Teaching Resources
TouchDesigner
Starting in 2013 I becan documenting the work I was doing with TouchDesigner across the work I was doing both in my course work and in production. While the posts that are focued on what I learned while working on projects are located in the blog, there were some dedicated materials that I've authored that are slightly more strcutred and they can be found here.
AME 394
In much of today's contemporary media practice there is a tight coupling of compositional form, content, and underlying computational mechanisms. This integration holds the potential to yield new modes of expression and wholly new art experiences as is evident in emerging forms of real time generative art, network-based art, game-based art, and interactive performance. As both practitioners and participants, we must develop a critical understanding of the relevant compositional and computational principles that frame this work. In this course, students will develop a working understanding of fundamental compositional and computational principles, and apply their understanding through the realization of exploratory media artworks.
THP 494
Today's live performance technologies increasingly rely on the use of inter/re-active and generative tools. This approach to creating visual content by controlling lighting, video, or physical systems requires that the artist cultivate a deep understanding of the computational principles and methods used to manipulate data as a primary substance in the creative process. As both practitioners and pioneers, the artist must endeavor to both understand the approach of other engineers and programmers, while also engaging the practice of developing software for general and specific use cases. It is not enough to rely solely on existing frameworks and architectures when developing new work; especially if the approach is unconventional. In this course, students will cultivate an approach for modular programming, complete tool development, and generative process focused aesthetics.
Python in TouchDesigner
Learning TouchDesigner can feel a bit intimidating if you happen to be new to programming. For artists who are new to the idea of working in a programming environment it's easy to feel overwhelmed. That's okay, in fact it's great. There's lots to learn here in the TouchDesigner universe, and one of the primary ingredients for you to start with is getting a solid handle on Python 3. It's easy to feel like maybe GLSL or C++ should come first, but if you're looking to get a handle on building full projects, then you need a solid scripting language. Python, as a high level language, is fairly human readable, and once you get the hang of it is fun to write. We can use Python for a number of different operations in Touch, and it is hands down the best way to improve your touch programming quickly.
Case Studies
Case studies are focused on concrete projects, installations, or tools that are specific examples of works that have been build on top of TouchDesigner.