Ira Greenberg

It’s been another fabulous year for Processing, with more books, great projects, a federal grant and massive proliferation. It’s also been an especially stable year for Processing, with very minimal changes to the language, primarily all behind the scenes stuff-tweaking and fussing. Dare I say, Processing is now “mature” software (gasp!).

I looked through Robert Hodgin’s online portfolio last night, thanks to a heads-up tweet by the omniscient code Jedi himself (and my fictional 1st cousin) Golan Levin. Have a look and feel the burn. Also, if you’ve missed them this past year, check out the Processing Exhibition page - lots of lovely code tasties.

Here’s some info on Processing as your favorite open web initiative (with official Mozilla logo and all), building off the wonderful work of John Resig. Also, check out the Open Processing project, which continues to collaboratively flourish.

Processing books 2009:

The Essential Guide to Processing for Flash Developers

Ira Greenberg, friends of ED, 2009

Other than the shameless plug, I hope this book encourages more co-mingling with the Adobe and Processing crowd. It is also an intermediate level Processing book, and a good yarn for readers of the initial texts looking for more Processing goodness. The book includes larger and more complex projects, including a character animation, particle engine, Cellular Automata, “serious” game and a 3D data visualization.

Programming Interactivity

Joshua Noble, O’Reilly. 2009

I haven’t had a chance to look inside this one yet, but I’m quite eager. Covers Processing, Arduino, and OpenFrameworks.

Algorithms for Visual Design Using the Processing Language
Kostas Terzidis, Wiley, 2009

Down and dirty sweet algorithms, written by an actual Harvard professor.

Generative Gestaltung

Hartmut Bohnacker, Benedikt Gross, Julia Laub, and Claudius Lazzeroni, Schmidt Hermann Verlag, 2009,

A generative art/design text (currently in German). This book includes glossy pictures and (apparently) very fine paper stock. Rumor is–if your German is rusty–an English versio is in the works.

(And a sneak Peek for 2010)

Processing for Visual Artists
Andrew S. Glassner, O’Reilly, 2010

I got a sneak peak at this one, and it’s a great addition to the Processing literature. The author has deep and impressive credentials in computer graphics.

Generative Art

Matthew Pearson, Manning 2010

As the title says, generative art created with our favorite programming language.

The US federal government loves Processing!

Researchers Dianna Xu, Deepak Kumar and I received an NSF grant to develop a new approach to teaching the Computer Science 1 class (only taught at every freak’n school in the world), including developing a new text book - YES, all using Processing! AND, we believe this is just the very beginning of Processing’s eventual overthrow of the entire CS establishment (OK, that last point was completely my idea).

Here’s to an awesome 2010 of creative coding!

The key I think to “keeping up” is brevity coupled with an acceptance of looking, well, plain foolish; I will attempt both. Here’s an update on the new life in Dallas. The overall experience can be broken down into a few key components.

1. New gig at SMU
2. Family perspective
3. Our hood/rental home
4. Dallas ethos

Very simply stated: I like the new job very much thus far. I’ve been impressed with the general boldness and quality of the overall institution. I can’t say I agree with (or more like even stomach) all the institutional decisions, but I like the way the school decisively acts and strives. SMU currently is a place fueled by ambition and I’m pretty convinced, assuming key personnel stick around, that some/much of it can be actualized. This is quite different than how I felt at Miami, which seemed to be stuck in a spin cycle, with key elements slipping and even detaching off center. That said, I wish the very best for Miami and have many fond memories of my time there.

The Meadows School of the Arts, where I have one of my appointments, is a fascinating and fun place - sort of like being a cast member in the movie fame (or I guess to the present generation, Glee). On any day I may be disrupted from writing code by an aria, dance performance or dramatic vignette, right outside my door, and I’ve come to love this. Meadows has reignited my own artistic interests which were getting a bit obscured by my OCD fascination with coding. I’m excited to more effectively integrate these interests!

Toward this integration, what has been especially exciting about being in Meadows/SMU is finding a collaborator in Marty Sweidel. Marty is a composer/electronic musician (and associate dean, ooh) and a fellow code geek. We worked on a piece together, for the SMU TEDx event, and discovered a wonderful collaborative chemistry along with numerous common interests. I was never able to develop this type of working relationship at Miami, and it definitely wasn’t for  lack of trying. Marty and I are working on some new pieces, for 2 events in March, so check back.

Compared to the rest of the family, my transition has been the easiest, with a built in community through the university. The family has had a more complicated adjustment thus far; (yes, I do feel  guilty about this.) As we live almost 15 miles from campus, in the older burbs (Richardson, TX), Robin has had to build stuff more on her own. She (surprisingly to me) seems to like it here, and I think this is due in part to some similarities between CA and TX. She’s also made a very good friend, who even has a daughter in our daughter’s class. I think Robin’s also looking forward to getting more settled and to begin the path toward practicing acupuncture again. (Each time I uproot the family Robin needs to get re-licensed,  with new annoying state exams (yes, more guilt!) The kids are adjusting slower than I imagined/hoped, with TX public school thus far not impressing us in the least.

We actually selected our current neighborhood/rental house to be near our son’s elementary school. However, we needed to make this decision from Edinburgh last summer. This turned out to be a great example of how data (obsessive web-based school/neighborhood metric comparisons) does not tell the whole story. We live in a perfectly fine and safe neighborhood, with a highly rated school. But we DON’T feel at home, at all. To me, it sort of feels like we live in a suburban hotel. We’ve begun exploring other parts of Dallas, especially east Dallas, and hopefully will eventually find a place that does feel more like home.

Dallas visually is not a very easy place to like. There are some nicer areas, with older trees, lakes etc. but you need to seek them out. The overall view is an extended flat suburb, with very homogeneous looking architecture - essentially slab construction on a smallish parcel of land, with a light brick exterior. However, some of the older sections of Dallas have more charm, but these areas also have more “challenged” public schools and/or expensive private ones-it seems there is always a trade-off. Though, we haven’t fully given up trying to find an integrated solution.

I should stop here.

My family and I are about 10 days away from our relocation to Dallas where I’ll be assuming a new position at Southern Methodist University. I wanted to get down some thoughts about why I’m making this move now (after just receiving tenure at Miami) and also include some reservations and perhaps prognostications

The main reasons I explored new opportunities last fall were (pretty much in order of priority):

1. To have a back-up option should my bid for tenure fail.
2. To improve my job profile (process more than status)
3. To gauge and perhaps improve my academic market value.
4. To see what happened.

I’ll assume the back-up tenure option is pretty self-explanatory, which turned out to not be necessary.

With regard to my job profile, here are some details about my current/past situation at Miami. (Please note that I am not sure if I should use the present or past tense here, as technically I am on leave from Miami through the end of the fall semester; though my intention is to remain at my new position.) I have been in a joint position at Miami, in Art and AIMS (Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies). I also have an affiliate position in Computer Science.  My tenure home is Art, which means my formal tenure committee was made up of Art faculty, with recommendations from AIMS and CS Director/Chair. On paper this departmental composition seems pretty consistent with my CV. However at Miami, I believe it no longer is consistent (and maybe never was), which is not to say that at some institutions it couldn’t be.

My research and teaching interests are fully within the realm of computation. Simply stated I spend all of my work time programming, writing about programming, studying programming, teaching programming,  writing about teaching programming or thinking about programming (as well as computation in general with some math thrown in). Although my development interests tend to be aesthetically and conceptually oriented, I’m not sure where with my work fits anymore, nor do I honestly care. I DO know what I need/want to do, and I’ll leave it to others to categorize it.

The Dept of Art at Miami focuses on traditional core practices: painting, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, metals, photography, and history which they do quite well. Digital practices and methodology are supplemental at best, though there is some interest in bolstering this effort. However in my opinion this is not motivated by passionate engagement with computation as a viable medium, but rather acknowledgment that these sorts of practices need to be included in contemporary arts pedagogy. In this sense I don’t believe Miami is especially unique as many art depts seem to feel similarly. I should also state that I have no problem at all with this stance, as I believe a dept should reflect their faculties’ interests, which is clearly the case at Miami.

I fit better in AIMS, as the structure of the Institute allows for more divergent possibilities. Although, the downside of this type of structure is a lack of concentrated disciplinary community; we tend to all be one-person bands in AIMS, distributed physically around the campus. There is a unifying spirit though that lends an esprit de corps to the group. I would have been happy to be fully aligned with AIMS substituting it for my tenure home with art. However, all my attempts to pursue this course ran into road blocks and failed, I also would have fit better in computer science, but as with AIMS, I could not gain institutional support to make this switch. It should also be noted that with both of these prospective moves I had full support by the AIMS director and CS chair.

At SMU I will again have a joint appointment, but this time with the Meadows School of the Arts and the Dept of Computer Science, Lyle School of Engineering. I will also be the director of a new computational media lab that I will build. This position is very interesting to me for numerous reasons.

1. I will not have any dept. affiliation in Meadows but literally be a school wide appointment (strange but quite exciting prospect to me)
2. I will have a more active role in CS and have already had some great interaction over the summer with the Chair.
3. My area of research will be an area of real concentration, including funding and programmatic/administrative support, with a strong possibility of expanded grad programs
4. The deans of Meadows and Lyle both really support this initiative and are bleeding edge focused (quite refreshingly shocking).
5. It’s an opportunity to return to a larger market
6. Includes tenure
7. Oh yeah, mo money too

As I write this, I am even more convinced that this is a fantastic opportunity. Though, we are truly sad to be leaving Oxford and Miami. And we are honesty a bit nervous to move to Dallas, which none of us knows much about, save for the less than flattering stereotypes on the Simpsons and the extreme heat (oh yeah that presidential  library thingy).

I imagine that once we settle in, find our favorite burrito shack, pizza joint, ice arena and groovy community we’ll enjoy Dallas, and if the job is at least 25% as advertised I’ll find SMU to my liking.

More as I know more.

As this was my year before the tenure magistrates, I thought it prudent to toss some applications to the academy winds. Soon after emailing these off (I only considered electronic submissions), I essentially forget about them and waited for my judgment.

I soon received tenure and thus thought even less about greener pastures, (though I did consider increasing my ice time).

Then of course I was stricken with Bell’s Palsy (BP), technically now diagnosed as Ramsey Hunt Syndrome (RHS). About this same time I began hearing from some of the institutions I had contacted, including a few who were actually interested. Honestly this was somewhat unexpected, as it seemed many institutions were having near or full hiring freezes.

One of the institutions that responded was SMU, in Dallas. The SMU opportunity was very intriguing on paper, as it seemed to be open in structure and function, with the individual candidates ultimately determining the profile of the position. I had a very positive phone interview with the Associate Dean of the SMU Meadows School of the Arts and again waited to hear if I made it to the next round.

I was soon after invited to SMU for a campus visit. This was again unexpected, exciting and also dismaying. I had just (finally) acquired security at Miami, my family was pretty happy in Oxford, and to make the situation even more complicated, my face was half paralysed. In spite of concerns about sabotaging any chance I had of getting an offer, I called SMU and told them about my health issue and requested a couple week postponement of my visit–hoping the paralysis had cleared by then. SMU was very understanding and moved me to the last interview slot, three weeks later.

I was still completely paralyzed three weeks later, but I was much more comfortable with my condition and had developed a number of coping and maintenance practices.

My visit to SMU was intense-the most intense campus interview I ever participated in–meeting deans, chairs and faculty across divisions. I also developed a whole new set of weird symptoms while in Dallas, including severe pain in my hair follicles on my head and a feeling in my face (the paralysed side) like it had been beaten. I also developed a nasty looking rash on a couple places on my face. It’s almost funny now in retrospect to have to endure this while being in the fishbowl that is a campus interview–especially one spanning 2.5 days.

I left Dallas exhausted, aching and blistery. A few days later, I was diagnosed with Shingles and the BP was switched to RHS. I didn’t think my chances of an offer were all that likely, and I was a little concerned that all the stress had compounded my already complicated condition. Three days after returning from SMU, I received the offer.

Monday of this week I accepted the offer, and in mid-August my family and I will be moving to Dallas.

There is much more I’d like to write about this, especially why I am actually making this move now, but I’ll save that for a future post.

So today was not a good day (it’s really about time). The day began with an irritated and uncooperative (even more uncooperative!) eye. I attribute this to my failed pirate strategy from the evening before, where I tried substituting a stylish patch for taping my eyelids shut. If you haven’t tried this before, imagine trying to tape together two pickled herring, in the dark, while they’re still alive. (Sorry, if you don’t know what pickled herring is all about, go here.)

I managed to get to work eventually, but was distracted as I looked forward to my visit to the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor. (I realize now that I must try in the future to restrain this anticipatory urge.) About halfway to the ENT’s office (in total about 35 miles from Oxford), I realized that I was in a bit over my head: My eye was bothering me, I was really tired, and I was nervous. I felt little pangs of panic and anxiety as I got nearer the office.

Once there, I had a bit of a wait, which I had prepared for. I brought along the book Visualizing Data, by Ben Fry. I’ve had this book for a while and have browsed through it numerous times, but hadn’t yet really (closely) read it. In addition,  I’m preparing a course on visualization this summer in Edinburgh and was planning on using Ben’s book. (Truth be told I also hoped to use the book to, in a sense, help fact check the current Processing book I’m working on.)  Besides my professional interest in the book, Ben is also a friend and in some strange way, having someone there that I knew, even in book form, brought me some degree of solace.

The doctor did a thorough job investigating: letting me tell my entire story, including about the morning the paralysis struck, my hockey collision, the fatigue, pain behind my ear and even the large fluffy pillows at the hotel during the Carnegie Mellon conference; poking; prodding; pulling; and peeking into every orifice above my shoulder. When he was done, he sat calmly across from me and clinically stated that I didn’t have much movement (if any) on the left side of my face, and yes I did indeed have Bell’s Palsy. He also said he didn’t know how much movement would return and that less paralysis is better when it comes to predicting total recovery. In other words, he wasn’t sure what kind of recovery I’d make. I left his office shaken, with some scripts stuffed in Ben’s book:  for an MRI, an electroneuronography test and a more aggressive treatment of Prednisone.

Tomorrow is another day.

Home working today and not a lot to report. There is one thought though that I want to share: we’re not alone. I know this sounds pathetically sentimental and cliché, but it really is quite true. In the 6 days since being diagnosed with BP, I’ve gone from initial shock, including feelings of isolation and fear, to almost guilt about making too much of a big deal about it. Of course the Internet is primarily responsible for this rapid adjustment–where I’ve read many personal BP stories, blogs, medical reports, forums, etc. I’m not sorry my initial feelings of BP importance have been squelched; it’s really all about getting on with it anyway. And I am truly grateful to all the generous people who posted so much to help me during this adjustment, which of course is really still just beginning.

This is the first entry in My BP Story on this site, although I’ve been documenting my journey on facebook since day 1.

Today I ventured out to Kofenya, our only locally-owned coffee house in Oxford. I tend to work here a lot, so I knew I’d run into many people who know me, either as a regular patron from a far, or through personal acquaintance. Interestingly, it was the former group that I was more self-conscious about seeing, as these relationships tend to be more imagined than real, and I suspect Bell’s Palsy would not be the leading assumed diagnosis for my current new look.

I did run into one acquaintance who, of course, was very understanding and shared her own personal battlefield story with a strange illness. It’s interesting our need to make others feel comfortable through our common narratives, even the less pleasant ones

One thing that caught me off-guard today was my reaction to an old photo I saw of myself, from grad school, someone had posted up at FB. In it, I have a huge, symmetrical and wonderful smile; I felt a loss when I saw the photo. I miss my smile.

The ridiculously fabulous artandcode (art&&code) extravaganza has finally terminated; (brainz’re still a sizz-lin!). If you missed it don’t fret,  I’m sure in the next century or 2 there will be another gathering of the world’s most deviant, supple and procreative software artists/thinkers/educators, all under one roof at one of the world’s greatest tech institutions. (NO!, sorry, I’m not exaggerating.) Here’s what was on the brain buffet: Processing, openFrameworks, Alice, Scratch, Hackety Hack, VVVV, Max/MSP/Jitter, Pure Data, ActionScript, ExtendScript–and not just the software, but the madness behind it.

For me the affair began 2 days earlier, with a reconvening of the Oxford Project (III), graciously hosted at the Studio for Creative Inquiry @ CMU. I can’t say this was our most productive gathering, but some good clean tussles were had leading to I think some exciting (near) decisions to be implemented (eventually). Bottom line: Processing video and OpenGL integration will continue to get faster and happier, AND the world’s sweetest IDE will get even sweeter, with some fine cherries and creme a coming. There will also likely be some tweaks and mess’n to the site, including new birthing of tutorials and hopefully some much wanted (yeah, I’m look’n at you) new Tools. Bsides hang’n with the P5 boys,  It was also quite fun and exciting to have periodic visitors pop-in representing VVVV, openFrameworks and Scratch.

There were actually far too many highlights at A&&C to give a proper review of the entire event, but some moments just demand to be shouted out (I’ll also be presenting an award at the conclusion of this review): The P5 fearless duo (Dr. Fry and Chairman Reas) kicked some major bit with a wonderful presentation, even managing to plug the famed orange book. The Scratch folks nearly brought tears to my eyes, both with their awesome mission of universal computational literacy (my own interp) and their insane idea to port Scratch to an AS3 web app (yikes). Zach of the international openFrameworks trio (Theo and Arturo) showed off some big C-muscle crunching, including an OF iPhone app-(slap an IDE on that monster with a web option and I may needs to write me a new book). Dr. Woohoo bent my brain with his hackmashing through Adobe’s entire empire and beyond. Finally, the mysterious bard of Hackey Hack, Prof why the lucky stiff, entertained the room with some brilliant geeky stand-up - that guy should be doing Bar Mitvahs!

On a personal closing note, I want to give an enormous and gracious hug and kiss to the fabulous individual (and my long lost cousin) who made this event happen (probably no one else could have): Golan Levin, and his sensational crew: Jennifer, Marge and Drue, as well as all the wonderful CMU student TA’s.

And the Award Goes to: (of course) Prof Dan Shiffman - the most influential man in the room.

Thursday begins the Oxford Project III– this time @ Carnegie Mellon.

Thanks to the mucho graciousness of code/art guru Golan Levin, Processing desperados: Casey Reas, Ben Fry, Dan Shiffman, Andres Colubri and this very wanting blogger will converge on Steel Town for 2 days of “wicked” fun (oh wait, that’s Bean Town). Why you might ask are we moving the “Oxford” Project to Pittsburgh? Ahh, the plot thickens. Immediately following OPIII, will be 3 days of synapse bust’n workshops, panels, exhibitions and quite probably much slurred stuppporing–all in the name of “Code for All, code for Everyone“! I’m truly honored to be participating in these tandem events, representing the Armstrong Institute of Media Studies @ Miami, the fabulous Processing community and also the AS3 universe.

If you find yourself in Pittsburgh next weekend, Mar 7-9, please pop over and say HI! There are also some spots still to be had in a couple workshops.

It’s going to be another exciting weekend for Steeler Nation!

The inauguration has got me thinking, really reflecting, on the decisions I make (have made) and will make in the future. As might be expected, my pattern of decisions, like a well behaved fractal, seems to repeat itself regardless the scale of decision scape–my personal life, professional life, my creative work, writing/coding, even hockey (I suspect the way I eat my dinner also blindly adheres to this pattern.)

Following A pattern is not really something I’m that curious about–it seems to be a natural manifestation of the most basic vibrational patterns that compose the matter that is me–extended through the vast abstraction that is our conscious reality; it is THE pattern that has got me thinking.

So what is the pattern?

When I was a grad student my wife Robin (then girlfriend) encouraged me to explore therapy, which she was studying at the time; it was free, and I certainly had plenty of questions, anxieties, fears, etc that I was all too happy to share (with pretty much anyone). At the conclusion of therapy (primarily conducted at the Beck Institute at Penn), my therapist summed me (my issues) up in two words: impulsivity and impetuosity. (Could this be the pattern?)

The pattern manifests itself basically like this:

I find a pursuit that engages me–which have included, since I was a child: sports (weight lifting, skiing, skateboarding, running, lacrosse and hockey), creative writing, drawing/painting, computer graphics, 3D modeling/animation and programming. With each of these activities, the engagement primarily centers around the learning curve. I tend to blindly dive right into each activity and then begin a long period of study. There have certainly been pursuits that I’ve abandoned in the study phase, if I feel either my progress along the learning curve is not sufficient or I just can’t get fully engaged–golf and piano respectively were early abandoned pursuits.

During the learning curve phase I am sort of like an addict, trying to maximize my time to devote to the activity. As a child it was easiest to pull this off, and I spent long hours alone on ski slopes, in skateboard parks/my driveway/basement trying to perfect some move/trick/drawing technique/etc.  Adhering to “the pattern” I’ve built a grown-up life that continues to support this strategy. Thus, in evaluating professional opportunities, the calculus includes evaluating freedom (in the very micro sense here-my daily freedom to choose ) against capital/prestige, which has perhaps led to conclusions and choices along the way others around me have not always supported (Robin in contrast has generally supported my decisions).

Post learning curve there is generally a phase of disillusionment/fatigue and a search for another pursuit to hitch myself to. As I’ve gotten older, I think I’ve been somewhat more strategic in selecting activities that have drawn out learning curves. For example, graphics programming, including the underlying mathematics, seems as if it could be a near life-long curve; while my current obsession with hockey is some sort of strange revival–which I’m happy to ride out, in spite of the obvious absurdity. (Although, being the only guy over 40 in a locker room of 20 year olds does test one’s self-esteem.)

I’d like to extend this discussion in regard to the notion of making a contribution, which I’ll do in a future post (unless of course some new obsession takes hold).