Hi, this is my short monthly email of projects and events.
Openhaus at ZK/U - art and performance
I'm wrapping up my 4 month artist-in-residency at ZK/U Berlin, presenting new work at the Openhaus (Open house) event here in the Moabit neighborhood of Berlin, DE this Thursday November 20, from 7pm - midnight. I'll show new in-progress studio projects I'm working on: experimental software, sound and animation I've created.
screenshot from an installation I've created with my L5 language, and photographs
In addition to presenting new work, I'll be performing music as ExquisiteCorp, with Kuunsirpale and ZZZelin on modular synth, no-input mixer board, clarinet, vocals and effects. Performance at 9pm.
Photo by Westley Hennigh-Palermo
Presenting new work in Piksel Festival
My recent work I Act Comfortable with Others is being presented November 20 - 23 at Piksel 25 in Bergen, Norway, part of the PikselSavers program. It was previously shown this summer by the New Media Artspace for LOVE.exe at Baruch College, CUNY. A cloned version I wrote in L5 (see next item in this email) was also shown at the last Openhaus at ZK/U in September.
screenshot from I Act Comfortably with Others, p5.js version
L5 pre-alpha release
I've been working on a creative coding library called L5 for the past 3 1/2 months, inspired by Processing/p5.js, built in Lua. I've been documenting my progress on my website on my mini-log.
an early experiment written in L5, testing
L5 is a fun, fast, cross-platform, and lightweight implementation of the Processing API in Lua. It is a free and open source coding library to make interactive artwork on the computer, aimed at artists, designers, and anyone that wants a flexible way to prototype art, games, toys, and other software experiments in code.
L5 only exists thanks to the incredible work of the Processing community, its original creators, foundation and contributors. It's hard to believe I only started learning to program about 13 years ago, with the book Learning Processing I bought on ebay. I hope to give back to this artist and software community just as I have received so much support over the years.
Key Features of L5
- Fast: Scripts, images, and audio load near-instantly
- Easy syntax: Easy to learn and consistent syntax.
- Minimal footprint: L5 (~6MB, from Love2D ~4.5MB + LuaJIT ~1.5MB) vs Processing (~500MB) vs p5.js (~1-4MB + browser ~250-355MB)
- Lighter impact: Runs on older hardware and devices.
- Cross-platform: Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Raspberry Pi
- Synchronous execution: Code runs in predictable order, no async complexity
- Desktop-focused: Optimized for installations and standalone applications
- Resiliency: Underlying Lua language and Love2d frameworks change much slower than equivalent languages like JavaScript and Java
I recently solved a large bug that took me weeks to solve, in addition to many smaller ones, and have achieved a state where I'm ready to have friends test it out. I'm wrapping up the documentation website, and am excited to get friends to start using it first, to help point out bugs and optimizations, and give initial feedback, before sharing it more widely. Let me know if you'd like to try it out! Each documentation page takes me 5 - 15 minutes and there are 200 pages. Oy! So this is what is taking up all my time lately.
a preview of the in-progress L5 documentation website
The site is pretty basic in terms of design right now, but I'm just trying to get all of the basic pages up at this point!
require("L5")
function setup()
size(400, 400)
windowTitle('Hello L5')
background('white')
noStroke()
describe('A basic drawing program in L5. A random fill color each mouse press.')
end
function mouseDragged()
-- Draw a circle that follows the mouse when held down
circle(mouseX, mouseY, 20)
end
function mousePressed()
-- Pick a random color on mouse press
fill(random(255),random(255),random(255))
end
I hope L5 will be useful for other people too, and sure, it would make me pleased if it catches on. But thankfully, it's already useful to me. I've created a bunch of smaller projects with it and started some bigger ones. As mentioned up above, one of my goals is to have the language work well even on old computers, my attempt at trying to resist the consumption nature of so much of computing culture. I've been testing on a 13 year old windows computer, a 5 year old iPad and a 6 year old Linux machine. All work well, and fast. In my testing it's faster than p5.js and Processing at loading and running for example. There are other advantages and disadvantages to L5 compared to p5 and Processing, but that will be covered further on the documentation site.
It is just about ready for early testing! So let me know if you're interested and I'll send you a link to download and try it out probably end of this week or next! Be aware it's still a work in progress, and I'm continuing to work on the language library most days. For this version, it helps to already be familiar with p5.js and Processing and it does require you know how to install a program on Mac/Windows that is un-signed (or run Linux) and be able to write code in an external editor of your choice. I plan on building a L5 mode for the Processing IDE this winter, but I'm not there yet! There are nightly pre-alpha builds now. I will work during the winter to try to polish it to get it to a alpha release this spring where I'm comfortable releasing it widely for a non-developer public, hopefully with the added ability to program inside the Processing IDE in L5 mode. I also started work and tested first versions of a video and sound library, but will have to get back to those in the winter/spring. What I'm hoping is that other people will find L5 useful and that I can cultivate a community of people interested in using it and contributing to it, just as I've found so much utility, art-making and community in Processing/p5.
Preview of an acquarium screensaver created in L5 I'll be showing at the Openhaus at ZK/U thursday. Hmm, maybe too much blur here! Can you spot all of the fish?
A tribute to my mentor and friend Robin
I learned a couple weeks ago that one of my mentors and "second mom", artist and educator Robin Dash passed away. It is hard to express how profound an impact she had on me, not least of which was demonstrating how to be an incredible professor: what it looks like to genuinely care about your students, show interest in them and their ideas, how to challenge them, and give them tools to understand their world and make something of it and in it. For the past 20 years we've stayed in touch through occasional phone calls, emails and more rare, in person. She was so caring and wonderful. I learned so much from Robin, and I really miss her and am grieving not being able to talk with her again.
A painting by Robin
Robin took us to museums, screened Etre et Avoir, played Bjork and Joanna Newsom. Together, she and I organized a community education program at local afterschool art programs, where I first started to teach others. Robin had every student create a personal art journal to draw, paint, photograph, collage and write in - which she responded to generously, and at length. I owe so much to her, and hope I can be that kind of person to my own students, family and friends.
Til we meet again
Unfortunately, I report my current time in residency at ZK/U is soon coming to a close. If you're in Berlin, please come visit the openhaus or come to a going away party next week (message me for details). I'll be in the US beginning November 26, and funny, but true, I'm looking forward to going to my high school reunion at the end of November!
Warmly,
Lee