I’ve been hoping to compile a list of places / resources to look at amazing and successful projects of folks working in creative coding & code based art projects. It’s the nature of the web, but these resources feel super scattered. I thought having a more community oriented effort to put some of these resources together might be super helpful, especially for students. I’m generally thinking of this in two types of shares, as outlined below. As a general rule of thumb, don’t share your own link (unless you are sharing other links too!)
What a great initiative @bmoren ! I’m constantly on the lookout for new coders/artists to discover (like many people here I presume) and have always thought it would be nice to have a place on this forum to share and discuss our personal favourites.
May I suggest to extend your list to cultural events (exhibitions, festivals) and publications (books and magazines) evolving around media art ? I think they can be great places to find documention. Not only they bring together the work of different artists/coders coming from various places but also it can be a good opportunity to read/learn more (though exhibitions, interviews, talks…) about their coding routines, their personnal experiences and inspirations or about the evolution of technics and practices in the field. It is also worth mentionning that a growing number of cultural institutions start to make their content available online.
Magazines
The first reference that comes to my mind is HOLO magazine. Created and currated by Filip Visnjic (founder of CreativeApplications) and Alexander Scholz, it’s a biannual Berlin-based magazine about emerging trajectories in art, science and technology.
Issue n°2 (current issue) contains interviews with computer art pioneer Vera Molnár (94 years old !) and with one of my favourite digital artist Ryoichi Kurokawa, among many others.
Conversation between Casey Reas and theoretical computer scientist Scott Aaronson was an interesting read.
I enjoyed finding pieces of Processing sketches and introductions to famous algorithms (Voronoi, Reaction/Diffusion, L-systems…)
Another outstanding publication (my personal favourite) is Back Office. A Paris-based magazine addressing various topics from history of computer science to the philosophy of digital technology.
Articles can be quite sophisticated sometimes but always captivating (complexity in map design, concept of “Information” for Alan Turing, the impact of information visualisation on society…)
A lot of info on Data Visualisation (history, good practices, main protagonists ranging from Jacques Bertin to Mike Bostock)
Also, not a present-day publication but legendary “Cybernetic Serendipity” has just been reprinted to mark the 50th anniversary of the famous eponymous exhibition on computer art.
I do not own a copy myself but feel confident in saying that every vintage computer graphics lover should grab one real fast.
Museums
ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsrhuhe, Germany. Certainly the leading cultural institution for Media Art in Europe. They regularly hold events on digital culture that are then uploaded on their YouTube channel. I personnaly like to watch the videos presenting the work of selected artists.
micro | macro – Ryoji Ikeda
interview with Daito Manabe
YCAM is the Japanese equivalent of ZKM. It’s a beautiful museum located in Yamaguchi prefecture and desiged by metabolist architect Arata Isozaki. The institution is known to be an active supporter of OpenFrameworks and regularly invite artists from outside Japan (the usual suspects Kyle McDonald, Lauren McCarthy, Joshua Noble, Cyril Diagne… have already been there). It really gained popularity when it started to host the performances of dance troup ElevenPlay made in collaboration with Rhizhomatiks research.
Work of Daito Manabe himself (founder of Rhizomatiks) is also often showcased. Unfortunately, YCAM has no official YouTube channel but you can find some very insightful documentaries on past residencies.
Exhibitions
Recently IRCAM (birthplace of Max/MSP and Pure Data) and Pompidou Center held an exhibition on contemporary digital creation. It was based on six timelines: The History of Code, The Algorists, Music and Code, Digital Literatures, Digital Forms in Architecture and Design and The Body and Code. A catalogue of the exhibition should be available online very soon.
I was personaly delighted to see some of the work from the folks at Onformative (Cedric Kiefer, long time Processing user, and Julia Laub, co-author of the fantastic Generative Design book).
Probably the most interesting piece was from another Berlin-based studio called Certain Measures. They came up with an algorithm that designs new architectural structures from existing scrap.
“Mind the scrap” is also being showcased at this year’s Venice Biennale of Architecture.
But the main attraction of the show was undoubtedly Ryoji Ikeda’s giant wall installation. Being a fan of his work I must admit I was a bit disappointed by the lack of originality of his most recent visualisations. This is probably because Ikeda, much like Alva Noto, is a sound artist above all, not a programmer. Most of his past work was actually designed by various Japanese artists and designers whose names are unfortunately rarely mentionned: algorithmic designer and architect Shohei Matsukawa, visual programmer Norimichi Hirakawa, media artists Tomonaga Tokuyama and Satoshi Hama among many others.
datum – Norimichi Hirakawa
Festivals
I think it’s no secret that most festivals put their content online but as a reminder:
I’ve recently stumbled upon several series of short video portraying various media artists/coders on YouTube. It doesn’t really belong to any categories aformentionned but I thought it would be worth sharing anyway
a historical link that popped into my mind from one of the first institutions to support technology based work with real online programming: http://gallery9.walkerart.org/
and speaking of the legendary pioneer Vera Molnár. It got me thinking of Minneapolis based plotter drawing pioneer Roman Verostko who is still working at 89 and has been making work since 1947!
If you happen to come to Paris and are interested in morphogenesis algorithms / biomimicry, you might want to see Pompidou Center’s new exhibition named “Designing the Living: The Factory of Life”.
The exhibition “The Factory of Life” examines the changes in the concept of nature linked to technological production and retraces an archaeology of the living and artificial life.
Unfortunately, there’s no online documentation available but googling some of the names of the artists/researchers showcased may lead you to very interesting projects:
@TheWizardBear – I remember the fantastic work done by variable for the 2015 Google I/O developers conference. They developed a quite impressive javascript library on this occasion.
On a side note, Tellart, another design studio is releasing a series of interviews with renowned designers and artists (featuring Casey Reas) about transformations in design and the impact of new technologies (AI, VR, robotics, …) on the field.
