Where the images in a blog form an aesthetic unity, JavaScript can be a tool which creates a synthesis.

On MNLY, the JavaScript animated graphic in the sidebar near the bottom brings all the images in the body of the blog together creating a visual summary of the content. The images are recycled in miniature. If the images are in themselves well-designed, the combined effect can form a Gestalt which is stronger than its parts.

If you would like the source code for this JavaScript, leave a comment and I'll send it to you.

There is a new blog for Manly available called MNLY.
Manly is a top holiday resort in the middle of Sydney with an excellent beach, cafes and bushland. But if you want to know the real story on this unusual place, have a look at this blog. It is different to the usual tourism hype and prepares you for real life in Manly. There are helpful hints about where you can get a good cup of coffee, what dangers to look out for and where you can ride a bike.

  Image from Images

Alongside the question “is programming art?”, the artistic status of cooking needs to be examined. Like programming, not all cooking is art. The aesthetic question goes beyond the idea that there is an art to frying an egg. Here the word art merely means basic skill.

The aesthetics of cooking involves the creative process that has led to the invention of new recipes which appeal to the eyes, the tongue and the nose. The great recipes of medieval times arose from a lifestyle where the kitchen became a creative focus. Artistic creativity discovered new taste sensations from untried ingredients especially plants. The consumption of these artworks was an event of a multi-sensual nature. Like all artworks, the eaten artwork ceases to exist after the exhibition, but through the recipe can be reproduced.

Here is a recipe for Davidson's plum cinnamon biscuits, which is intended for the eyes, noses and taste buds of those living in the rainforests of NSW and Queensland where these unique plums grow.

320g wholemeal flour (++)
2 tbsp honey
1 egg
1 heaped tsp cinnamon
200g butter
100g blanched almonds (or macadamias)
1 nut of butter
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp icing sugar
50g Davidson's plum jam

Mix honey and eggs in the middle of the flour in a bowl. Add cinnamon, butter flakes, ground almonds. Knead to a pastry. Add extra flour if sticky.

Roll out thin and stamp out equal sized circles. Bake at 190°c for 10 minutes on a baking tray (second shelf from the bottom).

Melt butter. Spread a little liquid butter on half of the cookies and sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar mix.

Spread Davidson's plum jam on the other half of the cookies and place the first cookies on top of them.

Davidson's plum jam is made in the oven at 200°c in a baking dish. The plums are halved, sprinkled with raw sugar and stirred from time to time in the oven, adding more sugar until it tastes right. This may take a couple of hours. Then press through a sieve and bottle it up. This method of baking results in a rich, dark-red jam.

Escherization is a project to use computer programming to achieve what the artist Escher achieved without computers. Tiles can be created following the shape of a given object, such as a portrait or a painting of an animal. You can download a Java applet which allows you to design your own tile shape matching the shape of a picture to be tiled. Try Craig Kaplan's applet out.

On the shores of Sydney Harbour and throughout the sandstone region around this city, the Aboriginal people created rock art on the flat stone surfaces. Often this art depicts the animals and fish of the region as well as the people. It also consists of spirit figures and their footprints. These supernatural beings are recognisable by special features, such as only having one leg.

In the Manly area there is a figure of a very large kangaroo, which may represent an extinct type of megafauna, last seen in the area several thousands of years ago.

The beautiful and lively art of the original inhabitants of Sydney is little recognised by the present population. Some rock platforms with unique artworks have garages built on them. This is not surprising in a place where some of the best views of the ocean are used for parking. Others are covered with soil to grow lawns.

Whales are commonly depicted in rock engravings and are usually engraved to scale. To recognise the creature it is necessary to walk around its outline in the morning or evening sun, when the shadows are most distinct.

The latest exhibition at the dotAtelier exhibition space is inspired by the whale engraving in the Manly area in the Sydney Harbour National Park.

Golem reports that the version of Java from Microsoft, which comes with Internet Explorer, has a security problem and is being deactivated by Microsoft. Code on remote computers can be executed using the access rights of the logged in user. The immediate work-around being offered is to remove this Microsoft version of java from IE. Java fuctionality in the web will then no longer be available to users of this browser. If however you use a version of java from Sun, you are not affected by this security problem, either with Internet Explorer or with other browsers. Sun's Java can be downloaded at Sun

There is a new Sydney exhibition at the dotAtelier exhibition space on the theme of ocean.

For HTML and JavaScript from Hell see muellseite. It is in German, but you can get a good idea about hellish JavaScript effects by moving your mouse around.

The similarities and differences between programming and art are brought out in an article by John Littler. Some interesting points emerge from this article. Programmer and author Paul Graham is quoted, who describes the creative act of programming as being like the creative interaction of an artist with their media. When freed from the constraints of having to model and plan all software development the programmer can “figure out programs as (they're) writing them, just as writers and painters and architects do.” Thinking in code is more creative than planning in one medium and then translating it into code. Just as the text writes its author or the painting uses the artist to realise itself, through becoming engrossed in one's medium of expression, a creation emerges through the interaction. The author vanishes and becomes a means in the creative act.

This idea can lead to a distinction between programming which is art and programming which is not. Bauhaus wants the artist to use the tools of the trades for art purposes, but does this make every welder an artist? The programmer who just updates the variables in the code is equally limited in creativity as the welder. Creativity in programming involves an artistic mind using the tools of programming creatively, not just doing a job.

John Littler makes it clear that creativity is the essence of artistic work, quoting Einstein to emphasise that science in its most advanced forms merges with art. By analogy, programming when freed from purely instrumental constraints can become artistic creativity.

Like human languages, programming languages are tools which can be used for a range of purposes. It depends on the context and content as to whether it is used artistically or otherwise. In human languages there is trivial talk, getting jobs done, explaining the way or educating as well as poetry and literature. Like a human language, programming languages develop their own trains of thought, like discourses. A creative person or team following these logical threads can develop them into new art forms, spaces which have not existed before and make breakthroughs for the human spirit. Or they can do the same old thing as before in a new skin.

John Littler writes that art involves a “special degree of inspiration in one's work”. Joseph Beuys, on the other hand, suggested that we are all artists and what we do is art. In the case of programmers, it may be more interesting to require a special degree of inspiration for artist status to be achieved. How this is defined is more difficult. Who decides what is special and what is inspiration? The market place? History? The “Golden WebSite Awards”? Or are the truly inspired programmer-artists never to be discovered working in a garage somewhere and surprising just a few people in virtual reality? While dog-blogs win the awards.