As the second semester in my master program is moving towards the end I have some content I want to share with you all. Beside the digital marketplace course and a reading course I have been working on a digital media studio project, or as we call it, the DMSP. In this course sound designers, the digital design media students, the composers and some of us, the digital media and culture students, have been working together on different projects using all kind of technology to solve a huge variety of tasks. From the presentations I had the pleasure to visit I have seen, and in some cases tried, everything from the controlling four spheres with four joystick and entertaining video about an unlucky rabbit, to projection mapping, a tactile translation program, a three dimensional game in Blender and a mobile music generator utilizing the navigation functionality on Android phones.

Together with Brendan, Tom, Elias and Gary I was in the Non-Linear Narrative Group, a group whose mandate were to a certain degree more conceptual than methodological. It has been very interesting, and I have got to know the visual Java-based programming environment Processing very well.  The project has evolved in a process based on agile programming techniques, with relative frequent iteration of code and content. From version 0.001 which consisted of a grid with ellipses  from programming code, we now have a running interface with a desktop filled with tools, a map, a text feed, and an interesting sound system utilizing Max MSP over Open Sound Control.

Even though the project is not all over, I’m going to give you the ability to run the program on your computer, but since the program still need some adjustments we have not branched out a running code for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux. Instead you can download this. The source code will need the Processing programming environment and a couple of libraries. Processing, and links to the libraries can be found here.

If you have patience to wait yet another week or two, we will release a stand alone version without these requirement in a couple of weeks.

Picture: The desk, from which our protagonist explores the criminal world of New York City. Animation is by Tom O’Rourke.