VOID from Natalie Hanke on Vimeo.
Since their introduction, the iPad and other tablet devices have affected how we engage with traditionally passive reading material. Books, textbooks and magazines are given new life via interactive models, databases, embedded media and instantaneous access to the internet (provided you’re hooked up to WiFi or shelled out for the data plan). Besides the “traditional” content that’s being given a whiz-bang facelift for the 21st century reader, there’s also an array of work that can only be fully realized in an interactive reading environment. Much of the multimedia and new media art being produced today is in some way video based and cannot be confined to the immoveable images of a glossy magazine page.
Videos by VICE
With this in mind, Natalie Hanke designed a concept for the very first magazine dedicated to the Processing language and the visual art that it fosters. Called VOID, it is a fully immersive experience into the world of generative art, data visualization and the other kinds of creative work being made from the language. Not satisfied with simply exhibiting the work of well known artists such as Jer Thorp, Mary Huang, Daniel Shiffman, Robert Hodgin, and AntiVJ, among others, the magazine also offers full biographies and overviews of each artists’ oeuvre, contextualizing it within the larger culture of code-based art.
Portrait Page of Jer Thorp
Not only does VOID provide artist information, it also features handy crash courses in different coding techniques and art forms found within the context of the code, such as generative photography. Each artist’s page is a combination of various works of art, interactive panels and biographical information, including quotes. There are even advertisements for events at places like GAFFTA and Processing Berlin that are just as visually appealing as the art itself.
Not only is the art easily scrollable via the landscape mode, but it is interactive and shareable as well. Users can either choose to share works directly to their social networks or upload it to their Dropbox. Art works can also be manipulated using the touchscreen and changed through an intuitive set of controls called the “Simplicity Coding Page.” Keeping with the original open source mission of Processing, and for people more familiar with coding, the magazine allows for access to the source code of many projects, which can then be seamlessly modified and re-coded within the app. Users can actually design their own projects and share them directly through the magazine interface.
Coding Page “Doodle 3”
Not only does the magazine provide an extremely informative reading experience, it also goes so far as to make the reader an active participant in the world of coding by engaging them in creative ways. Whereas a traditional book or magazine, or even in some cases, a textbook, would only passively teach readers about a particular subject, VOID engages its own content as a means of making the reader a part of the culture it is educating them about. It offers different stages of engagement so as to develop the potentially creative habits of its readers, thus inviting them to become artists themselves.
If you’re thinking this all sounds too good to be true, it is. VOID is, for the time being at least, just a concept app. But here’s hoping the concept becomes fully realized and spread via the app store to encourage more people to pick up creative coding as a means of self-expression.
All images courtesy of Natalie Hanke
