Firmata is a library which allows environments like Processing and MaxMSP/Jitter to communicate with the Arduino microcontroller over USB. More specifically, Firmata allows these environments to treat the tethered Arduino as a transparent interface board for communicating with sensors and actuators. This means that students learning MaxMSP or Processing can execute a reasonable subset of [...]

Live cinema artists, Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder will make a public performance and presentation next Wednesday at CMU! My lab, the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, once again partners with Professor Melissa Ragona to bring an artist lecture/performance to Pittsburgh this spring. Coming up next Wednesday (March 3) at 6:30pm is an event featuring Sandra [...]

Robotics artist Eric Singer will make a public lecture/performance next Wednesday at CMU!The lab I direct, the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon, is partnering with Professor of Art Melissa Ragona to bring a series of artist lecture/performances to Pittsburgh this spring. Coming up next Wednesday (February 17th) at 6:30pm is a presentation by [...]

As an occasional emissary for new-media arts, I increasingly find myself pointing out how some of today’s most commonplace and widely-appreciated technologies were initially conceived and prototyped, years ago, by new-media artists. In some instances, we can pick out the unmistakable signature of a single person’s original artistic idea, released into the world decades ahead [...]

Below are some resources about the “Chinese Painting Village” phenomenon, such as Dafen or Wushipu in Shenzhen, which employ about 10,000 artists and produce more than 60% of the world’s oil paintings. The information below may be ‘of interest’ to arts educators and/or students, particularly those studying painting. I am grateful to Clement Valla for [...]