Peter Wildman-Modulate a thousand times more
Check out the code poetry and run it in browser: http://www.codepomofo.com/
long theTime;
color beBlue = color(0, 0, 253);
long forNow;
color beGreen = color(0, 255, 0);
color theBleedingRed = color(255, 0, 0);
long more = 2;
long foreverInAMoment;
void setup() {
background(0);
size(1000, 1000);
theTime = 1000 * more;
}
void draw() {
for(long ingTheTime =
foreverInAMoment;
theTime > 0;
theTime --) {
set(int
(random
(int
(theTime),
(int
(foreverInAMoment))),
222, theBleedingRed);
}
set(1+1+1+ int
(random
(1,1*1*1000+more)),
int
(theTime +
(random
(1+2,1000+more)
)),
2+beBlue);
set(int
(foreverInAMoment) + int
(random
(1,1000)),
int
(theTime +
int
(random
(1+2,1000+more)
)),
2+beGreen);
for(int
thisMoment = 2; beGreen > 2 % 1000*more;
//still
thisMoment++){
}
}
We had a party in our werehouse last week and people somehow was showing their stuff and sharing ideas. “Modulate a thousand times more”, one of the code poetry series from Peter Wildman intrigues me the most, maybe it’s somewhat relevant to me as a front-end developer. I requested an interview with him to dig into his idea.
Who are you and what have you been doing?
I am Peter Wildman and I’ve been making computer code recently, and what I’ve been doing is writing poetry. So I’ve been kind of making code poetry.
Code poetry, can you explain that?
Ok well, for me, there’s a lot of different kind of poetries for me personally. For me I like to write code. So I write a computer program that will execute or function like a piece of software that just create visuals and generates graphics from it. So I take the computer code, but I also take it and think about how I can create a poem by reading the code itself. So there will be some interpretations in that process. For example, I can read a symbol like “=”, I can read it like it says “as something…”, so this is something else. Or I can say it’s “in something”. For example “Long the time the color be blue to long for now, the color be green”, if the color be green is me interpreting the equals something is something else. So I try to translate into English language and think about computer code and symbols as poetry. So I when I write the computer program that is a poem that I read, it also runs through the computer programing create a visual from the exact the same code that I treat as a poem. So it’s kind of 2 things going on there.
That’s really cool, is there anybody else doing that? And what is your inspiration from?
The other people doing code poetry, but what they create, what they execute as a code is gonna be different. And how they read the code is different. Code poetry does exists, that kind of stuff I am creating is something I found personally.
A friend of mine passed away 2 years ago. When we all sitting around with some friends, 3 or 4 of us in the backyard they were making art, painting and drawing and doing things like that to kind of, you know, hang out together and not think about it. And I am a digital artist and I have my laptop with me, and I thought well, I am going to create something too, but I feel like I need to use my computer. And then when I use my computer I thought okay, I can write some code, and that could be my process of making art in the backyards with my friends with my laptop. Then I thought - why not trying to write a poem? This was how it started. The first poem I wrote was based on the feeling of my friend passed away, and for me it was a really good process of writing a poem or writing something how it’s feeling, but the language itself and the process was so complex that I wouldn’t sounds like an idiot, I wouldn’t write a poem and rhyme every second word, you know like to express my feeling cause I was not a really good poet in English language, and I realized that when I was writing the feeling was coming out easier, I realized that was something for me that I can write in code and write a poem about my feelings, I can write code with my feelings as something. The process of writing it like that, the process of wanting it to run a program like that was complex enough that my ego wouldn’t come out too much. That’s what inspires me and something I knew I love doing it.
Have you ever tried writing poems without code?
I have, when I was a kid I would write poems or try to write poems and stuff, they’re %^&$alright for like you know a kid, but I was never really that good. Then when I get older and I tried to write it again, and I just felt I was really crap and trying to be too smart when I was writing it and I wouldn’t feel anything that wouldn’t come out too much thinking.
Recently I think I wrote a poem that I am happy with, but once again I would never call myself as a poet and I would never create anything that felt like I was coming from somewhere.
-
Peter Wildman:http://www.peterwildman.net/
