» OFFF Showroom , May 11th, 2006

As shown in the “December 9, 2005 - Maxalot exhibition” the SWARM Algorithm was set initially to use a Wacom tablet and the drawing API to map drawings to a algorithmic animation. However, it’s when you have the ability to spend more time prepping artwork that the system uses that the algorithm really yields some lovely results.

For years I have invited artists, designers, and illustrators to send me artwork to map to some of these programs. So when the OFFF festival asked me to do an exhibition in the 2006 “Showroom”, I thought I would try something I’d never done before. I sat in the Showroom for 3 days - 8/10 hours each day - with a Wacom Cintiq and invited anyone to sit for as long as they wanted, drawing anything they wanted, to map to this system.

The first thing we had to do was modify the system to use MovieClips in the algorithm rather than the drawing API.

The 3 days of drawings from OFFF attendees produced 138 drawings that the final system used.

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Then adding a limited array of 5 colors that started each swarm thread… each swarm thread was 50 drawings in length… each thread color transitioned its way to yellow… and in total there were 10 swarm threads… 500 randomly chosen drawings on screen.

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What was fun for me, was the ability to interact with each person who came into the showroom, whether they chose to draw something or not. The final projection was set on a timer that would reset every 10 seconds and what was unexpected was watching people hang out for 5/10 minutes waiting for the projection to reset and them trying to find their drawing in the reset.

21 Responses to “ OFFF Showroom ”
  1. Joshua Davis said, on February 8th, 2008 at 12:10 pm

    Doug… line 15…

    myArtClips = new Array(”circle”);

    you create MovieClips in your library with linkage ID’s

    and then change line 15…

    myArtClips = new Array(”circle”, “square”, “star”, “triangle”);

    and then it would draw with those four assets.

  2. Doug said, on February 6th, 2008 at 7:40 pm

    Does anyone know how to add multiple images in each swarm like the examples above? I can add different swarms but not alternating images…

  3. Ron Domingue said, on April 19th, 2007 at 1:29 pm

    http://rondomingue.com/2007/04/19/swarm/

    I promised an example of using your swarm engine some time ago. I guess I think I can take your script a bit further.

    Thank Joshua!

  4. Jesse Thomas said, on March 12th, 2007 at 4:04 am

    I am just now discovering this post.. awesomeness.. I am taking your “art making machines” class in Colorado coming up.. Cheers!!!

  5. halil said, on December 5th, 2006 at 12:23 pm

    hi josh,
    (halil- constructedbehaviours)
    man i am so glad that i came to manila it was great meeting u! u really rock man! not just ur work also ur personality is great. i’ll send u the mail we were talking about.. i just came back to london.. hope to see u again man keep rocking we love u :) MANILAAAAAAAAH!!!!

  6. Joshua Davis said, on December 3rd, 2006 at 6:35 pm

    David… MANILA!!! wish I had more to spend there… thanks for hanging out and hope you had a great time… I know I did.

  7. David said, on December 3rd, 2006 at 9:43 am

    Hi Josh, thank you so much for coming here to the philippines and got to be one of the great speakers! MANILA!!!! hehehe! Remember that?! You’re really great! You know i had made something like randoms and duplicating things in flash, but that far! It’s really great! Thanks again bro! Wish we really had a longer time to talk about your works. I still remember your funny stories and your cool presentations that you’re one of the 12 siblings. hahahah! Nweiz, again nice work! More power and God bless!

  8. Matias said, on November 24th, 2006 at 9:02 am

    Joshua, thanks fro sharing, u r a visionary, great work, i would love to see u here in Argentina and learn your work process, its amazing what random movements atract my brains.

  9. David said, on November 23rd, 2006 at 4:40 pm

    Awesome. Another complex scripts from Josh. Hehehhe. Very artistic! And thanks for sharing your scripts and also for giving us the freedom for enhancing it. More Power Josh. I’ll soon share mine soon… thanks.

  10. James Eilers said, on November 20th, 2006 at 6:02 pm

    I finally found a place to post my work: http://donotthrowaway.blogspot.com/

    I have not had a chance to play around with your SWARM Algorithm, but hopefully over Thanksgiving or Christmas break.

  11. Nicola Marini said, on October 29th, 2006 at 3:39 am

    Well done. Nice script. In the past I tried to do some art placing one item at time following a cursor. I got this result http://www.nicolamarini.it/Art/tazzine/FotoTazzineTN.jpg
    Now I have to figure out something growing and rotating this way, sure that your “movements” can inspire me.

  12. Joshua Davis said, on October 26th, 2006 at 9:12 pm

    anytime OLI - but I learn tons from people experimenting with things that I start - because everybody always has different approaches and remixes — so I do hope you share your ideas back.

  13. oli said, on October 26th, 2006 at 3:44 pm

    great job Josh … the previous post with the design process … shared … and now the script …… and the process … I admire you … great works and very nice and alot of honesty … to share those things with us .. maybe later we will share you some of our works :)

  14. Lachlan said, on October 26th, 2006 at 4:44 am

    Thanks for the Zip, can’t wait to get my head into it.

  15. Joshua Davis said, on October 25th, 2006 at 5:29 pm

    yeah…

    I’m going to be taking 2007 to spend some time on some long overdue side projects.

  16. Ron Domingue said, on October 25th, 2006 at 5:07 pm

    Thanks Joshua!

    It really reminds me of the old Praystation days when you had more time to share your scripts. I’ll be sure to post my results!

  17. olivier said, on October 25th, 2006 at 12:15 pm

    Really!!!! brillant! I can’t wait!
    Merci merci merci :)

  18. Joshua Davis said, on October 25th, 2006 at 8:43 am

    Flash 8 files for download / .zip file :

    http://www.joshuadavis.com/wp-content/uploads/diary/021_offf_showroom/swarm_mapping.zip

  19. Karin said, on October 25th, 2006 at 7:13 am

    Very nice, again! You could create a comic strip with this and add text frase randomly to the artworks.

  20. Olivier said, on October 25th, 2006 at 12:56 am

    This is just amazing!!!
    Can we play with it?

  21. eric said, on October 24th, 2006 at 6:20 pm

    will you marry me? dude i am hooked!