I've always wanted to learn how to program.
I've been fascinated with computers and technology my whole life. My dad started out his career as a programmer and is now a distinguished engineer at a large tech company. Our home was stuffed with curious machines, devices, and nests of cables. As a young girl with a passion for drawing, I would draw them - all of them. As my interest in the visual design of these weird boxes grew, so did my interest in just what these machines were and how they worked. The fascination continued into adulthood, but I soon found out that I'm notoriously bad at learning languages. The numbers and functions and maths and arguments just numb my brain. I did learn some Processing, and have dabbled in assembly language in order to hack NES cartridges. But that was - - - - ages ago.
Not my image, but a good idea of what it looked like in our house growing up. Photograph: Felipe Trueba/EPA
I'm am currently a 3D designer and have been working professionally with commercial 3D printers and 3D design software for over 8 years now. I can't wait to dive into some of the 3D elements in p5.js as I've done some 3D file editing in Terminal and the results were very interesting. I also know that demystifying programming for me will definitely help with my design skills. Many 3D modeling programs incorporate nodes and scripts that can help make my work more efficient. But damn if it isn't intimidating to jump into. I have just now realized that I've typed "3D" a thousand times in the span of a few sentences, which goes to show you how much of an impassioned geek I am.
I've always been fascinated with the results you can get when breaking things, something I'm looking forward to doing in this class. One of my Processing projects in undergrad (that I never got to finish) was a program that slowly and painfully destroyed images containing precious memories of mine. This worked by editing lines of the images code depending on the sound properties of audio excerpts of me describing the memory associated with the image. By the end of the audio, the image would be corrupted and the visual memory would be gone. It worked...until I broke it the day before I needed to show it and now it's lost in the void.
I'm not so interested in recreating that project, but expanding on some of the ideas behind it - maybe also by incorporating 3D objects. I know that my eyes are always bigger than my stomach, but I always end up having fun in the act of screwing up. I look forward to making some really cool sh**, all the while caught in an endless cycle of frustration and tears.
:D
