Computational media provide limitless opportunities for creating wholly original experiences. By employing systems logic and processing power with online data sources and innovative interface concepts, I create situations that encourage engagement and facilitate interaction. The human participants become active collaborators with — not just observers of — the digital systems, and from there, unique experiences evolve.
I enjoy the challenge of using visual and aural properties to communicate the rules of interaction to participants. User research is essential, as design theory and psychological research cannot alone guarantee a great experience.
Interests:
—engagement
—alternative interfaces
—networked data sources
—generative, algorithmic art
—non-linear narrative
Tools: Processing, XML, APIs, Max/MSP, Adobe Creative Suite, Final Cut Pro, QuickTime.
Get in touch if you're interested in collaborating on a project.
I always consider projects in terms of systems design — meaning not only the formal visual systems (grid, typography, color), but the systems of interaction between the user and the work. A complete system includes not just the interface, but the people who use it. If, together, their interaction produces the desired effect, then the design is a measurable success.
I design and build websites and custom interfaces for commerce, data visualization, and mobile applications. Design is problem-solving, not just beautification. My approach is to begin by defining clear goals, and then quickly iterate through multiple possible solutions. By incorporating user testing into my design process, I ensure that the final product is as successful as possible.
Interests:
—data visualization
—interactive design
—usability research
Tools: XHTML, CSS, jQuery, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, XML, WordPress, Processing.
Get in touch if you're in need of a website or custom interface.
I love to teach. I enjoy helping people understand how they can create their own interactive, digital art. To do that, students have to be able to speak the language of the computer: They need to learn how to program.
There are many free tools available, yet relatively few talented teachers who are able to make coding accessible, friendly, and even fun. Learning to program is literally a process of learning a new language. When teaching introductory programming, my strength is my ability to reframe and rephrase these foreign concepts in language already familiar to my students. Of course, the fundamentals of interactive design (formal design structures, interface methods, and the science of human perception) are equally important concepts, and should be taught alongside any technical ones.
I am earning an MFA in dynamic media design at the Dynamic Media Institute in Boston (expected completion: May 2010). I live in San Francisco, where I have taught workshops at Noisebridge and the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts.
Interests:
—teaching digital art-making with Processing
—introducing basic programming concepts
—connecting the value of logical systems with the human experience of art
Get in touch to schedule a lecture or workshop.
Questions & Answers is an interface for exploring the vast range of questions that people ask (and answer) online. More »
Simply by asking a question, we inadvertently reveal a great deal about ourselves. The intimate details revealed by this questioner prompts one to ask what is acceptable (or not) to ask complete strangers about online.
The minimalist, fluid interface encourages exploring the range of questions online. Some are more humorous than others, but all questions betray clues about the identity of the questioner.
When questions are explored by category, the colors used are based on keywords associated with that category name. (So, the "environment" section tends to be fairly green, while "beauty and style" is pink and orange.) Dynamic color analysis ensures the text is always legible, even though the colors are not pre-determined.
Users can also search for questions and answers on any topic.
Hundreds of discs spin and change color in response to motion, engaging passersby. Patterns of color and form emerge, presenting a visual record of participants' movements. More »
The ASCII Photo Booth is an interactive installation that captures your picture, translated into plain text characters. Participants walk away with a freshly printed, original portrait. More »
Two friends enjoying the photo booth.
A portrait. The system translates the amount of light in each portion of the image into a text character. So, a bright white is represented by a space (" ") and a dark area could be depicted with "8" or "B".
A happy couple.
Another solo portrait.
Detail of the previous portrait.
The physical installation in progress. Note the video camera, display, mouse (which served as a "shutter release") and laser printer, which output the final image.
A tool for visualizing network relationships and exploring patterns of connection. More »
Visualizations of simple graph data convey nothing about the quality of the relationships between network nodes; only the binary states (connected/not connected) are communicated.
This image adds three new dimensions of data: the frequency, directionality, and duration of connections. In this example, telephone call records serve as the data source, so each colored circle represents a phone call between two numbers. Larger circles are longer phone calls, and color indicates directionality (who called whom).
Other shapes can be used to represent each instance of connection. Here, rectangles are used to generate a bar chart-style representation, where longer calls are taller bars. Meaningful patterns can now be perceived and explored (e.g. A calls B more often, but when B calls A, they talk for longer periods of time).
Arrows are overlaid, so directionality can be understood even without motion.
What can drawers tell us about our daily routines? This conceptual project illuminates how our retrieval of common objects throughout the day reveals patterns in how we live. More »
ColorTools is a collection of code that makes it easier to work with colors in Processing. It can easily generate random colors, retrieve colors from ColourLovers, and dynamically adjust colors' visual contrast to ensure legibility. More »
A palette of randomly generated colors.
The colors for "ocean," as determined by ColourLovers.
The colors for "orange," as determined by ColourLovers.
Demonstrating a text search for "happy," and the resulting colors.
Two different color palettes at far left and right. The grid in the center is a palette generated by blending all colors of the left and right palettes.
Given any two colors, ColorTools can adjust one color value for the desired amount of visual contrast. In this example, compare the background with the top row of text. Each subsequent row of text has been adjusted for greater legibility.
Another example of adjusting visual contrast, this time moving from a dark color to a lighter one.
A 3D, interactive visualization of my iTunes library. Each track is represented by a disc, and longer tracks are larger discs. Tracks can be organized in space by length, frequency of playback, and genre. More »
A real-time, interactive visualization of train arrivals in the BART system. Check the map for trains arriving now at the station nearest you. More »
A tool for visualizing the relationships between the red-green-blue and hue-saturation-brightness color models. Each axis of a 3D cube represents one axis of the color model, and the user can control the spatial transition between models. More »
Colorful cubes organized around three axes: red, green, and blue.
An interactive visualization of real AOL users' web searches. More »
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Content and design © copyright 2006– Scott Murray
