

By evan, 4 November 2009 12:10 pm

Some pictures from this workshop.

Comments (1)

By evan, 29 October 2009 7:12 pm

~=~=~=~~=~=~=~~=~=~=~~=~=~=~~=~=
~= Workshop #8: Make Some Noise ~=~=~=

When: Tuesday 3 Nov from 6pm-10:00pm
Where: The Roebuck pub (upstairs room), 50 Great Dover Street, SE1 4YG
Nearest transport: 5, 133, 343, 21 buses, Borough Tube (Northern line)
About 8 minute walk from London Bridge Station (Northern and Jubilee tube, rail, and bus station: 48, 47, 149 buses)

Cost: £15 for the entire night, or per workshop (see below).
How to pay: At the door, or via Paypal to be guaranteed a space (limited to 30 people per workshop).  There will be a few spaces for people who show up on the night.  Please email reserve@openlabworkshops.org to reserve a space in any workshop.

Schedule:

6PM: Hardware Noise Hacking with Ryan Jordan – £10

In this session of Hardware Noise Hacking you will be making some PSYCHEDELIC SQUARE WAVE TOILET GOGGLES!!!! Yes indeed, your very own hallucinogenic, drug free goggles!

Aside from that, the workshop will teach you simple circuit and electronics building to make your own square wave synth and stroboscopic lights, both with controllable frequency.

No programming skill is required.
No electronics skill is required.
No musical skill is required.
Only your body and brain are required.
This is an open workshop for anyone interested in DIY punk noise machines.

There is an additional £15 charge for the kit, if you wish to take it home with you and scare your friends and impress your enemies!

The kit includes:

1. 555 timer circuit
2. capacitors
3. resistors
4. small speaker
5. breadboard
6. 9v battery and clip
7. potentiometer
8. LED’s
9. Instruction and reference booklet.

What you will need to bring to the workshop!!!:::

• 2 x inner tubes from toilet rolls
• a pair of goggles or glasses
• a sense of sonic adventure

7:45PM: Understanding Sound and Music by Programming Computers with S. Jagannathan – £10

Session 2 (of 2): Synthesis From Scratch

Part 2 of audio enthusiast and professional computational motivational speaker Jag’s 2 part series on making sound from basic computer code. About 50% of the workshop/talk will have computer sound & music ideas – these will be programming language agnostic – in a format that people without any prior programming background but with an interest in computer music can understand. PD, max/msp, SuperCollider, etc. users will benefit from looking into that primal black box of sound generators!

Requirements:

• Basic knowledge of programming – variables, loops, conditionals, basic pointers. (if you have done programming in the past it should be fairly straightforward.)
• A computer with a C++ compiler (Linux, XCode, etc.)

~=~=~=~For More Information~=~=~=~
See our entire Fall / Winter schedule on http://openlabworkshops.org

Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/openlabworkshop

You can also keep up with all Openlab events, performances, workshops, etc. on our low-traffic email list: http://lists.pawfal.org/listinfo.cgi/openlab-announce-pawfal.org

Comments (2)

By evan, 23 October 2009 5:13 pm

Hi gang, here is a short how-to for using the Jack audio server and compiling and using Jag’s examples form his workshop on OS X.

If you’re on linux, you can install jack through your favorite package manager, then install svn (subversion) and get Jag’s code and instructions from his project page.

If you’re an OS X version of some sort, please read on.

First, go get JackPilot and Jack: http://www.jackosx.com/download.html (download the version for your version of OS X).  Install it, and restart the computer.  We’ll wait here while you do that…

Next, run JackPilot (from your /Applications folder).

Now we need to set up our sound device.  The odd thing about the Mac laptops is that they have different sound drivers for input and output, which is a pain for Jack to deal with.  We’ll need to create an “Aggregate Device” which smushes together the inputs and outputs into a single, virtual device.  Luckily, this is easy to do.

Open Audio Midi Setup (an application in your Applications/Utilities folder on your Mac) and then we’ll create the aggregate device.  Note that from the JackPilot menu you can also get to your Sound Preferences at the click of a button (we’ll need this soon enough).

In Audio Midi Setup choose “Open Aggregate Device Editor” from the top menu as below:

Next, click the + sign to add a new aggregate device, and make it look the way it does in this screenshot:

Now click “done” and you’ve got a brand new audio device that you can use with Jack. Go grab a coffee, or a biscuit, and pat yourself on the back because we’re almost done.

Close Audio Midi Setup and go back to JackPilot.  Now, choose “Open Sound Preferences” from the top menu that you chose “Open Audio Midi setup” from before.  In Sound Preferences, choose your “Aggregate Device” as your audio output:

Do the same for the input (under the “input” tab).  Now we’re ready to use Jack! One thing to note is that your volume keys won’t work with this Aggregate Device, you’ll need to control all your volume via software.  A pain, I know, but such is life.

Go back to JackPilot and hit the “start” button to start the Jack server.

Now you need to download the handy disk image containing the XCode project file and supporting files.

Open the disk image and copy the files to a safe place on your computer, like the Documents folder.  Double-click the project file.  Oh, make sure that XCode (part of the Developer tools) is installed – if not, you can install it off the OS X disk that came with your computer, or (better yet) download it from Apple’s Developer website (free registration) which will give you a newer version with better support.

Once you have the project open in XCode, go to the top menu and click Run and then Console or press SHIFT+CMD+R.  You should see the a console window pop-up, where you can type in commands and get some textual feedback from the program.  Now click the “Build and Go” button on the top bar of any window, which has a little green play arrow, and the program should run (you’ll see some text in the console window).

We need to connect our jack-tuner program to Jack, now, so go back to JackPilot and hit the “routing” button.  you’ll see a window of connections pop up, like so:

Click on the “out” under jack-tuner (our client) and then double-click “playback_1″ under “System” as above to make a connection.  (Double-click it again to break the connection.)  Now you should hear some sound!  Go back to XCode and type in commands into the Console and play with your tuner!

Comments (0)

By evan, 19 October 2009 9:59 am

~=~=~=~~=~=~=~~=~=~=~~=~=~=~~=~=~=~~=~=~=~=~=~=~
~= Workshop #7: Programming is More than Just Words ~=~=~=

When: Tuesday 20 October, from 6pm-10:00pm
Where: The Roebuck pub (upstairs room), 50 Great Dover Street, SE1 4YG
Nearest transport: 5, 133, 343, 21 buses, Borough Tube (Northern line)
About 8 minute walk from London Bridge Station (Northern and Jubilee tube, rail, and bus station: 48, 47, 149 buses)

Cost: £15 for the entire night, or per workshop (see below).
How to pay: At the door, or via Paypal to be guaranteed a space (limited to 30 people per workshop).  There will be a few spaces for people who show up on the night.  Please email reserve@openlabworkshops.org to reserve a space in any workshop.

Schedule:

6PM: Processing Beginners’ Workshop with Evan Raskob – £10

You’ve heard Evan’s intro workshops and been slightly terrified by the advanced stuff (it’s ok to admit it).  So bring your basic questions and project ideas, and Evan will work thorough them to everyone’s benefit.  Or, if people are feeling quiet, he will go through some of his endless bag o’ tricks, including OSC and MIDI.

7:45PM: Understanding Sound and Music by Programming Computers with S. Jagannathan – £10

Session 1 (of 2): Building a music tuner program.

Your very own accurate musical instrument tuner spanning the entire audio range to tune any instrument.  Several tuning schemes supported including roll your own.  About 50% of the workshop/talk will have computer sound & music ideas – these will be programming language agnostic – in a format that musicians without any prior programming background but with an interest in computer music can understand. PD, max/msp, SuperCollider, etc. users will benefit from looking into that primal black box of sound generators!

Requirements:

• Basic knowledge of programming – variables, loops, conditionals, basic pointers. (if you have done programming in the past it should be fairly straightforward.)
• Computer with the ability to compile and run C++ programs linked to portaudio libraries.

~=~=~=~For More Information~=~=~=~
See our entire Fall / Winter schedule on http://openlabworkshops.org

Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/openlabworkshop

You can also keep up with all Openlab events, performances, workshops, etc. on our low-traffic email list: http://lists.pawfal.org/listinfo.cgi/openlab-announce-pawfal.org

Comments (0)

By evan, 8 October 2009 5:33 pm

ol-wkshp-fluxus-puredyne-20, originally uploaded by da mad pixelist.

Finally, pictures from the last workshop: http://www.flickr.com/photos/madpixelist/sets/72157622543164404/ !!!

Comments (0)

By evan, 6 October 2009 7:01 pm

Openlab, the London-based open source art and technology collective, presents two more workshops in October about doing some really cool sh** using free (as in open source) tech.  Come out to Space Studios where the computers are shiny and new, or out to The Roebuck pub where the Budvar Dark flows freely (as in we enjoy drinking it).  Either way, learn something cool, and make us happy for having caused you to learn it. And if you’re thinking of coming to a couple, check the schedule at http://openlabworkshops.org and email us at reserve@openlabworkshops.org for a multi-pass.

~=~=~=~~=~=~=~~=~=~=~~=~=~=~~=~=~=~~=~=~=~=~
~= Workshop #6: Special Daniel vs. Daniel Edition ~=~=~=

When: Thursday 15 October, from 6pm-9:30pm
Where: Space Studios, 129 – 131 Mare St, Hackney E8 3RH
Nearest transport: Bethnal Green (tube), London Fields (Overground), Buses – see http://www.spacestudios.org.uk/contact/SPACE/

Cost: £15 for the entire night, or per workshop (see below).
How to pay: At the door, or via Paypal to be guaranteed a space.  Please email or Paypal to reserve@openlabworkshops.org to reserve a space in any workshop.

Schedule:

6PM: Simulating and Sonifying Natural Systems with Daniel Jones – £10
An increasingly popular practice in digital arts is creating sonic representations of dynamical systems — simulating natural phenomena such as insect swarms, tree growth, wind turbulence and neural networks, and translating such phenomena into sound, to create organic, dynamic audio-visual works. Working from a *basic knowledge* of the Java-based Processing environment, Daniel Jones explains how to create such a simulation and subsequently connect it to the open-source SuperCollider synthesis engine, providing a valuable addition to a digital artist’s toolkit.

Requirements:

• Processing (from http://processing.org/download/)

7:45PM: Introduction to Arduino: Microcontrollers, LEDs, Sensors, and You! with Daniel Hirschmann – £10
Newly-minted Goldsmiths’ lecturer Daniel introduces you to the Arduino as a platform for prototyping physical & digital interactive objects, installation, and things.  We will cover the programming environment, some basic electronics, and learn how to make sensors do stuff to lights.

Requirements:

• laptop computer with Arduino downloaded and installed.  Go through the Getting Started guide on the website.
• An Arduino Microcontroller platform.  These can be bought from Tinker.it.  If needed, a few will be on hand for use, or for sale.  Please let us know by email (see above) whether you’re interested in buying one on the day.
• Breadboard, hook-up wire, switches, LEDs, Potentiometers, Infrared Rangers, Ultrasonic rangers, FSR’s, other sensors…  If you don’t know what these are, DON’T worry!  We’ll have some available to use during the intro.  If you DO know what these are, and you have a them – bring them along and we can help you wire them up!

~=~=~=~~=~=~=~~=~=~=~~=~=~=~~=~=~=~~=~=~=~=~=~=~
~= Workshop #7: Programming is More than Just Words ~=~=~=

When: Tuesday 20 October, from 6pm-10:00pm
Where: The Roebuck pub (upstairs room), 50 Great Dover Street, SE1 4YG
Nearest transport: 5, 133, 343, 21 buses, Borough Tube (Northern line)
About 8 minute walk from London Bridge Station (Northern and Jubilee tube, rail, and bus station: 48, 47, 149 buses)

Cost: £15 for the entire night, or per workshop (see below).
How to pay: At the door, or via Paypal to be guaranteed a space (limited to 30 people per workshop).  There will be a few spaces for people who show up on the night.  Please email reserve@openlabworkshops.org to reserve a space in any workshop.

Schedule:

6PM: Processing Beginners’ Workshop with Evan Raskob – £10

You’ve heard Evan’s intro workshops and been slightly terrified by the advanced stuff (it’s ok to admit it).  So bring your basic questions and project ideas, and Evan will work thorough them to everyone’s benefit.  Or, if people are feeling quiet, he will go through some of his endless bag o’ tricks, including OSC and MIDI.

7:45PM: Understanding Sound and Music by Programming Computers with S. Jagannathan – £10

Session 1 (of 2): Building a music tuner program.

Your very own accurate musical instrument tuner spanning the entire audio range to tune any instrument.  Several tuning schemes supported including roll your own.  About 50% of the workshop/talk will have computer sound & music ideas – these will be programming language agnostic – in a format that musicians without any prior programming background but with an interest in computer music can understand. PD, max/msp, SuperCollider, etc. users will benefit from looking into that primal black box of sound generators!

Requirements:

• Basic knowledge of C – variables, loops, conditionals, basic pointers. (if you have done programming in the past it should be fairly straightforward.)
• Computer with the ability to compile and run C programs linked to portaudio libraries.

~=~=~=~For More Information~=~=~=~
See our entire Fall / Winter schedule on http://openlabworkshops.org

Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/openlabworkshop

You can also keep up with all Openlab events, performances, workshops, etc. on our low-traffic email list: http://lists.pawfal.org/listinfo.cgi/openlab-announce-pawfal.org

Comments (2)

By evan, 29 September 2009 2:45 pm

This site needs some visual eye-candy, so here we go – the new fall flyer. Print it out, send it to friends, enemies, acquaintances, former lovers:

also available as a pdf.