Antoine Schmitt (France) and the entity in action

Concerning the programming and creation of online entities, the work of Antoine Schmidt (Paris)
is very notable.

"Avec determination" at http://www.gratin.org/as/avecdetermination is a minimalist study of
lively motion via the programmed. Depending on the mood you catch it in, you might get quite a
show.

These works are more particular than the sodaplay.com algorithms. And they are more toward human
motion, even dance, if you catch them at the right moments, than the creatures at sodaplay.com,
interesting as they are.

Almost down to the code except for the few graphical lines involved. I imagine that there are at
least several hundred more lines of code for each of the simple graphical lines. The emphasis
here is not so much on software as art. But Schmidt is obviously a very knowledgeable
programmer. He also has written an Xtra for Director called asFFT (fast fourier transform) that
allows Director pieces to respond to music you play through winamp or whatever.

Once you're finished, do have a read of Antoine's statement about "avec determination". The
final paragraph is as follows:

"For each of these creatures, I try to approach a certain essence of being. A mode of being of
different quality for each of them. And for this, I concentrate on their dynamics, their
movement, on the shapes that take their motivation in their reality. The function of the image
is to enable us to apprehend their mode of being. The interaction itself is only a minimal link
between their reality and ours. For each of these creatures, its presence, if it manifests
itself, derives from a subtle relationship between the motivation and the shapes and forces of
the randomness, of the body and of the universe."

He is passionate and devoted to this mixture of philosophy and lively entified art.
http://www.gratin.org/as/avecdetermination was, I believe, done in 2000. I look forward to
seeing what other entities he is hatching.

His site is http://www.gratin.org/as . One may note his generosity via following the abbreviated
link: http://www.gratin.org ; this leads not to Antoine's own work but to a fascinating
collection of links "dedicated to the forms of art using algorithms as a first class matter. So
actual and yet so classical."

You want passionate high brow French computer art? This is the place.

ja