Auralux

Last time, I talked a bit about games and animation, and how the level of interactivity determines how I view a video-based work of art. I was recently sent a link to a different game by one of my friends. It’s called Auralux:

This is a Real Time Strategy game, meaning the game is based on your strategy and decisions you make in real time (this is different from, say, a turn-based strategy game, which gives you unlimited time to make decisions when it is your turn). Unlike other RTS games, which often require you to use your speed as well as your strategy to defeat your opponent, Auralux is meant to be a relaxing game that is solely based on strategy. It is trying to be an RTS at it’s simplest, without all of the factors that make the profitable RTSs of today’s market stressful and complicated. I think this game is very interesting because, like the game (Fotonica) from my last Looking Outwards, it aims to relax the player, while still requiring skill. It becomes more of a soothing experience than an attempt to win, although winning is still your objective.

Super Recursion Toy

The next thing I found was this incredible looking art by Justin Windle, found on the creative applications website. The thing that drew my attention was the use of the word recursion. Recursion is the concept of doing something over and over again, such as a function calling itself. Not only do these snapshots of the program look extremely interesting, they also instantly made me think of a recursion program. So, for me, this is like a visualization of a “computer science work” into an “art work.”

WebGL

The last of my finds this week was found on a website called jocabola.com. While it seems that the use of the technology was limited in this case, apparently WebGL allows for interactive 3D graphics to be used in web browsers. Seeing this simple example made me wonder what it is capable of. It kind of reminded me of the “visualizers” in iTunes. Perhaps there will be a way to have your browser reacting to the music you are playing using the WebGL technology in the future. I think there are many possibilities for this kind of technology to make the internet interactive in an interesting way.

Credits:

http://www.emcneill.com/auralux.html

http://www.creativeapplications.net/javascript-2/super-recursion-toy-javascript/

http://www.creativeapplications.net/javascript-2/jocabola-reboot-javascript/