hey all! I hope you are having some time to chill in this last week of 2020, whether or not you are celebrating any holidays, or consciously not celebrating, or whatever, this year blows. this newsletter is a lil short this week, mostly because I expect a lot of your are offline-ish, but I wanted to send something out anyway because there are some great open calls on the front half of 2021 already and I want to make sure you have some time to start prepping!
next week I’ll be sharing my 2020 recap for the newsletter as an extra post. the short version: this work was basically my favorite work of 2020 (and, tbh, the only work I did in 2019 that I still feel proud of), so I am going to be doing a lil bit of a lowkey membership/donation drive in the hopes of ramping up additional weekly content, monthly meetups, and my own workshops and so on for 2021. please stay tuned and continue your very much appreciated support of this lil resource!
resources!
masking and clipping are great ways to do tricky lil things in CSS, but it can get a bit confusing as to when to use which. this article by Sarah Drasner does a solid job of explaining the intricacies of both with some great Codepen examples that you can fork and tinker with. check it out!
if Advent of Code left you thirsty for some additional daily challenges, Genuary is right around the corner. for every day in January, check in on the prompts and do your best to create something beautiful (or at least mildly interesting) with code.
here’s a nice little write up about a painting app made with React and Canvas API. I particularly liked that the creator added controls for saturation and lightness – a nice way to visualize these color properties! the code is available on Github, so this might be a nice inspiration point for your own interactive interfaces!
while we’re on the subject of painting software, artist Travess Smalley wrote a web-based painting tool that is fun to fart around with! it has a very “Kid Pix but make it fashion” energy. the spin feature is especially hypnotic. give it a try here and tweet at him with your creations!
and now that you’ve made something beautiful in the HTML Canvas, here’s a tutorial on how to configure the canvas to export a high dpi image optimized for printing! mash up all the tutorials!!!
educational opportunities!
School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe has just announced their programming for 2021, and it looks pretty flippin’ great, and includes their first Spanish-language programming! plant geopolitics, time-tracking, witchcraft & biotechnology, algorithmic poetry… the list of topics is wild and inspiring! the first few months of programming are also all online. I had a great time back in the fall in the making personal games course, so I highly recommend checking out the full list of programming here and signing up for something if it fits your schedule!
open calls!
ART.HAPPENS, a virtual show for 2021 organized by CRASH Space, Fun-A-Day-LA, & Fun-A-Day Reseda, is seeking participants. the premise: pick a project that you can do every day in January, and then show your work in February in a big, all ages group show! sounds like a fun way to bring some focus into your creative practice. learn more and sign up here!
on-the-fly has an open call to award 8 grants to develop artistic productions involving live coding practices. the residency includes an artist fee, subsistence and travel costs, production costs, access to facilities and equipment, and more. learn more and apply by January 14 here!
The Rules Do Not Apply is an open call for digital artists and creatives to explore, play with, and disrupt traditional ideas of art, in this collaboration between Audience Labs at the Royal Opera House and National Gallery X. learn more and apply by January 10 here!
China Residencies is hosting an open call for the 7th Crystal Ruth Bell Residency, this year around the theme “Mediated.” they’re inviting people who work with all kinds of media to apply for a fully-funded, 6 month remote residency in 2021, and are welcoming proposals of media arts and mediated projects connected to mainland China, Hong Kong, Chinatowns, and the greater Chinese diaspora worldwide in some way. learn more and apply by February 9 here.
📅 upcoming events!
Weds, Dec 30! 5:00PM UCT-5! NYC Resistor has one more event this week in their new virtual space – an avatar fashion show. you can sign up to show off your own stylish rig or just pop in to enjoy the vibes. I got to check out the space over the weekend, and I personally cannot wait to see some artists strut their stuff on the neon pink catwalk on the roof. learn more and RSVP here.
Thurs, Dec 31! 6:00PM UTC-5! starting at 6pm on New Year’s Eve, Babycastles will be hosting an all-night stream on Twitch, featuring a live interactive robot camera (???), a live RPG experience, and much more. definitely a better option than whatever dystopian version of New Year’s Rockin’ Eve will be on ABC this year. learn more here.
also Thurs, Dec 31! 8:00PM UTC-5! do you feel, quite understandably, that you just want to set some shit on fire? Wonderville has you covered! for NYE, you can join them in their Minecraft Wonderverse and help them burn it to the ground in a cathartic group anguish at the stroke of 12. cute! they’ll also be streaming live music and hanging. you can watch the event for free on Twitch or donate $5 for a ticket to the server in order to help with all the burninating. learn more here!
Jan 4-29! the School of Afrotectopia is back with a month-long series of events exclusively for Black and Pan-African participants! every weekday will feature a presentation by a Black innovator working at the intersections of art, design, technology, Black culture, and activism followed by collective conversations aimed at cultivating communal imaginings. this sounds like a great way to energize your new year, and pricing is scaled to make these events accessible. learn more and get your ticket here!
just for lulz!
BDG is a frenetic lil’ angel, just let him carry u out of this awful awful year:
*~housekeeping~*
if you have anything in the works that you are excited about (an event, a workshop, a new project), please send me all the details. if you wanna share links or chat, there is now a Discord server that you can use here.