Nick Briz is a new media artist and educator whose work and writing explores digital culture and experimental new media. He's written about remix culture and digital rights and is co-founder of the annual GLI.TC/H festival. He (along with Branger_Briz) is also the inventor of the _playGnd animation tool which lets users create 3D animations in their browser. In the video above Briz gives a tutorial on how to get started with this tool, which you can read more about below.
the threejs_playGnd is a digital literacy (agency) artware + ntro to three.js/webGL (interactive/generative 3D in the browser) which is modeled after an experimental new-media art ethic."an interface is not a thing; an interface is an effect […] Ideology is 'modeled' in software" — Alexander Galloway
// -----_____-----_____-----_____-----_____ ¿¿¿ three.js/webGL ???
// -----_____-----_____ ¿¿¿ experimental new-media art ethic ???
- [1] graphix[toCode] interface
- [2] threejs [realtime] editor
- [3] sketches archive
// -----_____-----_____-----_____ [1] graphix[toCode] interface
In this first section you generate code for basic three.js geometry using a GUI (graphical user interface). Traditionally GUI's 'obfuscate' code. In the interest of making things more accessible they hide the code, and as a consequence compromise digital literacy. In the _playGnd the GUI is still concerned with accessibility, but in a way that augments the code rather than obfuscating it."Software is the medium that is not a medium. […] Code is never viewed as it is. Instead code must be compiled, interpreted, parsed, and otherwise driven into hiding by still larger globs of code. Hence the principle of obfuscation." — Alexander Galloway
// -----_____-----_____-----_____----- [2] threejs [realtime] editor
Traditionally we don't tend to think of our tools as being 'political', but software isn't neutral. It reflects and imposes the politix of the folks who create it (some, like Galloway, argue it is itself ideology). The _playGnd is no less political and no less bias than any other digital tool, but it stems from a different ethic (an experimental new-media art ethic). For this reason you'll notice that the editor is a little bit different from the conventional. First, it's built into the browser + shares the same space as your sketch, which allows for immediate feedback >> you can experiment, tinker, play in 'realtime.' Second, the editor includes a 'snippets' menu to encourage copying + pasting + modifying + collaging code."the computer world deals with imaginary, arbitrary made up stuff that was all made up by somebody. Everything you see was designed and put there by someone. […] There are so many ideas to care about, and with ideas comes the politics of ideas." — Ted Nelson
// -----_____-----_____-----_____-----_____ [3] sketches archive
"Guardianship of the computer can no longer be left to a priesthood. I see this as just one example of the creeping evil of Professionalism" —Ted Nelson"The detailed forms of algorithmic interaction and play required today of the computer-using public is, in my mind, so exactly akin to writing code that the division between the two must certainly be ascribed to other ends. Perhaps it has to do with the creation and maintenance of another class of priest-like specialists[…]" — Alexander Galloway