Creative Coding Workshop
Creative Coding 101
In the first workshop, we will go through how to use a computer program (Processing) to draw simple geometric shapes on a canvas and how to add color to these shapes. With the help of basic computer logic, we will also learn how to create simple rules to generate rich compositions from these shapes.
Then we will go over more advanced techniques to help us build creative animations. How to create and call a function that performs a specific task? How to use waves to build smoother animations? How to use noise and randomness to breathe some life into your sketches? Finally, how to make use of open-source libraries to make your sketches richer?
A bigger canvas
To make the transition from the desktop to the browser, we will do a quick tour of web languages like HTML and CSS. These two along with JavaScript are behind all the websites we come across. We will look at how websites are made, and how to develop a simple (responsive) website that looks pretty on both desktops and mobiles. Then we will transform all the things we learned to do with Processing into a website using p5.js.
Next comes interaction! We interact with computers in different ways. On a desktop, we type, we move a mouse to click and drag files around. On mobiles, typing is slower, swiping up and down is the most used gesture, and tilting the phone is something completely alien to desktops. We will learn how to use all these interactions in our web-based programs.
programming pixels
A computer sees an image as a collection of pixels. In this part of the workshop, we will explore how to manipulate the pixels to transform an image into something more. We will touch upon the world of glitch art using techniques such as data bending and cell sorting. We will also write programs that react to a video source like a webcam, to detect motion and track faces for example.
programming Sound
Here we will explore how to interact with sound using a program as both input and output.
Sound as output means we will be writing algorithms that creates sound, makes some noise, and composes sound samples into interactive scores. We will also experiment with text-to-speech and data sonification: turning data into sound.
Sound as input means we will be analyzing the sound from a source (microphone, line in, or sound file) and creating music visualizers: visuals that instantaneously react to the music.