runme.org - say it with software art!

projects uploaded by amy

#twitterart by Various Authors
TwitterArt is part of an ASCII art tradition that dates back to BBS postings of the 1970's and 80's. TwitterArt, as explained by elmonte09 on http://twitwall.com/view/?what=050A080C07 : "#twitterart #tarts (Tweet ARTistS) are a growing art sub-genre. [...]
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AARON by Harold Cohen
AARON has been called the original software meta-art. First launched in 1973, AARON is a piece of LISP software which Harold Cohen has programmed to draw and paint stylized images on its own - not from stored images, but from an algorithmically defined "imagination" and aesthetic sensibility. Over the past 30 years, Cohen has developed the project as research into visual representation. [...]
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Acme::EyeDrops by Andrew J. Savige
Several software projects exist to convert various media to ASCII art: images, television, even video games. But what about software itself? A parody on Visual Programming, Acme::EyeDrops removes all the normal text from a Perl script and converts the script to an ASCII art image - yet the ASCII-ized version of the software actually runs and maintains the same functionality as the [...]
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Animator vs. Animation II by Alan Becker
A Flash-animated character takes on Flash and a variety of other desktop software - as well as his animator. A contemporary twist on the tradition of cel-animated films in which a character interacts with its creator and the "real" world.
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AOLiza by Kevin Fox
Excerpted from the project home page: "The Back Story: In 1966 Joseph Weizenbaum at M.I.T. wrote ELIZA, a famous program that simulates a Rogerian psychoanalyst by taking excerpts from the subject's comments and posing questions back to the subject. While not a giant leap in AI programming, ELIZA (named after Eliza Dolittle in My Fair Lady) showed that some semblance of 'awareness' could be [...]
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b0timati0n by amy alexander
Live VJ psychedelic performance search engine. Nowadays, work=play; cool is nerdy. Unemployed programmer Uebergeek picks up her plowshares and performs a search engine - It's post-dotcom entertainment! (Alternate spelling: "botimation")
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Batmemes by Grasshopper Enterprises
Batmemes is marketed as software for algorithmically tackling writer's block. It uses algorithms inspired by the thought-generating experiments of the Oulipo movement, which took place in France in the 1960's. Batmeme's configuration options allow you to highly customize your auto-generated ideas. For example, you might choose to tint your new thoughts with shades of batDNA from Bram Stoker's [...]
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Blog Bitch by Joe Petrow
Turing test for blogs.
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Code Organ by DLKW
Reminiscent of some projects by software artists ca. 2005, Code Organ is getting mass exposure in 2010 via Twitter. Interesting example of software art ideas trickling out into the mainstream.
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Coke Gift by Anonymous
From the late nineties. A one-liner; a folk legend; a simple instance of hardware transformation; a new way of looking at your CD-ROM drawer.
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CyberSpaceLand by Amy Alexander (VJ Übergeek)
CyberSpaceLand is the all-text VJ show performed by VJ Übergeek at nightclubs from Here to There. Computer culture, nerdy lovechild of the business and tech worlds, clashes with pop and leisure culture daily. The result: leisure culture seems increasingly like work. But what if we take a different approach? VJ Übergeek's "CyberSpaceLand" turns strange search engine queries into fun-and-funky [...]
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DeArt - DeCSS Art Contest (et al) by Tom Vogt and Various Authors
In January and February 2000, in the case of Universal Studios vs. Reimerdes, et al., a US District Court judge prohibited distribution of the source code to DeCSS - software that reads encrypted DVD's. In doing so, the judge indicated that computer source code was too utilitarian to be entitled, as an "expression," to the usual First Amendment protections on free speech.* [...]
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Destroy the Web by Jose Bolanos
It’s the middle of the week- deadlines are looming, your team just lost the championship, and the taco truck just left before you could grab a quick lunch. What to do? The Firefox icon beckons to you, offering the multitude of distractions the internet has to offer– but you don’t really have the time to catch up on the news. [...]
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dot_matrix_synth by Paul Slocum
A 1985 Epson LQ-500 dot matrix printer turned into a musical instrument by reprogramming its EPROM. The author's band, Tree Wave, performs with the printer live - it prints patterns while playing music.
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elgooG (The Google Mirror) by All Too Flat
This is a mirror site in the truest sense of the term. It promotes backwards reading skills (useful for reading the front of an ambulance or playing Scrabble). elgooG also came in handy for people in China to access Google when the Great Firewall of China blocked their access to google.com. Apparently the Firewallers assumed elgooG was just a joke and didn't realize it actually [...]
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Elvis Detector by Toggle Booleans
Elvis Detector Version 1.0 (C) Copyright 1992 TOGGLE BOOLEANS All rights reserved. The TOGGLE BOOLEANS Elvis detector is designed to sense the presence of Elvis or his spirit in your vicinity. It includes some of the most reliable Elvis detection methods gathered from supermarket tabloids over the last several years. If you are running Windows 3.1 [...]
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Evil by Tom Scott
This site randomly displays the private phone numbers of unsuspecting Facebook users. There are uncountable numbers of groups on Facebook called "lost my phone!!!!! need ur numbers!!!!!" or something like that. Most of them are marked as 'public', or 'visible to everyone'. A lot of folks don't understand what that means in Facebook's context — to Facebook, 'everyone' means everyone in the [...]
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Evil Pinball by David Kasdan
The iconic Windows 3D Pinball game meets Ronald Reagan's 1983 "Evil Empire" speech - and pinball becomes a tool for generating rap. While many game hacks modify a familiar game's visuals, Evil Pinball "hacks" the audio. Simply by replacing default audio files, the concept of the game is transformed.
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extreme whitespace by amy alexander / deprogramming.us
Extreme Whitespace takes advantage of your linux/unix text terminal's natural talent as a realtime video instrument! It's really pretty simple. About all this script really does it is continually spew whitespace into your terminal for you to type into/with/against/around... (Up against that kind of resistance, your typing can't help but become a performance tour de force!) More info, [...]
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FAST K.A.R.L. by Fred Wilder
The greatest artist of the 21st Century is here now and he is a robot! FAST KARL works on paper and canvas with acrylic paints and lots of energy. He is programmed to create strange abstract works and he functions independent of his programmer. At least until his batteries run down! Also be sure to catch K.A.R.L.' [...]
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Google Brin Creator by Google Brin Creator
Independent project to compete with Google's fledgling Google Page Creator; allows users to create and publish their own Sergey Brins (instead of Larry Pages.) Ed. note 8/08 - this site seems to be gone now... but we leave the project here for historical purposes.
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Google Groups Art by Paul, Tim Flaherty, Nathan McCoy, Stuart Langridge
Google Groups Art (sometimes called "Google Art") is a hack that uses/abuses the fact that Google Groups color-highlights searchterm queries within Usenet posts it displays. The result is that color images are generated within the Google Groups (Usenet) posts themselves. Google Art first surfaced in summer 2002. [...]
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GRRF by GRRF (Gaming Response Research Foundation)
A familiar problem: a highly sophisticated piece of software has been developed, but things just don't seem to be going well at the demo...
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Homeland Security Threat Monitor by Greg Hewgill
Keep up-to-the-minute with the current terrorism threat level in the U.S.! This handy application sits in your Windows system tray and displays the current terrorism threat level as set by the White House (red, orange, yellow, blue, or green). Real-time network technology isn't just for sports scores anymore - don't leave home without it!
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How Hetero by Stockholm Pride
The theme for Stockholm Pride 2009 is [Hetero] were we focus on how heteronormativity effects the everyday life of homosexual, bisexual and transgender persons, the consequences it brings and how it effects the society as a whole. Part of the heteronormative environment is defined by how we connect specific words to norms en perceptions of how a "real" man och woman should be och behave. [...]
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INTERCAL by Don Woods, James Lyon; current implementation by Eric S. Raymond
INTERCAL is a programming language that, through parody, criticizes other programming languages. It reminds us that programming languages, like the software developed with them, are not neutral nor transparent.
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iSee by Institute for Applied Autonomy
Mapping software (something like Mapquest). Give it your starting and ending destinations, and it helps you figure out the route with the fewest surveillance cameras. Only available for Manhattan.
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Jabberwocky by Eric Andreychek
Like many Perl Poetry projects, Jabberwocky lets us ponder relationships between code language/thought and more conventional verbal forms of language and thought. It's entertaining just to read the code, but if you run it, the characters actually "come to life" as system processes.
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KTeaTime by Matthias Hoelzer-Kluepfel
KTeaTime is a utility available as part of the KDE desktop environment for Linux/UNIX. It functions as a "normal" desktop utility, and is essentially a fully functional, configurable timer, with the sole purpose of timing teas. Users may choose from a variety of teas and their brewing times, or configure KTeaTime for use with their own custom teas. [...]
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MindGuard by Lyle Zapato
MindGuard is a program for Amiga and Linux computers that protects your mind by actively jamming and/or scrambling psychotronic mind-control signals and removing harmful engrammic pollutants from your brain. It also has the ability to scan for and decipher into English specific signals so you can see exactly Who wants to control you and what They are trying to make you think. -- [...]
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Olly by Amy Alexander/Deprogramming.us
Olly (Open Lingo Something Something) allows software written using Lingo (Macromedia Director's scripting language) to be used by people who don't have a copy of Director. Thus it transforms a proprietary development environment into an open source one. Olly is itself written in Lingo, using standard Lingo commands.
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Plasma Pong by Steve Taylor
From the author: "PLASMA PONG is a variation of PONG that utilizes real-time fluid dynamics to drive the game environment. Players have several new abilities that add fun twists to the classic game. In the game you can inject plasma fluid into the environment, create a vacuum from your paddle, and blast shockwaves into the playing area. [...]
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Postmodernism Generator by Andrew C. Bulhak
Just a few years old, the Postmodermism Generator is already a classic of software-based text manipulation. Using the Dada Engine, a system for generating random text from grammars, it generates disturbingly plausible yet meaningless postmodern-speak as academic texts.
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Scream by Amy Alexander/deprogramming.us
Scream is a software application to facilitate screaming. Scream sits quietly in your computer's system tray and automatically springs into action when it detects a scream. Scream disturbs your Windows interface. But it isn't aimed just at computer frustrations. In a world where "anger" is paired with "management," Scream encourages the return to prominence of the lost art of screaming. [...]
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The Jargon File by Various authors. Maintained by Eric S. Raymond
The Jargon File is a long-running dictionary of hacker slang continuously contributed by hackers, which provides an insight into hacker and thus software culture. ("Hacker" in this context refers not to people who break into computers, but to devoted programming enthusiasts.) The Jargon File also includes chapters analyzing hacker Jargon construction by identifying characteristics such as [...]
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The Multi-Cultural Recycler by amy alexander
Ancient web project about new celebrities and the homogenization of multi-culturalism via the humble webcam and homepage. In 1996, webcam culture was emerging, and finally it seemed, everybody could be a celebrity. but, of course, to prove you're a "real" celebrity, you have to somehow get Recycled by pop culture. (which didn't quite include the net back then, it was only 1996, see... ) [...]
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The Plagiarist Manifesto by Plagiarist (assisted by Amy Alexander)
WE at plagiarist.org know that it's very important for artists to have a manifesto. It shows passion! It shows conviction! It's good practice for posting opinionated comments to mailing lists! Here's ours - every bit as relevant now as when we first published it in 1998. Once, in 1999, some lawyers at DuPont got mad at us over our Plagiarist Acquisitions project (http://plagiarist.org/acquisiti [...]
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theBot by Amy Alexander
Bots (or spiders) are the software that follows the links on the web to create the databases for search engines. So bots get to see the narrative of the web... theBot is one such bot - but it works in reverse to reveal and speak the "untold story" of the web. When fed a searchterm by a visitor, theBot performs a search for the word or phrase in a search engine. [...]
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Travesty by Hugh Kenner and Joseph P. O'Rourke
Travesty, as it's mostly known today, is a Perl program for scrambling a text based on the frequency with which pairs of words appear in the original text. The result is a strange parody of the original It can also be used to scramble multiple texts - which creates a parody that algorithmically draws parallels between the two (because it reveals how some of the same idioms/structures are used [...]
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Travesty Corporate PR InfoMixer by amy alexander
The InfoMixer is based on the classic Perl program "Travesty," which makes a strange parody of any text - or texts - by rearranging it based on the frequency with which pairs of words appear. Plagiarist.org first used Travesty back in 1998 to create the Plagiarist Manifesto, a remix of other people's famous manifestos. [...]
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Untitled (DIY Google Image Search) by Yorit Yorit
A low-tech solution to finding some nice images in the real world... (Original link is down; link provided is from a blog that featured the project.)
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Video Killed the Radio Star by Jonathan Harel
if { "Video Killed the Radio Star" was the first video played on MTV; } What will be the first software project submitted to runme.org?
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Virtual Drug Dealer by peazodespedida
Make as much money as you can selling drugs in this strategy game. Buy low, sell high.
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What You Got (J hu$tle's Flying Faders Short Mix) by Jeff 'JHustle' Yan
ProTools audio production software includes graphical automation techniques designed for things like causing mixers to do automated volume fades. Some musicians have noticed that the automated mixer faders - aka "flying faders" - can make interesting patterns - e.g. sine waves. JHustle repurposed this feature to turn it into a real-time animation tool. [...]
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Wiki Wiki Web by Site and software by Ward Cunningham. Text by many.
Launched in 1995, WikiWikiWeb is the first-ever Wiki. Its topic loosely centers on programming issues - and whatever its readers find to be "related" discourse. WikiWikiWeb is interesting both as a text about software and its culture and as software itself. Anyone can edit or add new content in a straightforward manner. [...]
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Windows Evangelion cruel angel by amnes
Windows music video. A new approache to anime?
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Yooouuutuuube by Yooouuutuuube
New media meets old media: a new way to watch films, er uh, digital videos.... montage in X and Y.
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projects featured by amy

Taxonomy for Lyrics by Jonathan Harel

Duff's Device by Tom Duff

gogolchat by jimpunk & christophe bruno

Bible by Rory Macbeth

AARON by Harold Cohen

Unmovie by Ax. Heide, Onesandzeros, Ph. Pocock, Gr. Stehle

Various CueCat Hacks by Various Authors

DeArt - DeCSS Art Contest (et al) by Tom Vogt and Various Authors

Google Groups Art by Paul, Tim Flaherty, Nathan McCoy, Stuart Langridge

Dasher by David MacKay, Inference Group, Cavendish Laboratory

Travesty by Hugh Kenner and Joseph P. O'Rourke