Download (recommended):

Mac | Windows

Depending on your OS, please click the application “Suicide on an Airplane 1919″ to start. The piece should run for three and a half minutes.

This piece is best viewed on a monitor with a 16:10 aspect ratio. If your monitor does not have this aspect ratio, then it is not advised that you go to full screen mode. Adjust the viewing window accordingly to approximate this ratio.

Browser version:
http://www.arras.net/scriptor/suicide_in_an_airplane_1919/

I recommend the downloaded version only because I haven’t debugged this on a lot of different computers, and so have no idea how the different browser versions look.

Screen Captures:

The Scriptor series is meant to bring some of that free form doodling into the digital world. For the project, I created my own letterform creation program that, purposefully, lacks many of the elements of professional graphics programs such as Illustrator and Flash that encourage symmetry, cut-and-paste, and the mathematically precise placement of objects that we associate with digital design, not to mention much digital art.

These letterforms and doodles are all by hand, and by eye — they are a version of penmanship for the screen, but one in which each line or stroke of the letterform can be animated algorithmically (something you can’t do with standard fonts). The words themselves are parsed from news articles interesting phrases are randomly picked out, given randomly generated sizes, placements and trajectories, as well as a crazy level (that’s the name of the variable in the program) that determines their legibility.

This crazy level can grow or shrink — once the crazy level reaches a certain pitch, the letter explodes, but in some instances letters can be brought back from the brink of disaster to reach a stable state again.

Sample footage of algorithmic poem/painting digital projection Scriptor, version 1, captured from the computer screen by CamStudio.

This is a really beautiful–both to read and see–but simple project that I came across recently. Certainly an example of how people working in an “art” or “book” context — this was published by Information as Material in the UK — crosses over with the interests of electronic literature people.

Playing with this PDF kind of has the feel of being like a hand-cranked Young-Hae Chang piece. You can put on some jazz and pace your use of the down button for the full effect. It also has the feel of some of those obsessive David Daniels PDFs from the Gates of Paradise.

The image on this post is for the 552 page “index” to the hundreds of links that appear in the PDF.

Here’s the info from the website (which has the download link):

http://www.informationasmaterial.com/Work/Jacobs.htm

Deciphering Human Chromosome 16 bookworks use text in a visual way to document the ethical, economic, political and philosophical polemics associated with mapping the human genome.

We Report Here is an ebook which contains links to over 250 websites collected in the months following publication in the journal Nature of “The sequence and analysis of duplication-rich human chromosome 16″( Vol. 432. December 2004). Its contents change over time as the websites change, migrate or disappear.

Brian Stefans What’s the name of the Ashbery essay in Reported Sightings in which he talks about the artist who left an art opening in tears, muttering the words “He stole my burnt dolls”? Could you type out the passage for me?
          Willa Carroll and Sarah Sarai like this.
Brian Stefans is still recovering from the annihilating genius of Andrew Maxwell’s coinage: “Twitter cruft.”
Brian Stefans is doing it* so it feels like hell. *a) writing grant proposals b) writing paper proposals c) writing session proposals for MLA 2011 d) writing student/friend recommendations for graduate school e) writing Maureen Dowd-like editorials about the LA poetry scene for Lungfull f) writing a status update (duh), his fourth of the day. (Extra credit: name that allusion!)
Brian Stefans is 196 lbs. young.
Brian Stefans is living in an enlightened muscle beach.
               Evan Kindley and Scott Oliver like this.
Brian Stefans I’m with ya: most digital art blows.
               Brooke Bocast and Lysette Elizabeth Simmons like this.
Brian Stefans , Andrew Maxwell and Maggie Nelson are making Barbara Guest an official member of the Los Angeles School of Poetry. Jack Spicer has an open invitation, should he decide to move back to L.A. after giving those lectures in Vancouver.
               Scott Oliver and Sam Solomon like this.
Brian Stefans made a mistake (in 1999 or so) in one of my widely reproduced essays — “allusive truths of colonialism” — meaning “elusive,” duh, and now see that Google (and now Facebook, because I’m masochistic) is rendering this mistake semi-permanent on the world stage. I mean, the entire phrase is stupid (I would never write it now), and I’m so embarrassed (embraced) about/by it that I decided to post it here. I miss the 90s.
               Joseph Mosconi, Ben Friedlander, Zachary Laymon Scott-Sedlaçko and 2 others like this.
Brian Stefans Haha, I still have three hours of this shit (i.e. 2009).
Brian Stefans We call this Just In Time Cooking (JITC). Happy New Year.

Brian Stefans Survey question: Free Blackberry Curve 8310, $200 iPhone or wait a few weeks for the gazillion dollar Google uber-phone? (Keeping in mind that I’m on the broke side, but feel a terrible obligation to keep up with the gadgets.)
Brian Stefans I can’t remember if I posted this one before. It’s almost as good as the new Bob Dylan Christmas Song.

               Fiona Templeton likes this.
Brian Stefans Will change your life:

               Carolina Beltrán and reece pacheco like this.
Brian Stefans thoughts they was singing “shingles bells.”
               Jeanie Roy Collins Manson and Lysette Elizabeth Simmons like this.
Brian Stefans Morrissey concert: kind of great, kind of sucked. Did send me back to Youtube tonight to revel in the glory. You should try it.
Brian Stefans is seeing Morrissey tonight at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City. Last time I saw this man on stage was in Jones Beach, New York, in 1986. Think he’ll remember me?
               Willa Carroll, Arthur Rodriguez, Scott Oliver and 4 others like this.
Brian Stefans Reading about Sister Mary Corita (and ordering my copy of Damn Everything But the Circus), came upon this Youtube video speculating what the Star Wars credits would have looked like had they been created by Saul Bass:

               Lysette Elizabeth Simmons likes this.
Brian Stefans A poem by George Carlin, not to mention singing and swallowing:

               Joseph Mosconi and C.E. Putnam like this.
Brian Stefans is emigrating to Minneapolis solely on the basis of the food.
               Julia Bloch and Roxanne Carter like this.
Brian Stefans is driving to San Francisco tomorrow for the Area Sneaks launch. Anyone need a ride? Also, I need a place to stay…
Brian Stefans had lunch with Kim Rosenfield’s mother today in Long Beach and got the scoop on how awesomely precocious she (Kim) was back in her Beyond Baroque days hanging with Dennis Cooper and Bob Flanagan… thanks to Les Figues for the great auction item… and am about to settle down to watching the Klaus Nomi documentary.
Brian Stefans asks: I leant someone my copy of “The Dream of the Audience,” a catalogue of a Theresa Cha exhibition from some years back… do you have it?
Brian Stefans …spent the afternoon rummaging around a used bookstore in North Hollywood… bought a copy of Charles Bukowski’s first book of poems published in the year of my birth when he was a wee lad of 49… spent the evening in Hermosa Beach watching “the ultimate Smiths tribute band,” the Sweet and Tender Hooligans, with a bunch of drunk Latinos… echt Los Angeles! (“Echt,” btw, means “real” in German — I’m not gagging.)
               Allyssa Wolf, Willa Carroll and Ben Friedlander like this.
Brian Stefans notes: there are a number of “Theresa Cha”s on Facebook. We have no mutual friends.
Brian Stefans is: NOBEL ELBOW ALBUM BLOOM OBAMA
               Heidi Ruffler, Nada Gordon and K. Lorraine Graham like this.
Brian Stefans Allen Ginsberg with The Clash in Times Square…

Brian Stefans is pulling for Ashbery to win the Nobel this year.
               Román Luján and Lysette Elizabeth Simmons like this.
Brian Stefans : One year in Los Angeles… Still breathing… Gongula…
               Heather LaGarde, Timothy Yu and Scott Oliver like this.
Brian Stefans knows a poet is writing their own Wikipedia page when there is a block quote in the sidebar with an endorsement of the poet’s work from Robert Creeley.
               Spuyten Duyvil Press likes this.
Brian Stefans 3 out of 5 patrons at Psychobabble (Los Feliz) writing screenplays… the other 2 (incl. myself) on Facebook… more reports soon as I make the rounds. “This place is on a mission.”
Brian Stefans strange, visceral, butterflies-in-the-chest, downright loony pleasure in hearing Blue Oyster Cult’s “I’m Burning for You” in LA coffee shop as I procrastinate, wondering whether Maggie is right about the healthcare bill, whether I really was checked out by this model-looking woman just a half-second ago (she’s not so into the BOC, I think), whether my hands are shaking because I’m still detoxing from Mexico City…
               Allyssa Wolf likes this.
Brian Stefans Recorded on September 9, 2009. Con Luis Alberto Arellano, Karen Plata, Roman Lujan y Gabriela Jauregui.

Brian Stefans just heard another tour bus driving by his window, with the guide pointing out his apartment and saying with a megaphone that un muy famoso Coreano-Mexicano poet — “more Mexican than D.H. Lawrence” — lived there, and that groupy autograph seekers should simply not think about it, he’s taken, but look hard (holding binoculars with two hands) and you might catch him updating his Facebook status. Fame is wearying.
               Brooke Bocast likes this.
Brian Stefans is back in Los Angeles feeling more Mexican than Antonin Artaud and Eliot Weinberger combined, after a radio interview, poetry reading, digital presentation en La Casa del Poeta, swallowing the worm in Garibaldi with genuine car thieves, plenty of rain, pyramids y tortas, nuevos amigos y amigas, and playing conga drums… with the napkin holder. Luckily, there are a few Mexicans living in LA so I won’t feel homesick.
               Román Luján, Lynn Xu, La Doncella Dilatada and 2 others like this.
Brian Stefans is sitting in a hotel restaurant in Mexico City waiting for Slovenian amiga and Roman to return while hurricane what’s-iz-name roars overhead, wondering how to accurately respond to Emily Critchley’s hilarious wall post without sounding like I’m making fun of Koreans; and, observing the only other Asian guy I’ve seen in Mexico smoking a cigarette in the other room and wondering if, indeed, I should bum one.
               Anna Guercio, Roxanne Carter and Sianne Ngai like this.
Brian Stefans is in Queretaro at a cafe internet with Roman and two Slovenian amigas who are giggling over a suggestive email they are writing to a Mexican boy in I don’t know where because I don’t speak Slovenian or Spanish. But I can say: Que me ves?
               Karen Randall likes this.
Brian Stefans is going to Mexico City tomorrow…
               Joseph Mosconi, Sianne Ngai, K. Lorraine Graham and 4 others like this.
Brian Stefans has been reading Facebook status updates for a half hour and is only up to “10 hours ago.” What this means for the future of memory…?
               Nodd Ingdonkey likes this.
Brian Stefans Repeat after me: Ryan Trecartin: http://www.ubu.com/film/trecartin.html. Sorry I missed meeting this strange, talented man when I lived in Philadelphia.
                Joseph Mosconi and Lisa Sanditz like this.
Brian Stefans “What’s the matter, don’t you think I can?”
Brian Stefans In Grandma’s Mercedes.
               Lysette Elizabeth Simmons likes this.
Brian Stefans Kim Eno
Brian Stefans experienced his first earthquake today… and wasn’t impressed. Bring it on, he says.
Brian Stefans is chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added; salt (for binding, flavor, and firmness); water (to help in mixing); sugar (for flavor); sodium Nitrite (for color and as a preservative); back page interview of TimeOut NY (for personality); cotton und […]
               Brooke Bocast likes this.
Brian Stefans is still getting over the phenomenal success of his last status update.
               Teresa Carmody, Jessica Fields Dunlap and 2 others like this.
Brian Stefans met a nice guy on the bus who told me his life story: that he was singer for 80s hair band Hurricane, retired in 1984 at 26, got his start in music at 15 because great-aunt was dating Elvis Presley, that he wrote the song Whitney Houston sang at the ’84 O […]
               Lysette Elizabeth Simmons, Jeanie Roy Collins Manson and 2 others like this.
Brian Stefans met a nice guy on the bus who told me his life story: that he was singer for 80s hair band Hurricane, retired in 1984 at 26, got his start in music because great-aunt was dating Elvis Presley, that he wrote the song Whitney Houston sang at the ’84 Olympic […]
               Karen Randall, Scott Oliver and Lee Montgomery like this.
Brian Stefans I’ve been diagnosed with sleep apnea. I’m going in to be fitted with a CPAP machine today. Maybe, then, I can sleep.
Brian Stefans Brian Brian, why don’t you ever write me back?
Brian Stefans and Natalia are playing with her John McCain pop-up book.

Brian Stefans is sitting in Pete’s Bar and Cafe in downtown Los Angeles listening to art jabber from the table next to him.

Coda

Brian Stefans is all packed up for the move to Los Angeles. Is in boxes on the floor.

10 seconds ago
Saturday, January 9, 2010

I’ve recently redesigned Arras.net, the first redesign seven years. It’s no longer pretending to be a portal into the world of electronic literature — several other sites, such as the Electronic Literature Organization, do that much better — though I do hope to create a links page of some sort.

I’ve also redesigned the header of Free Space Comix, and started posting more frequently with the hopes of getting some thumbs up from Facebook. But Google has taken me off of their search engine temporarily as one of my other sites got hacked, and Google started treating it (and hence all of Arras) as some sort of two-bit promoter of free logos, pharmaceuticals, etc.

Arras is now pretty much a portfolio and launching pad for my own work in poetry, digital art, publishing, video, and whatever else I’m working on (poster art, software design, etc). The old site wasn’t very effective in terms of launching and promoting new work, and most people who visited didn’t know what work was mine and what by others (I sort of did that on purpose, hence the Reptillian Neolettrist Graphics moniker).

Still a lot of work to be done on the redesign; mostly just been shoveling stuff in there without editing text, resizing images, putting things in chronological order, etc. I’m particularly proud of the web design gallery, as I haven’t done too much web design but a handful of the more recent sites I think are pretty cool.

I can’t say that I’m proud of misleading a group of well-intentioned scholars about details of this most recent Iraq war, but then again, they should have read the article and noted its context on arras.net. They didn’t, in fact, quote from the text, and so Vaneigem’s impact on future historians’ views of the war will be quite minimal.

You can see the citation in footnote 45 (on the second page).

View pages on Google Books.

Or you could look at my screencaps. Click to enlarge:

Brian Kim Stefans luring the scribbles from his sweater. So warm, so warm.

I’m posting this as something of a response to the previous post by Jaka.

I’ve actually been scanning the internet, trying to find new (and old, forgotten) projects to include in a class I’m calling “Poetry in the Age of New Media.” I wish I had used “time” instead of “age” in the title, but I think there was a hint of satire in the use of “age,” like we were all Victorians or something (it would have been hilarious if I had used “era”). I think “time” would have been perfect, actually, as time is not only the subject but the content, the material, of so much new media art.

I’m sure much in this list is known to readers of this site. It’s mostly things that have not appeared in the ELC1 collection or which have not gotten much play (such as Facade), and mostly from artists outside the purview of “e-literature,” though not exclusively. This isn’t highly edited or exhaustive — really just pasted notes.

The Gates of Paradise, David Daniels
http://www.thegatesofparadise.com
Total outsider stuff, pdfs, some of which are animated. Links somewhat with the idea of “conceptual writing” that is promoted by writers such as Kenneth Goldsmith and Craig Dworkin (see the conceptual writing anthology on ubu.com). David died about a year ago.

Dagmar Chili, Toadex Hobogrammathon
http://dagmar_chili.pitas.com
More total outsider stuff, by someone who I had a small correspondence with years ago, but whose identity I still don’t know. I’ve blogged about Toadex quite a bit on www.arras.net/fscIII.

New Digital Emblems, William Poundstone
http://williampoundstone.net
Actually, Poundstone has a number of substantila projects, but I think the emblems are the most neglected as the piece is involved and seems to be non-fiction. I haven’t looked at his new pieces. I’m having lunch with him on Monday (never met him before). [P.S. The lunch went swimmingly, he's a cool guy.]

An Mosaic for Convergence, Charles Bernstein
http://www.altx.com/EBR/ebr6/ebr6.htm
This is a very old piece, but I think it’s still fresh and the best thing of its kind (whatever that is). Charles explored an interesting visual vocabulary here which ran up against the very design school look of much internet art at the time (this is before jodi.org, or at least before I had seen them).

oooxxxooo, Juliet Martin
http://www.julietmartin.com/oooxxxooo/Answer.html
This is still one of my favorite, very early HTML poems. She never did much after this. I had lunch with her in New York once, she seemed more a graphic designer than writer, but this is exceptional.

Alternumerics, Paul Chan
http://www.nationalphilistine.com/alternumerics
Paul was one of the finalists for the first (and last?) Electronic Literature awards. He’s since become a huge art star (rightfully so), with a recent profile in the New Yorker. I still think this project of his is extraordinary.

Bembo’s Zoo, deVicq de Cumptich
http://www.bemboszoo.com
Ok, this might seem like eye candy, but I think it’s profoundly eye candy, i.e. it really gets at certain pleasures of seeing that most e-lit doesn’t approach. (Another piece of eye candy is that ubiquitous Youtube video based on the Samuel Jackson monologue in Pulp Fiction.

Basho’s Frogger, Prize Budget for Boys (Neil Hennessey)
http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/hennessey/data/basho_frogger/index.html
Every element of the game contributes to the meaning of the “text,” and though there are only three words of text, they are very good words! Same guy who made Pac-Mondrian (http://pbfb.ca/pac-mondrian), which, again, sheds a huge amount of light on a not-particularly-clever pun. The Jabberwocky Engine is more impressive as engineering, but more like a tool than anything literary (whatever that is).
http://www.poemsthatgo.com/gallery/winter2004/jabber/index.htm.

The Narrative You Anticipate You May Produce, Thom Swiss
http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/swiss/directory.htm
Thom doesn’t seem to be making any new work. I like some of his pieces more than others, and I’m not sure how much this one alludes to algorithmic processes or simply reproduces the effect.

Electric Sheep Comix, Patrick Farley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Sheep_Comix
I point you to Wikipedia since Farley has removed this from the web. But you can still find it on the Wayback Machine:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050507140206/e-sheep.com/main.shtml.
I think Delta Thrives is really exceptional (even if very much a boy’s fantasy, I think it plugged into a lot of the utopian vibe of the time, even among women artists), and a great example of Scott McLoud’s concept of the endless canvas. The Spiders is a really interesting hypertext; I haven’t looked at the other one.

Mouchette, David Still
http://www.mouchette.org
One of the major early pieces of internet art, I think of it as a sort of version of e-lit, since it’s impact really comes from the text (not unlike Blackness for Sale: http://obadike.tripod.com/ebay.html), and it’s quite poetic, evocative and frightening. (David Still’s name is not usually attached to the work — it’s impact was partly due to the anonymity of the creator.)

Homeport, Lawrence Weiner
http://adaweb.walkerart.org/project/homeport
I just discovered this the other day, and have no idea what it is (the software that you need to view it won’t run on my laptop… hmm, but I will try my iMac… well, didn’t work). Weiner is, of course, a major conceptual artist, and has been doing work with animated text for a while — though this I just discovered a few weeks ago at a show here in Los Angeles. Have any of you seen it? With the acceptance of Young-Hae Chang as “electronic literature,” it only makes sense to look at digital art that is text-based and ask whether it is “electronic literature” also — though what a lot of work that is! Anyway, I’m really curious to see what this piece is about.

Fidget, Kenneth Goldmsith
http://archives.chbooks.com/online_books/fidget/?q=archives/online_books/fidget
I’ve never been entirely convinced that this was a successful digital translation, but it’s a useful object for discussion, and actually makes for great ambient reading – one of the few pieces that does so.

Writing Machine Collective
http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/smkeith/WritingMachine
Well, the actual website (www.writing-machine.net) seems to be down — three cheers for Chinese censorship! Probably just ran out of cash. All I can find is the name of the organizer of their two exhibits, Linda Lai. I was on a panel at the MLA and one of the papers was about them, and I remember looking at their website and thinking that the work was of really high quality, if more impressive in engineering than anything else (kind of like Streams of Consciousness, which you probably know). But I never really got to look at the site. These folks are based in Hong Kong, and really seemed to be pursuing some advanced projects in e-lit pretty hard. Wish I could offer more than that. Most of it was in English, but some not.

Alphabot, Nikita Pashekov
http://processing.org/exhibition/works/004/index_link.html
I’m partly kidding about this one… but it’s amusing, and works as concrete poetry as well as anything by Gomringer.

Wordscapes, Peter Cho
http://www.typotopo.com/wordscapes/
This one, on the other hand, is pretty rich (from the same group of Processing works that I took the above from). I haven’t gone through them all, but they work in that same way that Ed Ruscha does with giving exquisite settings to single words. Lacking would be Ruscha sense of humor, irony and juxtaposition, which is why this is ultimately eye candy, but still, when playing around with it, you can’t help but be impressed with the care taken and the wide visual vocabulary. Check out “nipple,” and then “up.”

Letterscapes, Peter Cho
http://www.typotopo.com/letterscapes/
Companion piece to Wordscapes, if aimed at more arcane sensibilities.

Code Calvino, Peter Cho
http://typotopo.com/projects.php?id=calvino
Can’t get this one to run, but the description and screencaps are certainly interesting, and a fitting response to If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller…

Nobody Here, Jogchem Niemandsverdriet
http://www.nobodyhere.com/
I never quite understood this one (and the author’s name is clearly made up), but it’s compelling in its way and keeps coming back to haunt me/us (i.e. students seem to find it).

Public Secrets, Sharon Daniel
http://vectors.usc.edu/index.php?page=7&pageContinue=879&projectId=57
I’ve not looked through it entirely, but I’ve seen Tara McPhereson (creator of Vectors Journal) give demos of it, and it’s primary design motif involves text (and the audio is all interviews). One of the most compelling pieces on the Vectors website, with a clear mandate (i.e. reason to be on the web).

Text Curtain, Daniel C. Howe
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/textcurtain
There seems to be a handful of new projects on Daniel’s site. The installation versions of this are probably more compelling than the online due to sound and scale.

Treefingers, Brian Sullivan, et al.
http://www.treefingers.net
Brian was actuall a student of mine in New Jersey, though he made this before he ever took a class with me. A lot more interesting than the various projects out there now using Twitter and Facebook, as it actually feels like reading. (I somehow thinkg Billie Tweets belongs on this list as well: http://billietweets.com/).

Gravity Principles, Sebastien Cliche
http://chambreblanche.qc.ca/documents/principes/main_en.html
A bit overproduced, and the text isn’t terribly interesting. Taken from this list of links of mostly non-English language works that I found on this page:
http://writerresponsetheory.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=ELO/MITH_Panel_on_International_Electronic_Literature

A few more from that list that looked interesting (based on my superficial estimation):

Golpe de Gracia
http://www.javeriana.edu.co/golpedegracia

El Alebrije
http://www.elalebrije.org

Un Mar de Historias
http://mccd.udc.es/unmardehistorias/carlo/f2h2c1.html

Hva Sier Traerne?
http://ulyd.bek.no/marte/
(Couldn’t even start to tell you what this is about.)

Cedar Estates, Robert Fitterman and Dirk Rowntree
http://www.ubu.com/contemp/rown/cedars/cedars01.html
Perhaps not really “digital literature,” since I guess one could make a book of this stuff, but still, it captures a certain spirit of digital typography combined with Language poetics that I think is unique.

253, Geoff Ryman
http://www.ryman-novel.com/
Like the above, could work in print, but, along with a 2002 A Palindrome Story, I think of this as a sort of Oulipian work that responds to the prevalence of algorithm in everyday thinking.

The Apostrophe Engine, Darren Wershler and Bill Kennedy
http://www.apostropheengine.ca/
This one seems not to be working anymore (and their other piece, Status Update, seems to be down). Anyway, not unlike Noah Wardrip Fruin’s Regime Change, a piece based on runtime searches of the internet. Status Update was a hoot, involving as it did the names of dead authors and Facebook status updates.

Ursonate, Jaap Blonk and Golan Levin
I’ve come across these great collaborations between the Dutch sound poet Jaap Blonk and the digital artist Golan Levin. You can see Youtube videos (including some description of what is going on) here:

“Messa di Voce” (don’t know if this is the title of the piece)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfoqiyB1ndE

Two of the Ursonate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgNL8-FdG-k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs0yapSIRmM

I’ve been developing this little software application in Processing for creating letterforms and doodles for future versions of the “Scriptor” (here and here) series of digital projections. In fact, I’m moving the whole project from Actionscript to Processing, if for no other reason than that Processing was invented by one of my peers at UCLA, Casey Reas, along with Ben Fry. Processing is also built on Java, which I’m guessing runs a little bit faster than Actionscript, but of this I can’t be sure.

In any case, working in Processing has been great; Reas and Fry really honed in on the types of functionality that would be part of the toolbox of any digital artist, integrating these functions into the relatively simple, nonetheless object-oriented, language to make it quite easy to achieve them — for example, ripping text from the web, or modifying video images in real-time.

http://www.arras.net/processing_test/LetterBuilder/applet/

I’ll have more to report on this later. For now, click through and goof around in there. There is no way to save your doodles as of yet, and there are a few bugs (mostly to do with the scroll bars) that I’m working out. You can more or less learn how to use it by looking at the buttons and reading the text there.