Little Dots

Little Dots
Originally uploaded by galaxygoo1

My kids thought my work would be much improved if I just included their faces. Who am I to argue?

In this piece, as the particles collide they transfer bitmap data from a picture of my daughter to another bitmapdata object.

When I look closely, I'm reminded of pointillism --not so much in the color theory, but in the little points.

Particle rings with blurry traces

Particle rinngs with blurry traces
Originally uploaded by galaxygoo1

I'm having a lot of fun with this project. Here, I've given the particles curved paths, instead of straight paths. Also, I'm starting to play with the blur filter.

Speaking on The Art and Science of Particles at FITC SF

As the date approaches, my excitement grows for the FITC San Francisco conference. I'm trying to play it cool, and not get all giddy. But I just can't help it. Flash conferences are special treats for me, and this one is right here in my town. I won't have to travel!

The speaker list is amazing! Ben Fry, Yugo Nakamura, and so many other bright lights! It humbles me, to see my own name in that company. It's also inspiring me, pushing me to explore the edges of my creativity and to expand those edges. I may even include some music.

The Art and Science of Particles

Particles. They come in all sizes and shapes. They aggregate into complex structures. We ourselves are made of them, even as we exist as particles in a larger system. Particles can form simple swarms with simple behaviours. They can exist in a complex system with simple rules, generating complex behaviours. They can be active individuals and steadfast obstacles. They can wear disguises, and trick us into thinking they are something else.

Ever exploring the intersection of art and science, Kristin Henry lives in both worlds. In this session, Kristin will share her experiments with particles, graphs and the ideas behind them, including generative art inspired by chemistry and artistic rendering of the ip-addresses of spammers.

Time: 10:00am
Date: Thursday August 19

Tree rings from collisions

Tree rings from collisions
Originally uploaded by galaxygoo1

A new color pallet, I'm playing with. More blues and neutrals.

Particles and Conferences!

Particles are dominating my summer! Not only is the GalaxyGoo book Particle out, but later this summer I'll be speaking about particles at FITC San Francisco. I may even bring some copies of Particle to give away at my session.

GalaxyGoo's Particle...It's here!

GalaxyGoo's Particle...It's here!
Originally uploaded by galaxygoo1


KristinPages
Originally uploaded by galaxygoo1

Particle, the book, is here!

GalaxyGoo's organized and hosted flashathons for years, but this is the first time we've produced a book from it. And it's beautiful!

The art in the book was created with ActionScript, and captured from dynamic Flash animations.

While working on this project, I learned an awful lot about book editing and producing, and now have an all new respect for folks who do this all the time.

The whole project grew organically. Starting out, there wasn't a set format, or list of requirements for each artist. Since all of the artists were donating their art, I didn't want to put too many demands on them. And I wanted to make their participation as flexible as I could.

At first, I thought we'd just have one image from each artist. But I was having a hard time choosing which ones should go in. Some artists sent in one image, and others sent many. All of them beautiful, and impossible to leave out, of course. So, I played around with the layouts and settled on using three thumbnails next to the artist's statement on pages where I had multiple images to choose from.

My own pages were a lot of fun to make. I usually develop for screen, and print isn't a realm I've spent much time in. But I had so much fun running my code, and capturing stills from it. I ended up with way too many images to go into the book. I loved them all, and picking just a few was difficult.

I also included several pages of works from past flashathons. Particles came up over and over again, and it seemed natural to include a selection of them. I grouped them in loose themes: "Drift", "Growth", "Grid", and "Life". There wasn't really room to explain them, but if you look up the dynamic versions, the groupings should make some sense. The main purpose was to share a bit of the project's history.

Already, there's been talk of doing another one. If we do, the theme will most likely be "fractals". But since this is a benefit project, to support GalaxyGoo's educational projects, we'll only do it if this first book does well. I hope it does, because I had a lot of fun with it, and I'd like to do it again.

I think it's the coolest "thank you" gift we've ever had, for GalaxyGoo supporters. By the way, all profits from book sales will be donated to GalaxyGoo (a non-profit dedicated to increasing science literacy).

Buy the book: Particle: A GalaxyGoo Project, Exploring Art and Code

GalaxyGoo project page: Particle

Huge thanks go to the project's sponsor: Influxis.

Summer Flash Conferences

It's been a while since I've gone to a Flash conference, but this summer I'll be at two great ones.

In a few weeks, I'll head out to Minneapolis for Flashbelt. I'm not speaking, but I've been working with Dave to organize a Soft Circuit/Physical Computing meet-up during the conference. It's gonna be tons of geeky fun!

Then, in August, I'll be at FITC San Francisco giving a talk on my experimental work with coding particles.