THE CREATIVE CODING START

EXECUTING
MICRO-TEMPORALITY

Data is constantly being exchanged and streams of information are very fast changing and basically infinite. Data streams are time related and they are constantly occurring.

-A loading icon shows that the an “unstable streaming of the now”- aka “a throbber”. There is a constant movement of a regular tempo

-A “progress bar” is bar that indicates the progression of a task by gradually filling its empty space with solid segments.

-This chapter looks at what is behind a throbber. More specifically the time related complexity of data streams where everything happens in real time.

Cultural reading of a throbber
-the icon is basically an interface between the “background and the visual communication “
- the throbber basically stands in front of internet data transmission and a browser rendering code
- a throbber is fixed to Internet Culture
- An artist called Chih-Sheng made a piece with a throbber which represent the relationship between time and waiting due to the frustration that athrobber can bring to a user
-Aristarkh Chernyshev (artist) made an instillation called “LOADING” (2017) -it expresses various dimensions of time

Micro-temporal analysis

-Physicist John von Neumann designed a computer in which a central clock coordinates units (logic unit,control unit, memory unit) and carries out instructions in a specific way.
-The appearance of a throbber is rendered by a code which tells it when to show itself.
-Under the throbber there are micro instructions telling it to continuously represent the loading of the page until these instructions run out/ are stopped when the final instructions are reached.
-The on/off instructions of a throbber can be called “flip-flops”

Packet switching and data buffering

-Actions listed above also happen behind a running throbber
-The first packet switching network was called ARPANET
-A field “Time to Live” (TTL) limits the lifespan of data within a connection
-A buffer- a storage for a small amount of data in PHYSICAL memory
-A buffer will hopefully empty and fill the opposites ends simultaneously. As mentioned by Christoph Meinel & Harald Sack,”If the delay of the individual segment exceeds the threshold tiem t, a throbber will’ then display”.

The absence of data

-Drop frames- a type of time code to match real time of clocks
-Dropped frames is much different then a throbber because you still see/ hear something, just not in its best form
-Sometimes dropped frames are harmless and other times they create glitches and jittery on audio.
-There’s a Skype example stating that sometimes in real life conversations if data is delayed then it has to decide if it will make sense to continue sending the delay or just eliminate it, this latencies become decisions and if a lot of data gets lost sometimes the programme can just terminate connection
-When losing a lot of data there is a potential result of packet loss (packets fail to reach destination).
-The point is that this buffering caused by missing data happens in milliseconds of the time lost, furthermore there is a tension created between the continuity and discontinuity because of the performance of the code.
-In a stream there is discontinuity which basically changes and presents the stream so that it is in the present

The “cold gaze” proposed by Wolfgang Ernst
-Is an understanding of data streams
-It aims to use strictly material ways to describe cold facts


Florian Sprenger argues that the concept of stream is a metaphor.He points out that flow and stream are metaphors in digital media

Within the word micro-temporality, micro stands for the things that are not apparent to someone to the average person outside of the field of computation. (ie. what is behind the throbber)

Previously mentioned artist Ernst also suggests that there is some sort of relationship between micro-temporality and discontinuity. Discontinuity is used to look into the “gaps and ruptures of things that go beyond signs”.

I was asked to redesign an animated throbber and the outcome of my sketch is the one above. I used a formula from p5js which was created to resemble a flower. I thought that all these separate shapes which were supposed to be the petals of the flower would look more extrovert design. I simply changed shape being used to a "quad" and adjusted some of the measurements for better aesthetics.

The sketch beneath is for the assignment to:

- study the syntaxes that have been discussed in class
- experiment with a new syntax in p5.js that is related to shape/image