“It is no exaggeration to say that Wiring has forever changed the craft of interaction design. The project is more than hardware and software, the documentation was thoughtfully created with designers and artists in mind, providing to them a means to understand a subject matter previously assumed to be the exclusive domain of skilled engineers. In time, designers and artists become able to reference their familiarity with Wiring to communicate and work with engineers more effectively; this bridge between disciplines has proven to be immeasurably valuable for the design industry. Most importantly, Wiring has established electronics a medium for art and design by serving as the foundation for a unified community, a common toolset with which to express ourselves, share our knowledge, and work with one another.”
— Nicholas Zambetti, IDEO, Palo Alto, California, 2010.
Wiring es un proyecto abierto iniciado por el diseñador y artista Hernando Barragán en el Interaction Design Institute Ivrea en Italia y ahora desarrollado en la Facultad de Arquitectura y Diseño de la Universidad de Los Andes en Colombia. Wiring es desarrollado por un pequeño grupo de individuos (ver abajo).
La educación y la práctica del diseño y las artes electrónicas cada día se apoyan más en tecnologías digitales. Para que diseñadores, artistas y personas de otras disciplinas puedan entrar exitosamente en estos dominios, necesitan entender las cualidades inherentes del medio con el que trabajan, como la electrónica y el software. Las herramientas actuales de prototipado de interacción están en su mayoría dirigidas a la ingeniería, la robótica y audiencias técnicas, estas son difíciles de aprender y los lenguajes de programación utilizados están muy lejos de ser útiles en contextos fuera de una disciplina específica. Diseñadores y artistas necesitan aprender un lenguaje y un sistema de prototipado de electrónica que facilite y estimule el proceso de aprendizaje, que reduzca la complejidad con la electrónica y la programación, que sean flexibles y poderosas para las necesidades del diseño de interacción y las artes. ¿Puede la innovación surgir de nuestros estudiantes en prácticas educativas normales? ¿Es posible beneficiarse de una integración entre la tecnología el arte y la cultura, y que sea nuestra cultura la que refuerza la tecnología?, ¿cual seria nuestra apropiación de esta?
Wiring (ver http://wiring.org.co) está compuesto de software y hardware abierto (open source) disponible bajo licenciamiento Creative Commons (ver: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ncsa/2.0), un sitio en Internet que contiene una comunidad en línea, referencia del lenguaje, una sección de ejemplos que exploran el medio ilustrando el código y los diagramas electrónicos de cada ejercicio permitiendo a las personas aprender mediante la experimentación con ellos, una sección de exhibición de proyectos hechos con Wiring que permite aprender de lo que hacen los demás, asi como tutoriales y manuales. Wiring no solo pretende apoyar la educación en escuelas de diseño, arte y arquitectura sino también en diferentes tipos de ambientes de aprendizaje y en diferentes prácticas. Wiring permite a las personas rápidamente prototipar sus ideas y conceptos en el mundo físico, permitiéndoles concentrarse en la calidad y cualidades de sus diseños, la interacción y que sus ideas o conceptos sean ilustrados en vez de concentrarse en mostrar que la tecnología funciona. Esto contribuye al intercambio de ideas y conocimiento con la amplia comunidad de diseñadores de interacción, las artes electrónicas y en general con otros fuera de estos campos. Wiring contribuye a aumentar la accesibilidad a una infraestructura tecnológica/social para la comunidad existente de diseñadores, artistas y personas de otras disciplinas que se está transformando en una que trata con los medios tangibles.
Design and media art education and practice increasingly rely on digital technology. For designers and artists to successfully enter this domain they need to understand the inherent qualities in the media they work with, such as electronics and software. Current prototyping tools for electronics and programming are mostly targeted to engineering, robotics and technical audiences. They are hard to learn, and the programming languages are far from useful in contexts outside a specific technology. Designers and artists need a teaching language and electronics prototyping system that facilitates and encourages the process of learning, that reduces the struggle with electronics design and programming, and that are powerful and flexible enough for the needs of Interaction Design.
Wiring is both a programming environment and an electronics prototyping input/output board for exploring the electronic arts and tangible media. It can also be used to teach and learn computer programming and prototyping with electronics. It illustrates the concept of programming with electronics and the physical realm of hardware control which are necessary to explore physical interaction design and tangible media aspects in the design and arts disciplines.
“Wiring changed the way interaction design is taught and opened opportunities for transforming open-source electronics. Like its sister project, Processing.org, Wiring makes it possible for designers and artists to learn about technology within the context of their own fields.”
— Casey Reas, Chair Design Media Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles, 2010.
“A tool is never just a tool, it’s a way of approaching a problem, of thinking, and of expression; our working processes shape what we design and produce by enabling us to more readily transform our thoughts into their finished result. the wiring project not only allowed designers to begin designing interaction but changed how they work with the medium of physical interaction by shortening the distance between an idea and a prototype, allowing for experimentation, rapid iteration, and play. Since the Wiring project first began it has opened up a world for designers and artists, inspired other board and language projects, and helped introduce thousands to hardware design.”
— Joshua Noble, Tufts University, consultant with Disney, Adobe, ABC, Schematic, Cynergy, Aspen Ski Resorts, New England Journal of Medicine, and Howcast, lead author of O’Reilly title Flex 3 and Programming Interactivity, 2010.
“In the field of architecture and CAAD we’re always searching for new technologies, methods and the next possible steps for information technology to enhance contemporary architecture. This has multiple effects on research, design, construction, production, logistics and building automation. Over the past few years agent-based & self organizing systems, parametric design programming techniques and custom programmed design tools have become increasingly prevalent inside our CAAD community. The possibilities are truly immense, but mostly confined to the virtual world. There are some ways to connect and distribute information, from a self-written program on a personal computer to milling machines, 3D-printer or laser cutter. This can be achieved for instance, via protocols, such as G-code or the serial interface (RS232). But in the opposite direction, distributing information from the real and physical world into the computer (and even back) is rarely possible in normal software development processes.
Wiring caught my attention because of its easiness, very good documentation, its agile community and the huge range of output and input pins. Especially the second serial port was important, because I wanted to work with other serial devices without attaching and detaching wires to upload programs. Another big issue why I chose ‘wiring’ is because of its totally uncomplicated development chain. You can compile and upload your programs over USB within a few seconds.
On the other half, I’m using the open source programming language ‘processing’ in my teaching courses. This language accompanies my students from the undergraduate age, over their elective diploma and ends up with the international Master of Advanced Studies courses. A big advantage is, they do not have to learn a complete new programming language/concept like ‘logo’ to program microcontrollers, because of the huge similarities between ‘wiring’ and ‘processing’. With these tools our architecture students are able to control physical devices, including many types of sensors, motors, sliders, buttons, lights and other hardware to gain access to the real world and manipulate it easily. With ‘wiring’ this can be done in a very attractive, didactic and playful way. One doesn’t have to be an electro-technician or computer scientist to learn to use these tools.
Students also benefit from the steep learning curve and the rapid success. This helps the development process a lot and also helps students to stay motivated and maintain focused during longer projects. Tinkering and trying are playful and creative acts. Both can lead us to develop a suddenly emerged ‘Plan C’ because of an error on the way to ‘Plan B’, or an unorthodox solution for any given problem. This attribute is very refreshing. Instead of struggling to build electronically correct planned projects, users will find themselves trying out wild ideas just for fun. For me this means that the concept of ‘wiring’ attaches great importance to allow creative appropriation of technology.
After using ‘wiring’ for quite a while in teaching and my research projects, I have also seen a big progress in the language libraries. Hernando Barragan and the ‘wiring’ user community have developed a huge amount of new libraries, smart functions and tools, to make the microcontroller development easier and quicker. Now I’m really looking forward to put my hands on the new ‘wiring’ board.”
— Christoph Wartmann | Associate Professor CAAD / ETH Zürich, chair for Computer Aided Architecture Design, 2010.
Processing A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists Casey Reas and Ben Fry, Foreword by John Maeda. Capítulos por: Alexander R. Galloway, Golan Levin, R. Luke DuBois, Simon Greenwold, Francis Li, Hernando Barragán
MIT Press, ISBN-10: 0-262-18262-9, ISBN-13: 978-0-262-18262-1 Review: ISSN:1559-0429, Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology
Reviews:
“This is an elegant and practical introduction to programming for artists and designers. It is rigorously grounded, informed by a vastamount of practical experience, and visually compelling. The worked examples are terrific. There’s no better starting point for visual artists who want to learn how to think computationally, or for programmers who want to give visual and spatial expression to their ideas.”
— William J. Mitchell, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, MIT
“With Processing, Casey Reas and Ben Fry have opened up the world of programming to artists and designers in a manner that inspires playfulness and creativity with code.”
–Red Burns, Chair and Arts Professor, Interactive Telecommunications Program, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
“Processing, the handbook and tutorial, is an indispensable companion to Processing, the integrated programming language and environment that has developed from phenomenon to revolution. Bridging the gap between programming and visual arts, the Processing handbook, in a concise way, connects software elements to principles of visual form, motion, and interaction. The book’s modular structure allows for different combinations of its units and self-directed reading. Interviews with artists who create software-based works and extension chapters that expand software practice into computer vision, sound, and electronics successfully connect the realms of art and technology. Now used by artists, visual designers, and in educational institutions around the world, Processing has been groundbreaking not only as an alternative language for expanding programming space, but as an attempt to nurture programming literacy in the broader context of art and cultural production.”
— Christiane Paul, Adjunct Curator of New Media Arts, Whitney Museum of American Art
“Processing is a milestone not only in the history of computer software, of information design, and of the visual arts, but also in social history. Many have commented on the pragmatic impact of the open source movement, but it is time to also consider Processing’s sociological and psychological consequences. Processing invites people to tinker, and tinkering is the first step for any scientific and artistic creation. After the tinkering, it leads designers to their idea of perfection. It enables complexity, yet it is approachable; it is rigorous, yet malleable. Its home page exudes the enthusiasm of so many designers and artists from all over the world, overflowing with ideas and proud to be able to share. Processing is a great gift to the world.”
–Paola Antonelli, Curator, Architecture and Design, MOMA
“This long-awaited book is more than just a software guide; it is a tool for unlocking a powerful new way of thinking, making, and acting. Not since the Bauhaus have visual artists revisited technology in such a world-changing way. Ben Fry and Casey Reas have helped a growing community of visual producers open up fresh veins of expression. Their work proves that code is open to designers, architects, musicians, and animators, not just to engineers. Providing a powerful alternative to proprietary software, Processing is part of a new social phenomenon in the arts that speaks to self-education and networked engagement.”
— Ellen Lupton, Director of the graphic design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, and Author of D.I.Y: Design It Yourself
“A whole generation of designers, artists, students, and professors have been influenced by Processing. Now, a handbook is published that goes far beyond explaining how to handle the technology and boldly reveals the potential future for the electronic sketchbook.”
— Joachim Sauter, University of the Arts, Berlin, Founder, Art+Com
Igoe, Tom, Making Things Talk, Practical Methods for Connecting Physical Objects, ISBN 978-0-596-51051-0, OReilly, USA
Designing Designers: Where Does Light Move To? Lighting Design Innovation Scenarios International Conference Publisher: MAggioli S.P.A, Politecnico de Milano, Fondazione Salone Cosmit, ISBN: 978-88-387-4358-4
Joshua Noble. Programming Interactivity: A Designer’s Guide to Processing, Arduino, and openFrameworks, O’Reilly, ISBN-10: 0596154143, ISBN-13: 978-0596154141
Banzi Masssimo, Getting started with Arduino, Make::Books, O´Reilly Media INC. ISBN: 976-0-596-15551-3
Hernando inició Wiring en el verano de 2003 y lo ha desarrollado desde entonces. Wiring construye sobre Processing, el lenguaje de programación de código abierto desarrollado en el Media Lab del Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts por Ben Fry y Casey Reas. Un grupo de personas ha hecho contribuciones a Processing y a Wiring. El estado actual del proyecto no sería posible sin su asistencia.
Michael Margolis, Brett Hagman, Bjoern Hartmann, Hans-Christoph Steiner, Maarten Lamers, Nameet Kumar, Christoph Wartmann, Etienne Ribeiro, Pierre Perret, Nicholas Zambetti, Thomas Ouellet Fredericks, Sibylle Hauert, Scott Klemmer, Mark Stanley, Alexander Brevig, Alan Duncan
K. Worapoht (based on the work of Peter Fleury) http://www.avride.com/article/wiring
Ben Fry http://benfry.com, Casey Reas http://reas.com
Yaniv Steiner, (Project Leader), Massimo Banzi, (Advisor), Giorgio Olivero (Interaction and Visual Designer), Paolo Sancis (Information Designer), Michal Rinott (Editor/Advisor), Riccardo Strobbia (Web) http://www.nastypixel.com/instantsoup
Jae-gon Lee http://tokage.cafe24.com/wiring
Florian Jennett, Tom Igoe, David Mellis, Sawad Brooks, Massimo Banzi, Bill Verplank, Gillian Crampton-Smith, Pascal Stang and the Arduino development community.