ASK A 3rd WARD TEACHER: Michael Doherty, artist, programmer, vertical farmer

If you stopped by our gallery opening last Friday, you may have found yourself in a room with a special energy. What kind of person is able to hook up a room with a camera, projector, and computer to create a party-friendly interactive sound and image installation? Enter Michael Zick, instructor of two classes at 3rd Ward, Interactive Multimedia with Processing and Physical Computing with Arduino. Below, we interviewed Michael about how anyone can benefit from programming, using Arduino for defensive driving, and creating a new generation of 3-D art.

Physical Computing with Arduino classes start July 11, and Interactive Multimedia with Processing classes start August 9th. **Click here for a package deal on both classes and save 15%!**

3rd Ward: Tell me more about the classes you teach.

Michael Doherty: Interactive Multimedia with Processing creates interactive art that incorporates different types of media, like video and audio. Physical Computing with Arduino is about hardware. It’s the connection between the physical world and the digital world. For example, using the noise or brightness in a room to control something else, like maybe a motor that controls a car or a robot.

3W: Who takes these classes?

MD: Anyone. In the Interactive Multimedia class, you don’t have to have any background. It’s basically an introduction to programming. The great thing about Processing is that it’s a very easy programming language to learn. So we get a range of students in the class, from architects to teachers to lawyers to musicians.

3W: Lawyers?! What would they use it for?

M: In her particular case, she was interested in hardware copyright law and how you can patent open source hardware. A musician can come into class to learn how to create visuals and animations that react to sound in a very direct way (or indirect way). It’s a little bit like a visualizer on iTunes, but those visualizers have a very specific aesthetic and so by programming and Processing, you can create your own aesthetic. 

If you want to do something directly interactive with your environment, like turning on light bulbs, fans, motors or wheels (more mechanical motions), then the Arduino class is more appropriate. For instance, someone wanted to create an alarm for his car that would be able to tell if there was another car behind him at a certain distance. So, he used the distance sensor to determine if there was an object less than 20 feet away by enabling it to turn on an alarm.

3W: So how did you come to learn these programs?

MD: I studied design and media art at UCLA. The person who created the Processing framework is Casey Reas and I basically learned it from him back in undergrad and then have used it for projects. I work for Diller Scofidio + Renfro, which is an architectural agency. I’m doing a media arts piece for them where I visualize data about different global conditions like natural disasters and greenhouse effects. Right now, I’m studying at NYU – a grad program in an ITP program, which is interactive multimedia technology and design.

3W: Do you want to use it for something in particular later?

MD: For me, I am divided between a few different areas right now. I have my media art, which is a lot of exploring interactivity through live video or sound that’s generated by what people do in a space. I’m also very interested in sustainability. I worked on this project, Window Farms, which are vertical urban gardens. You mount the plants to a window and they can grow from the sill. It provides a place where people can grow their own food if they don’t have a backyard or a rooftop.

In terms of my art, recently I did a 3-D piece that gave stereoscopic images. The idea was that there’s a camera that would be recording you live, but there would be three layers. So, you’d see yourself three different times, at three different periods of time: three seconds ago, two seconds ago, and then one second ago. You'd wear 3-D glasses when viewing, and this allowed you to perceive time as depth.

3W: What would you say you're teaching methods are?

MD: Processing and Arduino are applicable to almost every industry from fashion to design to technology to science; that’s one of the things I love about it. So for me, I like to make the classes about the students’ interest. If I have an architect in the class, maybe I’ll focus on the part of Processing that does modeling. Or, for instance, if I have a lawyer in the class, I’ll talk more about what it means that Processing and Arduino are open source platforms. The classes evolve around what the students want.

To learn more about Michael and his projects, visit www.neufuture.com.