This issue's all over art done with neural networks, machine vision, creative coding, and of course, a little bit about robots and dystopian legislature making people do terrible things. Enjoy!
This is a more detailed breakdown and analysis of the deep dream project and why it looks so much like an acid trip.
There's a new neural network-based art algorithm out now that can copy the style of one image and apply it to the other image. This is an awesome study by Kyle McDonald, a creative coding artist with an impressive portfolio, of a series of different images applied to two source images.
Machine vision has gotten advanced enough that it can now recognize limbs, body parts, and clothing pretty quickly. This article runs over how it's also being used to track the spread of fashion styles amongst the populace, which is a pretty cool idea.
If you've never experienced one of YouTube's “360 videos”, the video in this article is really a trip (and quite funny in a deadpan way). In one segment, they actually place an ad on the ceiling of a dark room - for some reason, the ad was what really brought home for me the possibilities of virtual reality existing as a consumer platform.
Glitchet Community Spotlights
Hieronymo's Mad Againe
Hieronymo's Mad Againe (HMA) emailed me a link to his debut track, and I want you to experience it, too. It's sort of experimental DnB with an ominous buildup to a sweet breakbeat backing layer and deep bass beat. Click the image to check the tune, and if you want to follow HMA directly, you can find him on SoundCloud.
HMA is inspired by horror prose and poetry and it comes through in his work. He also has a 2-track EP coming out that he's trying to release for free, which also needs some cover art. So if you want to volunteer some cool glitchy work for good tracks, shoot me an email and I can connect y'all.
Glitch /Databend [I_slikovne datoteke] : 13.09.2015. : Dubrovnik
Do you like glitch? Are you in Croatia? It just so happens that the excellent Vedran Gligo and Dina Karadzic are doing an in-person glitch workshop where they'll run over all kinds of cool techniques. This is happening in Dubrovnik, but even if you can't go (or speak Croatian), I think it's really cool that this is even happening. A lot of different groups are coming together to work on this, and it makes me really jealous that I don't live in Europe. Check out the Facebook event if you're interested.
Dystopia and Robots
A very simple dystopian reason driven by terrible legislature: those who injure others have to pay for the injuries of the injured - for the rest of their lives. Therefore, it's easier, and cheaper, to just kill them. Plenty of gruesome stories in this one.
Wow, I just love the title on this one. Why do you hate sea stars so much, robot? I mean, damn.
This is a pretty interesting meta-article on the progress of "CoCoRo", which stands for Collective Cognitive Robotics. It's a swarm of autonomous robots that think in tandem, and there's tons and tons of videos to watch of cool underwater robots..
@ThinkpieceBot automatically generates clickbaity titles to critique the current media establishment of people-who-are-not-millennials talking about millennials. Or should I say, snake people?
Creative Coding
Cool. This building is designed to look like it's a broken JPEG. Straight on, it actually looks like an image. I hope we see more glitchitecture soon!
This is a fantastic interactive installation that projects interesting interfaces made of light onto held objects like pieces of paper. It follows the paper to generate cool visualizations and uses a whole lot of programming and motion tracking. The article is worth a read as it dives into a lot of the technical details, and the video is sweet.
Another insanely cool creative coding, this uses GPS to find the locations of radio towers, and overhead satellites near you to visualize the network around you in an augmented reality box.
This is an absolutely fascinating interactive talk on how we use pixels to represent shapes and a realistic view of reality in general. It's pretty mathy, but I recommend flipping through it just for the cool animations.