Randomness is all around is a class by Aarón Montoya-Moraga.
Randomness is all around was taught at School of Ma, in an online non-presential way, over 4 weeks, one three-hour class every week, between Monday January 14th 2019 and Monday February 4th 2019.
This class is part of School of Ma, and will be ruled by their code of conduct.
Randomness is the lack of pattern and or predictability in patterns. Randomness is all around us and is what drives natural events such as the weather and dice-throwing. Randomness is behind noise, and noise is present in every sensor measurement, including our audiovisual perception of the world. Randomness is what makes vinyls sound different than digital audio and film look different than digital video.
Computers allows us to create mathematical models of randomness and incorporate to our art practice, rendering new exciting new generative and unpredictable artworks, like it has been done in genres such as aleatoric music and automatic drawing, and by artists like Lillian Schwartz, Max Hawkins and John Cage, and featured by institutions such as the Random Institute.
We will cover math for randomness and probabilities, programming with scripts, programming audio synthesis and manipulation, computer graphics, video manipulation, and web concepts.
Applicants from diverse backgrounds, with varied skillsets and interests are welcome.
Don't feel discouraged if you know nothing about any of these topics, if you can use a computer you will be able to follow and learn in every class.
If you are an expert in any of these topics, you will learn how to incorporate other disciplines to your practice.
The materials needed include:
- A computer running either Linux, MacOS, or Windows. (No tablets)
- Internet connection
- Headphones
We will use free libre open source software, including:
- p5.js, for visual art and web apps.
- Python3, for math
- Pure Data, for audio and sound manipulation.
- VidPy, for video manipulation.
Each class includes explanations of theory and concepts, and practical examples with software.
Students are encouraged to ask questions and branch out from the proposed timeline for class.
All the notes and code written is included on this GitHub repository, so that students can focus on following along the coding examples and not worry about taking notes or missing out.
There are also several links for further reading and studying.
For this class we will be using the following applications, software and tools:
- Audacity, software for editing audio. App installed is called "Audacity".
- ChucK, software for computer music. App installed is an executable called "miniAudicle".
- Command line interface, environment for executing code. In Mac and Linux it is called "Terminal" and in Windows it is called "Command prompt".
- Processing, software for programming interactive audiovisual applications. App installed is called "Processing".
- Pure Data, software for computer music. App installed is called "Pd-0.49-1".
- Python 3, programming language for general programming. To check if you have Python installed, open your "Command Line interface" and execute the command.
- Text editor, software to write code. Two options are recommended, Atom or Sublime Text.
python
TODO: add more instructions
If you are on a Mac, Python2 is already installed in your computer. I recommend to install the package manager homebrew and then install Python3 with it via the command
brew install python3
- Randomness
- Randomness and computers
- Gaussian and uniform distributions
- Poisson and Markov chains
- Normalization of signals
- Python for math and randomness
- Randomness on the internet: random.org
Today we will a text editor to write code using the language Python3, and will execute our scripts using the command-line interface.
Let's open our command-line interface and check that we have Python3 installed.
Execute this command
pythonThis is what I see on my computer.
In my computer, a Macbook running macOS, python is an alias for Python2.
If your computer shows Python3, then you are ready to go, and you will execute your code using the command python, yay.
To exit, execute the command
exit()If python doesn't correspond to Python3, let's execute now the command python3.
python3This is what I see on my computer, a Macbook running macOS.
If your computer shows Python3, then you are ready to go, and you will execute your code using the command python3, yay.
To exit, type the command
exit()I managed to install Python3 and made it available using the commmand python3 on my computer by installing Homebrew and then installing Python3 by executing the command
brew install python3If you still haven't been able to use Python3 on your machine, either via the command python or python3, you need to both install it and then making it available from the terminal.
In Windows, I suggest using the installer from the official Python website, and making sure that you select the option Add Python 3.x to the PATH. After installing I suggest restarting your Windows computer and checking if Python is accessible from the command-line.
Here are some additional instructions for Windows.
If you are running into trouble, contact the instructor of this class.
Let's start writing Python code.
Inside of the folder week1, create a file called script.py.
We will encourage good manners and good practices in programming, such as using comments to explain and document the code we are writing.
# script.py
# written by X
# runs with Python3
# date: yyymmdd
# print message on console
print("testing")Python can do math, but sometimes we will include libraries, which are snippets of code that other people wrote and that we can use. We can install them on our hard drive, but it is a lot of clutter and also it's easy to break things when all your Python scripts share their dependencies. We will use virtual environments instead, so that each project we write, will only use its own libraries, and not the ones that are installed globally in your computer. This is called scope limiting.
Let's setup our virtual environment yay.
Let's open the terminal and navigate to the folder of this class.
cd Desktop/class-randomness-is-all-around-master/To check that we are in the right folder, list the contents of the terminal.
lsLet's use week1 and navigate to this folder.
cd week1/Create a virtual environment on it with Python3
python3 -m venv envIf it is successful, you should see a new folder called env/ inside of the folder week1/.
Now activate the virtual environment by executing the command.
source env/bin/activate
You should see (env) appear on your command-line.
We will the library Tracery for Python by Allison Parrish, a Python port of the original Tracery by Kate Compton.
To install it we will use pip, by executing the following command.
pip install traceryPseudo-randomness
Write a Python script that outputs random numbers in a creative way. Write Write a blog post about the way your Python script works, include your inspiration, your successes, your shortcomings and failures, and include your research and doubts about randomness.
Topics:
- Sound art and computer music
- Human sound perception
- Pure Data environment
- Oscillators
- White and pink noise
- Sequencers
- Sampling
Assignment:
Create a sound art piece that uses randomness.
Topics:
- Human color perception
- Introduction to p5.js
- Drawing basic shapes
- RGB / HSB color models
- White and pink noise
- Perlin noise
- Interactivity with mouse and keyboard
Assignment:
Create a visual art piece that uses randomness.
Topics:
- Human vision temporal sensitivity
- Introduction to VidPy
- Video format conversion
- Frame rate manipulation
- Stitching videos programmatically
Assignment:
Create a video art piece that uses randomness.
- Learn enough command line to be dangerous
- Python for beginners
- FLOSS Manuals: Pure Data
- p5js reference
- p5.js tutorials
- p5.js editor
MIT