Jeffrey Scudder
Undergraduate Senior Thesis Mind Map

"We are the music makers,  And we are the dreamers of dreams,  Wandering by lone sea-breakers,  And sitting by desolate streams;—  World-losers and world-forsakers,  On whom the pale moon gleams:  Yet we are the movers and shakers  Of the world for ever, it seems."
- Arthur O'Shaughnessy

A human is a physiological machine, and it gains new functionality through extensions of it's existing parts. In McLuhan's most famous work, "The Medium is the Massage", he shows this concept quite beautifully when he exclaims - "The wheel, is an extension of the foot. The book, is an extension of the eye."

"The media themselves are the avant-garde of our society. Avant-garde no longer exists in painting and music and poetry, it's the media themselves." - Marshal McLuhan, 1973

The most recent jump in media has brought society to the common use of digital computers. When we enter information into a computer for processing we use various physical devices designed for electronic input such as cameras, microphones, keyboards, and joysticks. When we obtain information from a processor, we have other devices that deal with translating electronic output into another sensory form. Some common output devices are visual monitors, speakers, and printers.

These input and output devices are extensions of the human body.
The mouse is an extension of the hand. The speaker is an extension of the mouth. The microphone is an extension of the ear.

The strength of a medium is in the unique qualities that it possesses.

"New media are new archetypes, at first disguised as degradations of older media. These degradations happen when new media inevitably use older ones as content. Using the older ones as content hastens the tidying up process by which a medium becomes an art form." - Marshall McLuhan, 1964

The functionality of the common, household computer is laden with unnecessary metaphor that pertains to other tools or objects. Directories are shown as office file folders, the web is separated into "pages", and most creative software is designed for the purpose of successfully simulating older forms of media. Adobe Photoshop has a "brush" tool. Final Cut Pro has a "razor blade" tool. Software created under this credo abstracts the computer from it's true nature as a processing machine, and the formal and aesthetic traditions put in place by older forms of media are never broken. 

When data is input into a computer processor, it is manipulated through a set of instructions before new or modified data is output. These instructions, or programs, are logical systems which are written in the form of software. In the same way that a human can only play chess if he knows the rules of the game, a computer can only play chess if a human programs it for that purpose.

The computer can easily be used as an artistic medium, but only if we tell it to be one.

"New needs need new techniques. And the modern artists have found new ways and new means of making their statements... the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past culture." - Jackson Pollock

"Welcome to the disposable world, a world of customized destinies, governed by the inaccessible mechanism of an economy that, like science, is developing in a state of complete autonomy with respect to lived reality." - Nicolas Bourriaud The Radicant (2009), 80

The global village has grown closer since the introduction of the internet, and society seems to be spinning into a culturally homogenized future. I feel the need to express the age that I am living in, and I have been developing the proper tools and techniques using the medium of the computer. 

This year, I plan on completing, refining, and putting these tools to use, in order to create new artworks.

MY TOOLBOX

the Polygon Replicating Bitmap Authoring Tool (PRBAT)
PRBAT is a direct, freehand drawing environment that produces two dimensional, bitmap images. The digital mark making tools, and the shape of the drawing surface, are drawn by the user themselves. The surface can pliably twist, turn, or stretch, and individual mark making tools can be utilized simultaneously. The (PRBAT) provides a means of image making on the computer that would be nearly impossible to replicate in other media.   

Cricket
Cricket is a time-based sound instrument designed around the same principles of input as the (PRBAT).  It makes use of an audio input device such as a microphone, and a hand held controller which is used to capture, playback, and manipulate the audio on it's way to a speaker or audio output system.  It is capable of looping many captured sounds simultaneously. The user is able to control the pitch, pan, and direction of outgoing sound on the fly using the hand held controller.

Firefly
Firefly is a time-based, visual drawing instrument with a parallel design to that of Cricket. Marks drawn by the user on a two dimensional plane are captured and capable of being replayed continuously by the system. A single user will eventually be able to control Cricket and Firefly using the same system, and every visual element created by Firefly will have a parallel auditory element created by Cricket. The parallel use of Firefly and Cricket creates a combined instrument that can be played and controlled by a single individual. The medium of the computer allows for greater speed, and simplified control over mechanized audio-visual instruments such as the Clavilux, and other various color organs produced in the twentieth century.

DRAWNONYMOUS
DRAWNONYMOUS is a a small client-server program that requires the input of two users. It allows for the creation of a single, two dimensional, vector based drawing by two users at the same time. The program is accessed through a website, and user's are paired up randomly, unable to choose a partner themselves. Each user has a single, circular mark-making tool, and they can change it's color and diameter. It is an experiment in realtime, anonymous collaboration using a limited means.

Visual Composer
Visual Composer, like the (PRBAT) is a freehand drawing tool, except it's end product is two dimensional vector based drawing. It is a system of creating scalable, and complex works in a simplified manner. It can be used with a pressure sensitive tablet or mouse, and has a minimal interface. The program is similar in function to Alchemy, by Karl D.D. Willis, but it simply accomplishes what Alchemy can sometimes complicate. (Notably the method of input and color control system).

	More subjects of pertaining interest -

	•	John von Neumann
	•	Buckminster Fuller & Synergetics
	•	Steve McCaffery and The Four Horsemen
	•	Raymond Scott
	•	Wilhelm Reich
	•	John Cage's Lectures on Something and Nothing
	•	Harry Partch
	•	Thomas Wilfred
	•	Altermodernity