Creating code-based artworks and projects using Love2d

2024-05-18

This week I had an artwork (or as we say to each other as artists, a "piece") presented in a group exhibition. I built the work as a non-interactive work that continously runs in a generative fashion, in the simplest sense of that term.

Screenshot of my artwork: I'll just describe it here. A photograph of trees on the edge of a forest running into an urban landscape. This photograph is in the background and is offkilter. Eerie blue gray skies bleed through. Several "glitched" images with a "ranked superpixel" effect that causes their edges to collapse in digital ruptures. It is hard to say what these individual layered glitched images are: perhaps a house or building, a distorted barn, or landscape.

This is a screenshot (and description) of a continuously running infinite length "simulation", so I am just describing one moment. Some of the things I was thinking about: capturing a breakdown of the land, a breakdown of human abuse of land, in-between spaces, Teju Cole's photographs, Steven Shore's snapshots, the novel Graffiti on Low or No Dollars, breathing and staring into the woods where the city runs out.

Many of the visitors today at the opening thought the work was a "video", which I think means they thought I edited video footage and added animations perhaps? I explained it was made in code, and described as plainly as I could what that meant and the general idea of how it worked.

I've previously mostly used Processing and p5.js or html/css/javascript to make my artworks. Processing is a "software toolkit", IDE and language (well, a library for Java designed for artists and beginners to make digital art and simulations). p5.js is based on Processing, but a port into javascript so that projects work in the web and make use of the advantages (and increasingly the disadvantages) of using a browser.

Processing is 22 years old or so now, and has inherited a hefty codebase, something like half a gigabyte. Running video in Processing feels slow to start up. I can tell that the language was designed for 2d vector drawing. p5.js has inherited the logic, flow and functions of Processing. It feels a bit "lighter" to me (just a feeling, not 100% sure why), but then again there is the bloat and disadvantages of a web browser.

Recently I've been motivated to spend more time using Love2d, the Lua framework for making 2d video games. I'll be teaching a class in it next year so have been spending more time with it. Though I have 8 years of experience or so creating my artworks with mostly p5.js (occasionally just javascript), I knew in my head it would be possible to build the kinds of works that I make, using many images (photographs) in a collaged manner, and with my sounds (recorded from modular synth), using Love2d.

Using Love2d to do "creative code" (cursed term) is a pleasant experience. First of all, the language/framework is not too different from Processing/p5.js. While I did have to look more things up, the documentation is also excellent, and I was quickly up and running, and the default functions seemed to be intuitive. I didn't spend much time with it myself, but I saw there was a wiki and friendly simple web-based forum for asking questions as well.

Basically, whatever I envisioned in my head that I could do in p5.js I was able to do in Love2d, and with similar or about as straightforward code. No doubt if I do many more projects in Love2d I'll find some things that Processing or p5.js are better for, and some things that Love2d is better at.

Some quick reflections on that here:

p5.js - excellent beginner-friendly documentation and community. "No code snobs." All are welcome. Great introduction books. Killer video tutorials on YouTube (see: The Coding Train). Online web editor. To share, export and host as a web site.

Processing - "The original" software toolkit IDE. Useful for making something on a computer that won't be running in a browser, especially if you are learning to code by making artwork. For what it's worth, I tend to teach p5.js first to my new art students. In the past few years I've only used Processing once, to make a video project, which needed speed, and didn't need a browser, so it was better to use than p5.js. To share: export a java-based applet/application. Won't necessarily work on another architecture. Or use processing-java from the command line. Huge exported files.

Love2d - If you're making a game, use Love2d! Spritesheets, delta time, ways of working with animation, etc are built in. But even if not making game, I found the advantages for my artwork: speed: this for me is by far the fastest. Instantly starts up even with loading huge image or sound files at the beginning. TINY and do I mean tiny library. Easy to share for all systems: export a love executable. I also like I can make system calls, access the file system, and do other OS-based work pretty easily.

I considered making some wrapper functions that take love2d functions and make them work more like Processing, essentially trying to build a version of Processing in Lua/Love2d. But I've decided that's more trouble than it's worth, at least for now, so I'm going to keep using the tool on its own terms and seeing how I build out helper functions or change my working method. I will definitely continue to still use p5.js, and I'm teaching a class on p5.js and one with Love2d in the fall.

I'll be continuing to make projects, interactive and otherwise in the months ahead. I may build up a little personal library or template. I'm also excited to work on some games.

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