“For the launch of Beatie Wolfe’s album, Raw Space, Design I/O developed a cutting-edge, modern take on the album concept by developing a seven-day live streaming VR experience for the record as it played from the Nokia Bell Labs anechoic chamber, one of the most sonically isolated spaces in the world. Raw Space reawakens the narrative and ritual of the album experience by bringing the music and lyrical stories to life through generative visuals, long-form 360° live streaming, and virtual reality.

The VR experience was driven by Design I/O’s custom software, which augmented a 360° video stream of the vinyl playing with generative 3D visuals that reacted to the music and lyrics of each track. As a preface to the streaming event, Design I/O customized the concept to work as a live performance at Bell Labs, inviting the viewers to look into the anechoic chamber through a virtual window projection and watch each song’s graphical world react to Beatie playing live.” – Design I/O
To view the full description and a full list of credits, please visit the Design I/O project page.

Made while Minister of Interactive Art at Design I/O.

Releasing this experiment as an OSX screen saver. Download, unzip and then double click to install.

You may have to change your preferences to install the screen saver. System Preferences > Securty & Privacy > Allow Applications Downloaded from > Anywhere OSX >= 10.10 ( trying to get working on intel GPUs, I think I got it working. Ping me if not. )

Select Screen Saver Options… in the Screen Saver pane of System Preferences to change the options.
Day / Night: Switches between the two color modes based on the time of day.
Day: Color mode
Night: Color mode
Manual: Use the color pickers to select your own color choices.

“Mimic is a playful interactive installation that allows visitors to engage in a dialogue with a robot arm through gesture. The robot arm tracks people moving in the space, building up individual impressions of each person and reacting to their actions accordingly. These impressions are broken down into different robot feelings: trust, interest, and curiosity which in turn affect how cautious or playful the robot arm is in its responses. Mimic can interact with many people simultaneously changing its behavior and playfulness based on its feelings towards each person.” – Design I/O
To read the full description and a complete list of credits, please visit the post on design-io.com.

Made while the Minister of Interactive Art at Design I/O.

“Elements is an interactive installation where visitors embody one of four elements: Earth, Wind, Fire or Water. Through these dynamic forms, they can define, transform and sculpt the environment, using the elements to bring life and light together in a playful, ever changing space.” – Design I/O
To read the full description and a complete list of credits, please visit the post on design-io.com.

Screen saver (OSX only) available for download.

Created by Design I/O: Theo Watson, Emily Gobeille and Nick Hardeman.

Made while the Minister of Interactive Art at Design I/O.

Scarf Series

Each pen plot is unique, generated from custom code that draws inspiration from a folded, patterned scarf. Each piece is original and will only be printed a single time. Many of these 11×17″ pieces take many hours to print due to the complex, intricate lines and the slow deliberate movement of the HP7475 plotter.

“Scarf Series: Number 5” 11 x 17 in.

“Scarf Series: Number 6” 11 x 17 in.

“Scarf Series: Number 7” 11 x 17 in.

“Scarf Series: Number 8” 11 x 17 in.

“Scarf Series: Number 11” 11 x 17 in.

“Scarf Series: Number 12” 11 x 17 in.

Stacks Series

Original algorithmic artworks generated from custom code that draw inspiration from a stack of books. Color is added by hand using water color.

“1468020948” 11 x 17 in.

“1468342185” 11 x 17 in.

“1468278549” 17 x 11 in.

Bruce

Bruce is a portrait that marries algorithmically generated content with hand made strokes. Created using custom beard and braid generation applications that drive the HP7475 pen plotter mixed with hand drawn pen marks and watercolor. More information about the process available in this process breakdown post.

“Bruce” 11 x 17 in.

Barracuda

A combination of hand and machine made marks driven by custom software. Pen lines created using the HP7475 pen plotter.

“Barracuda” 11 x 17 in.

Squids

Squids are created using a custom squid generator application I wrote in OpenFrameworks. Each squid is randomly generated and therefore unique. Squids are printed on a pen plotter and then water colored by hand. More information about the process in this post.

“Genevieve” 8.5 x 11.5 in.

“Lucas” 9 x 11.5 in.

“Harold” 9 x 11.5 in.

“Paola” 9 x 11.5 in.

“Valeria” 11 x 18 in.

“Alfredo” 11 x 18 in.

“Damarion” 11.5 x 18 in.

“Dede” 9 x 11.5 in.

Peacock

Peacocks are created using a custom peacock generator application written in OpenFrameworks. Each peacock is programmatically generated, and therefore unique. Peacocks are printed on a HP7475 pen plotter and then water colored by hand. Each peacock is a triptych, composed of three 11 x 17″ pieces to compose the complete work. More information about the process in this post.

“Franklin” Triptych: three 11 x 17 in. pieces.

Squids are created using a custom squid generator application I wrote in OpenFrameworks. Each squid is randomly generated, and therefore unique. Squids are printed on a pen plotter and then water colored by hand. Below is the process for creating “Damarion.” More pen plotter pieces are viewable in Drawing Machine.

The output printed on the pen plotter and then water colored by hand, yielding the finished result below:

Just finished a Barracuda using the HP7475 pen plotter, some custom code and watercolor. I love that the output from my application will ultimately result in physical pen marks on a piece of watercolor paper. Available for purchase store.nickhardeman.com.