4x4 Beyond Photoshop

By lia , meta , Golan Levin, Adrian Ward

Please note that this title is now out-of-print, and so availability is likely to be limited.

For more information, please visit the 4x4 mini-site.

"Computers are capable of an unimaginably greater number of things than any specific piece of software might lead one to believe. I believe individual artists should dictate the possibilities of their chosen media and not some big companies like Adobe and Macromedia" Golan Levin

Tools can control as well as serve. Across the web, pioneering artists and designers are recognising the exhilarating freedom and unparalleled control offered by programming. The 4x4 Project invited four influential and respected artists renowned for their stunning experiments with code and art, to work together on the theme of Life and Oblivion.

Golan Levin – creator of www.flong.com
Adrian Ward – creator of www.auto-illustrator.com and www.slub.org
lia – creator of www.turux.org and www.re-move.org
meta – creator of www.meta.am

4x4 Generative Design requires no prior knowledge of programming, only an appetite to control your own creativity. The four authors provide the inspiration and information to allow you to create and to generate using different programming languages including: Java, DBN, Auto-Illustrator, Lingo, MAX and Nato. The point is not to follow or to replicate but to mutate, transform, hack and move on.

This book and the accompanying web site immerse you in the four phases of the 4x4 process:

Theory: personal accounts of the creative process, manifestos, diaries, mental sketchbooks, and associated ephemera
Life and Oblivion: access to the finished applications online, and artwork from the pieces presented in the book
Process: detailed, firsthand, technical descriptions of the creation of each piece, along with relevant source files on the web site
Noise and Interference: the four authors discuss the project and mechanically reclaim each other’s works creating beautiful and arbitrary hybrids.