the website of owen byron roberts

blog

computer artist
Being a computer artist can be a drag. Last night while working on a new project (which will soon be up at toilet.cool), I installed the new iOS version, 12.2, on my phone while I was taking a break....
some thoughts on making art
Last month I was in Catskill, New York, at the Catwalk artist residency, where I lived alone in a three bedroom house located across a large property from the main house for the residency and worked o...
endlessness
I finally got around to publishing my new game Endlessness in the Apple Store a couple of weeks ago and I've been meaning to reflect on it a bit, but the semester started and I have been busy getting...
lifification
I don't necessarily think that the concept of "gamification" in "real life" is bad, but I've always been a little skeptical of the idea because it's sort of the opposite of what I've always valued in...
Back in January I got an email from Apple about the first app I published, called Refresh by Owen Ribbit (I added "by Owen Ribbit" because Refresh was taken), was going to be removed because it hadn'...
The first iPhone/Android app I made was built with PhoneGap. I got a notice in January that Apple was going to remove it from the iTunes store because I haven't updated it in a while. That seems du...
new buildings
Rebuilding the buildings in "god is a ghost" to get better proportions for the player and npcs, now they look less like weird new hip architecture and more like section 8 housing:...
Started working on my new app/fiction/animation project and added some features to the animation tool I started last semester: Including new colors, a frame preview window, and functions to "explode...
new layout for hwyv
I redesigned the hwyv sequencer layout in a way that I think represents time and what's happening in the program more accurately, using horizontal channels instead of vertical. Recorded a screen shot...
animation tool
I turned the drawing tool for my new app into an animation tool. It's a bit idiosyncratic, and geared towards the type of animation I want to use in the app, but it's online and could be used with so...
new game
I started working on a game idea a few months ago, haven't had much time to get into it but managed to get one character animated and a nav mesh for it to walk around. Most of the game is genera...
canvas drawing
I've been slowly working on a new app. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around what it will be but I am starting to try to incorporate content from a novel that I started writing back in 2010...
HWVY controller done, sort of
Finally got something working for the non-butt version of my HWYV sequencer (this is the butt version). There were several bad design ideas before I decided to 3d print it. It took 3 prints but I go...
Toenail Swim is in the Apple Store
I made an art app/game thing over the last year called Toenail Swim which is now in the Apple Store. It will run on iPhone or iPad, probably cooler on iPad, and remember to wear headphones. The game...
ISEA 2015
Back in August I took my app Getting To Know You in a new virtual reality implementation (using Google Cardboard) to the ISEA 2015 conference in Vancouver. It was a really nice trip although it came...
water color notebook
I made a new notebook out of the leftover paper from the Something Ave. Messages paintings I did for the opening. I had a bunch leftover so I made a 15 page 5 x 7 notebook with a stab bound cover usi...
more makerbot
I 3D printed an enclosure for an audio synth that I made for some workshops last year. The first three to print the base failed for various reasons but overall it was relatively easy. This was the p...
makerbot
We have a Replicator 2 at the Tech Crafts office that hasn't really been used for a year. I've been designing and interface for my voice effects synth for the Booger Bus and other animations, but it'...
mac key font
I made a font that looks like the Mac keyboard to use for demo posts for my class blogs. I had been wanting to use something like that for a while to give key commands for using Photoshop and other p...
bitpim with samsung sch-u410
Recently I wanted to hack into my old flip phone, a Samsung SCH-u410, to set up a slide show to install at the faculty show at BMCC. I discovered BitPim after some Googling and then ordered a USB cab...
reading app
Recently I finished a cataloging app that I've been developing in my spare time for most of this semester. For a long time I've written notes about books I'm reading, as well as art, games, comics, m...
something ave released today
Update: Something Ave. was removed from the Apple and Google Play stores this year due to new requirements. I'm hosting it as a website for the time being until I have time to update the submissions....
frail shells
This game Frail Shells that I found recently is really cool. It's one of the few games I've played that uses a sort of unconventional structure (without ruining it, it starts as a first person shoot...
Last weekend I made a modification of the circuit from this workshop that I did last winter, using an FSR instead of the second potentiometer, to make a little 555 synth to use for the voices of the c...
A lot of the time I completely miss news stories or events that I would theoretically be interested in knowing about but am too busy with work or whatever else to read enough to really get what's goin...
new Unsubmit/Submit test print
Tycho and I printed some of the designs Mimi and I cut out back in August/September and they looked much better than the tests we tried. I'm getting excited about the project again, which has had man...
violence
Last week I read Violence by Slavoj Zizek. An insight that stood out to me was his analysis of the torture at Abu Ghraib, which was described by George Bush at the time and others in the government a...
banff week 3
The third week of Banff unfortunately involved a couple of days lost to getting sick and to installing Toenail Swim and Getting to Know You in the Philosopher's Knoll Gallery. It may have been for th...
banff week 2
I spent most of my second week at Banff working on a game currently title "Getting To Know You." I had this pretty specific idea for a look that I want to get in a 3D environment, with lots of litt...
banff week 1
My updates about my time at Banff are coming a few days after the fact because I was a little too focused on the work I was producing to write anything reflective about it, which is often the case. It...
my twisted world
I read all of Eliot Rodger's manifesto, "My Twisted World Story of Eliot Rodger by Eliot Rodger." The full title says something about the way the story is written. Before I write about that, I think m...
udaff.com
I wrote something for htmlgiant about the Russian fiction site Udaff.com: http://htmlgiant.com/reviews/on-udaff-com/ It's mostly about profanity. In an earlier draft of the piece I wrote (there were...
new zine
Made a new little zine based on the cellular automata algorithm used to generate the maze in maze3d. It's a poem about trying to fall asleep. You can see the digital version here. Eventually the gr...
I launched a site for the artist J. Kathleen White yesterday. I've been working with Kathleen for almost a year now to create video, ebooks and this website. It's been really fun to see and read her...
Shaun put together a flyer for our show last night w drawings by Hal, Shaun and I, and a story by nick on the back. Mine is the the little comic at the bottom with two shapes talking to each other in...
The death of a sentence
I made a little zine last week, adapting the program I wrote for Ann and my "Fingers" piece to do single character substitutions instead of double. The text ends up being pretty funny, and I illustra...
Maze3D
Finally found time to finish this game I started working on last year at ITP. I added some new characters (look for them in some videos and games in the future) and finished the maze generating algor...
Refresh by Owen Ribbit
Apple published my app. I was surprised at first. I still feel slightly ambivalent about it. I sent it to friends and published a screen shot on instagram. I felt a little woozy as I saw likes app...
CAC recap
I've been meaning to write a bit about my time at Contemporary Artists Center at Woodside, where I recently did a two week residency since I had a lot of catching up to do to get ready for the semeste...
refresh app
I made an iphone app out of this project that came out of an idea that struck me while I was writing notes for a lecture on net art (notes from class if ur interested). I really love all that mid 90s...
maker projects round up
Here's a collection of some of the projects I worked on during my time at the Intel store with Maker Education Initiative. December 30, 2013: I spent today working on that circuit using some parts fr...
maker ed audio synth workshop
I'm on the way back from a great experience at the artists residency at Contemporary Artists Center at Woodside in Troy NY, and finally getting a chance to write a recap of the workshop that I led at...
cupcake video game
Today at the Intel store there was a cupcake making event, and so I got help from a few kids who came through the story, Mohammed, Milo, Noah and Alex to make a little game using the Makey Makey. Her...
teaching design
This fall I began teaching at The College of New Jersey as an adjunct. I didn't see myself going into teaching until midway through my experience getting a masters at NYU, when I started thinking abo...