The last weeks my Digital Media Studio Project group and I have been spinning around ideas on how to make a non-linear narrative based on a computer model using agents. This is an interesting way of taking advantage of Object Oriented Modelling, since the agents have attributes and methods relevant to humans. The model is based upon a matrix consisting of two arrays, this model is ideal to represent geographical space, and especially maps seen from above because of the resemblance. We are going to create a story based upon the collisions created in the model, and the aesthetic world will be set to New York and made in a Film Noir characteristics. If you want to know more about the project, you can visit the project’s blog here.

The model we have been playing around with is created in Processing, which is an easy-to-learn version of Java created by MIT to teach programming. It is a great tool, and makes programming easy with accessible functionality built in and much documentation on their web page. Since it’s running on Java you also have the powerful tools and all the packages of this language right at your fingertips. You can download Processing from here, and since it is Open Source, you can play around. It is free, as Richard Stallman would say, as in free beer and in free speech. If you download it and play around, you can find our current (alpha) version here. Enjoy.