“Free Range Chicken” by Nair
Conference:
Type(s):
Title:
- Free Range Chicken
Program Title:
- G-Tech
Organizer(s)/Presenter(s):
Description:
The project code named “Free Range Chicken” at the RISD Advanced Computing Center was born out of a search for a new paradigm for output devices. The current printers and plotters perform a discrete output function independent of the creative process. There are three discrete events in our normal interaction with a computer graphics workstation. At present: (1) drawing or painting using a mouse, digitizer tablet, or other input device, (2) feedback from the monitor about what is being drawn or painted, and (3) final hardcopy output of the image. In the traditional process using paper and pencil, these events are simultaneous. Creative thinking relies on this “seamless ideation/feedback/regeneration cycle,” missing in the computer interface. This requires the “print” activity (event 3) to exist simultaneously with the act of drawing or painting (event 1). Free Range technology addresses this simultaneity issue through “free-running, remote controlled, paint-carrying devices” which respond to mouse or digitizer input executing the artwork in real time. It also eliminates the restrictions on media types and sizes. The artist may exercise choices ranging from the traditional (painring on a large piece of canvas) to the electronic (a free- range device executing the image at a different time and place).
