This book is a collection of sketches created by the Spring 2016 graduate Creative Coding class at NYU Tandon's Integrated Digital Media department. All of the sketches were created with code using javascript library p5.js, and demonstrate different techniques learned in class including but not limited to generative text, particle systems, and color theory.
Though we call this a book, it isn't meant to be read or experienced in a linear way. Many of the sketches are not only visual but interactive, requiring you as the reader, the user, to move your mouse or click on the page. To learn more about a sketch, click on About the sketch, located at the top of the page.
What makes this interactive book so unique is that for most if not all of the students, this semester has been their very first introduction to computer programming. Furthermore, all of the code that comprises each sketch is available and remix-able by clicking on the big green Remix button on the top right of the page. If you do remix any of these sketches, please give credit to the original author. We hope that by sharing this code and encouraging others to build from it, we will proliferate a burgeoning generation of artists, designers, tinkerers, and thinkers- those who choose code as their main tool for expressing creativity.
When planning the book, the students and I voted on a theme- If you were a ... The theme is purposely ambiguous. As you will see, some students have interpreted this theme as the embodiment of an animal or object. Others have taken a more abstract route, drawing metaphorical dotted lines to political statements and the absurdities of the current zeitgeist.
I want to thank all of my students for your patience and focus this semester, for tackling bugs, and embracing the idiosyncrasies of creative coding.
--Kevin Siwoff, May 2016.