Author Archives: Julia Rich

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Thanks for everything guys

It is very easy to romanticize analogue media and to criminalize “new media.”  There are countless movies made where a inventor pours his or her heart and soul into building a beautiful computer or robot only to have it turn on humanity.  New technology is very easily turned into a villain, often being associated with a loss of human contact, the rushed feel of the present time, and an overall distraction from reality.  When people don’t understand something, most of the time the first impulse (if it isn’t curiosity) is fear and after that comes dismissal or anger.

Its a problem that has seeped into many corners of our society in highly unattractive ways.  I grew up in a town that was very conservative and very fearful of things it didn’t understand.  Physics wasn’t really taught in my high school, we had no opportunities to study programming, history classes were taught from one point of view, even basic biology classes were taught in a biased way.  So when I came to NYC I saw it as an opportunity to dive into everything I didn’t understand. I took physics classes, sat in on philosophy classes, and started a minor in computer programming.

Overall, studying programming has helped me become a more curious person.  Instead of taking something at face value, I have begun to ask “why?” more and then I try to expand on it.  Its like a never ending puzzle piece (and I LOVE puzzles). Once you get a new piece in its place, you are given a bunch more pieces to work with and figure out. ITS AWESOME.

I’ve also begun to see how any problem in our society that has been attributed to the rise in technology as not a problem with technology, but as a problem with people. We were given this HUGE opportunity to connect with everyone, and we can’t put our phones down for one second?  It’s taught me to be aware of how my actions affect others around me and how others actions affect me.  In the same way that programming has made me more curious about technology, it has made me more curious about people and how people interact.  It catalyzed this impulse in me to see a problem and to think about creative ways to fix it, within the digital realm and within our society.

So that’s waaay more than a blog post and I could go on all day, so Imma be done, but yeah, its safe to say programming has affected me a lot. <3 computers <3 4eva

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Hey, so the idea here is that the pot would be replaced with a amplitude sensor so the visuals change with the volume of the music

Ok here is what I did for the bouncing balls assignment a week ago.

bouncing balls

Hey so I know this is a bit old, but here is mine. I did it abstract art style, with some nice pastels

self portrait

dancingbox

What I really wanted to do was to make the box dance to a rhythm, but I kept getting an error message. I did comment out the sound code that I had at the top for you guys to look at.

//import processing.sound.*;
//SoundFile file;

//void setup() {
// size(640, 360);
//background(255);

//file = new SoundFile(this, “paul.mp4”);
// file.play();
//}

//void draw() {
//}

float my_num = 10;

void setup() {
size(400, 400);
background(#88F0E6);
fill(#CA9AEA);
noStroke();
smooth();
rectMode(CENTER);
}
void draw() {
background(#88F0E6);

// move the origin to a random position in the screen.
// the random position is calculated using the noise() function
translate(width * noise(my_num + 80), height * noise(my_num + 100));

// add some random rotation using noise()
rotate(10 * noise(my_num + 40));

// draw a rectangle with a random width and height, again using noise()
rect(0, 0, 200 * noise(30 + my_num), 200 * noise(my_num));

// increase the counter variable which is used in noise() calls.
my_num = my_num + 0.02;
}

Just tell me what you want computer. What more do you want?

Here is my code:

float xPos;
float yPos;
float diam = 50;
float xSpeed;
float ySpeed;
float xPos2 = 350;
float yPos2 = 25;
float xSpeed2 = 3;
float ySpeed2 = 4;

color ballColor1=(#CC99FF);
color ballColor2 =(#FFE2E2);

void setup() {
size(400, 300);
noStroke();
background(#99CCFF);

xPos = random(0, width);
yPos = random(0, height);

xSpeed = random(-5.0, 5.0);
ySpeed = random(-5.0, 5.0);

}

void draw() {
background(#99CCFF);

fill(ballColor1);
ellipse(xPos, yPos, 50, 50);
fill(ballColor2);
ellipse(xPos2, yPos2, diam, diam);

xPos = xPos+xSpeed;
yPos = yPos+ySpeed;

xPos2 = xPos2 + xSpeed2;
yPos2 = yPos2 + ySpeed2;

if (xPos > width || xPos < 0) {
xSpeed = xSpeed*-1;
}
if (yPos > height || yPos < 0) {
ySpeed = ySpeed*-1;
}
if (xPos2 > width-diam/2 || xPos2 < diam/2) {
xSpeed2 = -xSpeed2;

}
if (yPos2 > height-diam/2 || yPos2 < diam/2) {
ySpeed2 = -ySpeed2;
}

}

Here is my movie: bounce

Now when Dorothy is trying to get out of oz, the green light will indicate she hasn’t clicked her heels, and she will be staying in the emerald city (OH NO), and once she clicks her ruby red slippers, the red light clicks on, so she will be going home.  What I really want to do is to program something so when she clicks her heels three times, the red light goes on, and before the third time it stays green. Hopefully I’ll have that to show you guys in class on tuesday.