A practical, hands-on dive into the concepts of visual programming interfaces. We will use TouchDesigner (https://derivative.ca) as the representative system and learn how to build a generative, simulation-driven, real-time VFX pipeline. As the main example we will analyze the visual pipeline used later that day during the AL-EK performance (https://www.indexical.org/events/2024-01-20-al-ek-later-days).

Required Equipment / Materials
To get the most out of the workshop the participants need a decently powerful Windows or MacOS laptop capable of running TouchDesigner (full system requirements here: https://derivative.ca/UserGuide/System_Requirements). Prior to the workshop please download and install TouchDesigner (https://derivative.ca/download) and activate it under the free non-commercial license. We also encourage everyone to bring headphones and prepare a few samples of visual media they like, such as images, animations and videos.

About the Instructors
AL-EK is Alex Olwal and Oskar Elek. Oskar is a cross-disciplinary artscientist whose research into complex systems and artificial life informs generative visual representations to invoke new insights into the familiar. Alex shapes frequency and rhythms from diverse ingredients across the electromagnetic spectrum, leveraging electronics, algorithms, instruments, and optics.