My parter received his masters degree from CCRMA (Center for Computer Research, Music and Acoustics) at Stanford University. When we learned that he got into the program, stuffed our car and moved from Toronto, Canada to California. The research and contributions that came out of this program spans such areas as engineering, physics, computer science, psychology, and music (including performance, analysis, and composition). Some of the projects that I got the experience were beautiful melodic compositions and others were a glitchy, generative sound that can really challenge your perspective on what constitutes music.
The students would often hold live performances late in the semester to show case their projects to the department and community. At these small, intimate shows of not more than 60 people sprawled out in the CCRMA back lawn, I experienced the live generative visuals created by Reza Ali. At that time I didn't truly understand what he was creating. I initially thought he was playing a video that he pre recorded before the show. Not so. He was making generative art visuals on the spot to accompany the glitchy soundscape of CCRMA's progressive computer generated music.
Something about what he was creating on the spot inspired me and I would love to get to the opportunity to get to create some visuals and possibly live generated art for a performance in the future.
My first attempt at p5.js
We all have to start somewhere right? I found this image online, which I love, so I wanted to try to recreate it
My very first p5.js sketch isn't as beautiful as Reza's creations, but I had a great time making it.
I choose to try and make an animal that I think are truly beautiful and I called it fire fox:
The sketch of fire fix can be found here.
The challenge that I faced when creating this image, and not something I expected to be so hard, was the mirroring of the shapes on the canvas to get the legs, eyes and ears (the ears still don't look mirrored after much manipulation) centered on the imaginary y-axis that would be drawn down the middle of the sketch. (I will be asking the teacher for a possible solution and will get back to you on the most efficient way to do this task.)
Below is my code and the first layered shapes of the fox:
