Another year of iPhone/iPad development but there haven’t been many apps that have caught our eye as there have been in the past. Nevertheless few that stood above the rest, both in their conception and how they make us think about technology. As an increasing number of apps saturate the AppStore, now in their 100s of thousands, we’d like to remain optimistic that this platform will continue to grow and not just by large development studios and those that reiterate but rather as an exciting, creative and above all – “innovative” place to push ideas to.

10. Composite [iPad, openFrameworks]

Inspired by the neo-dadaist collages of Robert Rauschenberg, James Alliban’s Composite allows you to remix your surroundings to create graphic compositions. Users can paint pictures using live video stream by simply pointing their iPad towards your subject drawing over it. Pixels are captured and transfered onto canvas. A different way of looking at painting.

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9. Photo/Nykto [iPad, openFrameworks, Games]

Photo/Nykto is an experimental game conceived by Annelore Schneider and Douglas Edric Stanley as part of the “Unterplay” project at the Master Media Design —HEAD, Genève. Edric describes at as a game for nyktophobes and photophobes. It is played by switching on and off the lights in order to avoid reaching the edge of the screen. Photo/Nykto is one of the few apps that explores interaction with the device beyond the device itself. We like to think of it as “spatial interface” one that allows iPad to become an aggregator of physical activity.

Soon in the AppStore

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8. Planetary [Cinder, iPad]

Created by the collective consisting of Ben Cerveny, Tom Carden, Jesper Sparre Andersen and Robert Hodgin, Planetary by Bloom is a way to explore your music collection using planetary system. Application, created using Cinder framework allows you to navigate dynamically created by information about the music on your iPad. Fly thorough the stars that represent your favourite artists, visit planets (albums) or listen to the moons (tracks).

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7. Windosill [iPad, Games]

Previously available for Mac and Windows, we are glad to see Windosill by Patrick Smith (Vectorpark.com) finally make it’s way to the iOS.  An adventure puzzle game filled with peculiar objects, your task is to resolve abstract but yet logical puzzles to progress from room to room. For fans of the original, this is not just a simple port. The Windosill for the iPad was built as a native iOS app and customized the behavior of every element to the iPad’s touch interface. Bonus features include a sketchbook gallery of concept and development artwork, the option to instantly skip to any room you’ve already completed and two special settings, unlocked when you complete Windosill: Complex Gravity, which allows you to manipulate objects by tipping your iPad, and See-Thru Mode, which makes everything translucent (giving you a sneak-peek into how Windosill is put together). Fantastic addition to the AppStore.

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6. OscilloScoop [iPhone, iPad, Sound]

Created by Scott Snibbe and Graham McDermott and originally designed by Lukas Girling, “OscilloScoop” is a culmination of about 15 years’ effort trying to create musical creation tools that is more like a video game. The process began back in the 90′s at a research lab when Scott Snibbe and Lukas Girling worked briefly with Brian Eno and Laurie Anderson on some of the concepts. The app, playfully called OscilloScoop, presents a trio of brightly colored stacked spinning crowns. Touching a crown trims or builds up its edge, like a spinning disk of clay. As you carve into this disc, the music changes, and you effortlessly produce hip hop, techno, electro, and other recognisable forms of music. Scott Snibble describes the process much like a DJ spinning records, but you create original music of your own, rather than merely cutting between tracks.

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5. The Infinite Adventure Machine [MaxMSP, iPad]

The Infinite Adventure Machine by David Benqué is a computer program which generates fairy-tale plots. Based on the work of Vladimir Propp, who reduced the structure of russian folk-tales to 31 basic functions, the project addresses the difficulties of automatic story generation which David explains remain an unsolved problem for computer science.

Not available – Prototype

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4. field [iPhone, iPad, openFrameworks, Sound]

Created by Rainer Kohlberger with sound by Wilm Thoben, field is an abstract audiovisual app that uses realtime camera feed as input. Brightness, saturation and color are interpreted, and translated into a constructed grid. The realtime image triggers different sounds as you pan around. Included are five different modes which you can switch through by double tapping the screen. Very addictive and playful take on  live video as medium to generate both visual and sound patterns.

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3. Last Clock [iPad]

Originally created in 2002 by Jussi Ängeslevä and Ross Cooper when at the Royal College of Arts in London and developed for the iOS by NewMediology (Danqing Shi), Last clock is a clock app that uses popular slit scan technique to keep you in factual time, human time and remote time. Just like any other analog clock, the app has three hands: one for seconds, minutes and hours. The hands, however, are made of a slice of live video that gets scanned to the clockface. With different refresh rate for the three hands, the three time circles reflect the rhythms of the space at different temporal resolutions. The app also allows you to stream the last clock camera feed over the internet.

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2. Sword & Sworcery EP [Games, iPhone, iPad]

The long awaited “21st century interpretation of the archetypical old school videogame adventure” by Superbrothers finally hit the AppStore this year. The response was amazing quickly became one of the most popular games of the year. If you haven’t had a chance to play with it, xmas break seems like a perfect opportunity. Easily the best iOS game this year.

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1. Björk – Biophilia [iPhone, iPad, Sound]

Having seen many apps over the last few years, I don’t think anyone expected Biophilia. If you don’t know about it, is an iPhone/iPad release of Björk’s latest album created in collaboration with Scott Snibbe and her longtime design collaborators M/M (Paris). Comprising a suite of musical pieces and interactive artworks, Biophilia is a unique experience where different elements are weaved together with both sensitivity and precision. The experience is unified, building on different layers of visuals and sound. It’s a simple must! (Read also our special Making-of Virus)

How did we get from command line to computer interfaces we know today? PlosBlogs’s NeuroTribes offers an insight into the sketchbook of Susan Kare, the Artist who’s high-school friend Andy Hertzfeld, the lead software architect for the Macintosh operating system, offered a job to design fonts for the Mac.

Inspired by the collaborative intelligence of her fellow software designers, Kare stayed on at Apple to craft the navigational elements for Mac’s GUI. Because an application for designing icons on screen hadn’t been coded yet, she went to the University Art supply store in Palo Alto and picked up a $2.50 sketchbook so she could begin playing around with forms and ideas. In the pages of this sketchbook, which hardly anyone but Kare has seen before now*, she created the casual prototypes of a new, radically user-friendly face of computing — each square of graph paper representing a pixel on the screen.

Continue reading.... The Sketchbook of Susan Kare [News]

Upverter is a web service, similar to GitHub that allows you to discover, share and work on hardware.

Taking full advantage of HTML5, the included editor has all the basics you have come to expect such as undo, redo, rotating, versioning, and sharing designs. Create your schematics on an infinitely large canvas and organize your designs how you want to. Also included is their crowd-sourced part library to choose your parts, or add your own. Get insight into what parts are the most popular and cost efficient.

Here is an embeded drawing of Arduino-Uno:

Continue reading.... Upverter [News]

Written by Peter Lunenfeld, The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading is a book about using digital technologies to shift us from a consumption to a production model. After half a century of television-conditioned consumption/downloading, Lunenfeld tells us, we now find ourselves with a vast new infrastructure for uploading. We simply need to find the will to make the best of it.

Continue reading.... The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading [Books, iPad]

Our friends at Interactive Things and authors of Datavisualization.ch have just told us about their new pet project, called Substratum. It’s a series of inspirational interviews with some of today’s most influential designers and artists. 10 questions per interview, 2 interviews per issue, 1 issue per week until Christmas.

They started yesterday with the first issue titled “Space” containing interviews by Marius Watz and Theo Watson & Emily Gobeille. There is a total of 14 interviews in the pipeline with release on weekly basis. The complete list of names featured in Substratum remains secret, but includes people like Ben Fry, Nicholas Felton and Golan Levin.

Continue reading.... Substratum Interview Series [News]

“New Art/Science Affinities” is a new publication focusing on artists working right now at the intersection of art, science and technology. Co-published by The Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University and the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, this 190-page book was written and designed in one week by four authors (Andrea Grover, Régine Debatty, Claire Evans and Pablo Garcia) and two designers (Thumb) in a collaborative authoring process known as a “book sprint” (derived from “code sprinting” for open source projects).

Continue reading.... New Art/Science Affinities [News, Books]

Since it’s launch in 2008, CreativeApplications.Net has become a prime source for latest in new creative software and platforms. It continues to play an integral part in the debate about digital art and software. Inspiring thousands of visitors daily, CAN has become an institution for creative app app development. Together with a number of high profile writers, we continue to influence both online media and printed press on the direction of new media and digital arts.

We are 3 years old tomorrow and to celebrate we are running a fundraiser. CAN takes 300+ hours a month to curate & edit, between the blog, Twitter and Facebook. Please help!

We kindly ask you that if you find any joy & value in CAN, please consider a modest donation by clicking on the PayPal button below..

All your donations go to CAN, for development and to continue to bring you great content.

Even better, every donation equal to or over $35 will receive CAN logo shirt – new dark grey style with light grey logo. The t-shirts will go to print in November, with estimated delivery before Christmas (all via our partner Allmightys.com). Once you have made the donation we will get in touch with you for desired t-shirt size and your postal details. P&P is included. (New CAN T-Shirt is only available through donations until October 31st).

UPDATE 07/10/2011: Tshirt are available in both Male and Female models.

…and as a thank you we are making all the CAN apps free for only one day. The special price starts at midnight on the 5th October around the world ending the day after. Here is what’s included:

SpringMesh by Ricardo Sanchez $1.99 Free
Interactive cloth for iPhone and iPad you can twist, pull and deform using multitouch or gravity.

SKTCH for iPad and iPhone by Filip Visnjic $1.99  Free
Generative drawing application for iPhone and iPad using 16 presets created by digital artists around the globe.

Voidie by Francis Lam $1.99 Free
Voidie is an abstract depiction of the Great Void for iPad and iPhone using a particle system which reacts to sound and illustrates the activity around it.

ANE by Brendan Dawes $1.99 Free
News browser for the iPhone that uses serendipity to discover articles.

asdfbmp by Kim Asendorf $1.99 Free
1bit Bitmaps are a special kind of art. Shuffle the pixels, play with them on your iPhone!

RetroScreen by Mike Tucker $1.99 Free
Inspired by the screensavers of an older generation, RetroScreen is an interactive incarnation designed for the iPad and iPhone.

Thank you!

Below is a very early digital 3D rendered film (possibly the first one, ever). It was created in 1972 by Ed Catmull (the founder of Pixar) and Fred Parke with a little help from Robert B. Ingebretsen.

The best part of this film is not even the 3D rendering itself, but the outtakes and “making of” footage that has been interwoven throughout, including footage of a plaster replica of Ed’s hand onto which he is meticulously mapping the polygon vertices that make up the three dimensional model (around 1:30). That’s really remarkable. The math that we take for granted for rendering 3D was being invented, real time, to create this video. (Ed’s credited for having working out that math to handle things like texture mapping, 3D anti-aliasing and z-buffering.)

Read more about this in detail on nerdplusart.com

(via kottke)

Tomorrow is the official launch of Written Images book, a project by Martin Fuchs and Peter Bichsel and a party to be held at LEAP, new gallery space in Berlin. If you haven’t read about Written Images already, this and this are good places to start. Great news is that we have a copy to give away ($250) so if you are interested in being one of the first to own this piece of history, read on.

Created in collaboration with more than 70 media artists and developers from across the world, Written Images is the first of its kind. A ‘programmed book’, continuously regenerated for the digital printing process, offering each reader a unique experience. Each artist programed an image creating application that interpreted and visualised data from various sources. Every application runs through an auto-generative printing program which generates and compiles high resolution complex and never to be repeated images. To produce the book Written Images, the programs and pictures are now hung in a software command chain. These programs visualize internet data-streams or display self-generated content. They are able to save continuously changing images on demand. A specially-designed application controls the image-generating programs that each produce four-page speads in the book, and produce “On demand” an individual book. Each resulting Book (450 pages) is therefore unique.

Tomorrow, (Friday 1st July) Martin Fuchs and Peter Bichsel will present their project at LEAP (Lab for Electronic Arts andPerformance). In addition to talks and presentations there will bean installation showing the principle of how the book is is produced. 42 A3 prints will be on show demonstrating the result of the book software used. A Copy of “Written Images’ will also be able to be pre-ordered at a terminal which will be at LEAP during the installation.

Martin Fuchs and Philip Whitfield will also have a new version ofReceipt Racer on display. Project that was born at CAN + OFFF workshop collaborative now invites you to:

Create your own artwork!

Send your code instantly on this website and enjoy your work in a preview and live – printed in the houses of LEAP, Berlin! You can create your very own picture or you can browse through all the pictures and codes already submitted and change the parameters and the code geared to your needs. If the printing project is successful there may be a booklet of the collected prints from the feature party in Berlin.

@ undefprint.com (This project will end on SUN 07/03/11 00:00 GMT)
(Please note, that this is only an early experiment. So use it responsibly and be part of the experiment. Otherwise we have to adopt measures – at worst we have to shut down the whole installation.)

Written Images Launch Party:
FRIDAY 1. Juli 2011

18.00-19.30 TALKS
Martin Fuchs, Peter Bichsel (writtenimages.net) Kim Asendorf (extrafile.org) „Glitch-Art“

20.00 – 0.00 EXHIBITION OPENING

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How to win a copy of Written Images:

We have one copy of the book to giveaway ($250 and impossible to get hold of). All you have to do is Tweet this and you will be entered in the random draw next Monday. You have 50 characters to play with so tell us why Written Images is great. Read below for Rules and Information.

One lucky winner will be chosen on Monday (4th July).
Make sure you are following @creativeapps as we will send you a DM if you are a winner.

Contest now over – Winner is Brendan Randall with “Digital need not be the death knell for print – Written Images!”

Rules and information

1. Postage and Packing included.

2. Competition is open to everyone and anyone but you must be over 18 years of age. There will be a total of ONE winner for this competition.

3. Winner will be selected by best tweet selected by Filip of CAN.

4. Winner will be contacted first via Twitter DM and will be asked to provide their full name and postal address. If they wish to pass on the book to another person, we will need their name and postal address. If the winner does not respond by the following Monday (11th July) we will pick another winner. Make sure you are following @creativeapps as we will send you a DM if you are a winner.

5. Only one entry per person.

6. Expected shipment – within 2-3 weeks.

Fortune Boat Workshop – Lao Jianhua, V&A Designer in Residence

The V&A and the Sackler Centre for arts education has just announced has a new opportunity, for a small group of designers/makers to have a studio at the V&A for six months commencing 1 July 2011.

Proposals are invited from UK based practitioners who wish to develop their practice and engage the public in participatory programming connected to the Museum’s collections and Power of Making Exhibition. Inspired by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Fab Labs and drawing on ideas about open source design, the Residents will facilitate access to making for the public inside the Museum.

The V&A is particularly looking for designers/makers with a background in 3-D art or design – from traditional to high tech making skills, experience in collaborative working and for whom engagement with the public is an integral part of their practice.

Selection Criteria:
Applicants should be dynamic, ambitious and inspiring – pushing forward the boundaries of perception about creative practice, and contribute their skills/techniques to the residency. We are looking for applicants who can adopt a range of different roles and who are keen to draw upon the resources of the V&A and to enter into a dialogue with the public

Bursary offered (£16,800) and studio space provided.

For more information and to apply go to www.vam.ac.uk/jobs

Closing date for applications: 20 March 2011

Interviews: 5 May

Ben Laposky, ’Oscillon 40′, 1952, Photograph of a computer-generated image
20.3 x 25.1 cm, Museum no. E.958-2008
Given by the American Friends of the V&A through the generosity of Patric Prince

Roman Verostko, ‘Manchester Illuminated Universal Turing Machine, #1′, 1998. Museum no. E.944-2008

Mark Wilson, ‘e4708′, 2008. Museum no. E.535-2008. Given by the artist