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 (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!