The programming language Processing is being used to create computer art for everyone from Radiohead to the New York Times . We talked with one of its creators about the programming art renaissance, and what's in store for Processing 2.0.
Over the past 10 years, Processing has become the programming language of choice for anyone making technology art, whether it's at NYU's ITP program or the more adventurous corners of the New York Times. We talked with Casey Reas — half of the Processing team and a reknowned computer artist in his own right — about his favorite UI tricks and the upcoming release of Processing 2.0.
How much work do you and Ben Fry do to maintain Processing?
We're working on it more or less every day. Frequently we go full-time on it for a stage too. The good news is, the community is largely running itself these days. After years of putting a lot of energy and effort into that, we have a small core group of people who are doing a great job moderating the forum and their work's very essential. What Ben and I are doing continually still is working with key members of the community for developing out different parts of the software as well as doing the core development. Ben has always been the core software architect for the project, so all the code passes through him, even when it's contributed code.
My Little Piece of Privacy by Niklas Roy
What's the most exciting thing you've seen Processing used for recently?
Some of the things that are more interesting to me are aspects that involve the physical environment as well, so using sensing and using motors to both affect what software is doing or using software to drive actuation or movement in the world. The space in between the physical world and software is a really exciting place to explore. And that's become possible through things like Arduino and the ease of use in working with electronics, as well as easier software interfaces for speaking back and forth.
What kind of projects are working in that space?
Well, one thing I saw in the Processing exhibition...it's not a big idea but I think it points to the potential. Someone has their studio in a very public window, so in order to give themselves some privacy, they had this small curtain that they would actually move left and right controlled by a motor across the window. So if somebody walked across the window, the curtain would literally follow them across the window to give [the artist] constant privacy. It's a more playful way of thinking about it than just putting up a big curtain.
