Jer Thorp with a limited edition silk-screened print for Random Number Multiples.Each week we chat about the tools of the trade with one outstanding creative to find out exactly how they do what they do. The questions are always the same, the answers, not so much. This week: Jer Thorp.The Creators Project: Who are you and what do you do?
Jer Thorp: I’m Jer Thorp. I’m do things that fall somewhere in the nexus between art, design, and science. Currently I’m the Data Artist in Residence at The New York Times, and a visiting professor at NYU’s ITP program.What hardware do you use?
I have a beat up, 2.5-year-old MacBook that I do pretty much everything on. I also have a Nexus S that I’ve been building some lightweight Android apps for.
_The final image from a project visualizing _New York Times_ data showing top organizations and personalities for every year from 1985 to 2009._What software do you use?
I work primarily in Processing. For me, it is the right balance between ease of use and computing power. I like that I can create quick sketches of ideas in a few minutes, but also build a project out into a full prototype in the same environment.What piece of equipment can you simply not live without?
I don’t think there’s any piece of equipment that I couldn’t live without. Whenever I have to go without my laptop for a few days, there’s an initial period of panic, but that usually settles out, and I’ll get down to more traditional creative outlets (reading and writing!).If money were no object, how would you change your current setup?
I’m fairly happy with the setup that I have right now, apart from the fact that my arrow keys stopped working last week. So, I guess if I had a boatload of money, I’d buy some gold-plated arrow keys.A tangle of DNA data taken from UK’s National DNA Database. Designed for the July 2009 issue of Wired UK.Is there a piece of technology that changed your life or inspired you?
I can track back my creative path to HyperCard, which shipped with my first Mac (a Mac SE). HyperCard is still pretty much my favorite thing in the world. We hear a lot about the history of Apple, with Steve and Woz, but usually Bill Atkinson gets forgotten. Bill developed QuickDraw, which was the key technical part of the Mac GUI, and also a lot of interface elements that we take for granted, like the selection lasso and the menu bar. But for me, the key piece he contributed was HyperCard, which was really ahead of its time as far as a tool for non-programmers to build their own applications. HyperCard spawned a very active community of users, but this was pre-internet, and people were literally sharing their programs by mail—I think if it had stuck around for a few more years, it may have found a lot of success in the new networked world.What’s your favorite relic piece of technology from your childhood?
See above. If someone were to make a HyperCard t-shirt, I’d wear it pretty much every day.A visualization created using a custom-built Processing app designed for the OpenCalais semantic web service.What fantasy piece of technology would you like to see invented?
I’m going to stay in the exact same vein, and say that I’d love to see a simple app-building tool targeted toward non-programmers, and particularly youth. I can imagine a simple to use tool that would let anyone build and share their own mobile/desktop apps, for their own purposes. With HyperCard, people would build simple apps to track baseball scores, or to monitor growth in their gardens—I’d really like to see a return to this kind of ‘small scale software’ idea.All images courtesy Jer Thorp.
Jer Thorp: I’m Jer Thorp. I’m do things that fall somewhere in the nexus between art, design, and science. Currently I’m the Data Artist in Residence at The New York Times, and a visiting professor at NYU’s ITP program.
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I have a beat up, 2.5-year-old MacBook that I do pretty much everything on. I also have a Nexus S that I’ve been building some lightweight Android apps for.
I work primarily in Processing. For me, it is the right balance between ease of use and computing power. I like that I can create quick sketches of ideas in a few minutes, but also build a project out into a full prototype in the same environment.What piece of equipment can you simply not live without?
I don’t think there’s any piece of equipment that I couldn’t live without. Whenever I have to go without my laptop for a few days, there’s an initial period of panic, but that usually settles out, and I’ll get down to more traditional creative outlets (reading and writing!).If money were no object, how would you change your current setup?
I’m fairly happy with the setup that I have right now, apart from the fact that my arrow keys stopped working last week. So, I guess if I had a boatload of money, I’d buy some gold-plated arrow keys.A tangle of DNA data taken from UK’s National DNA Database. Designed for the July 2009 issue of Wired UK.Is there a piece of technology that changed your life or inspired you?
I can track back my creative path to HyperCard, which shipped with my first Mac (a Mac SE). HyperCard is still pretty much my favorite thing in the world. We hear a lot about the history of Apple, with Steve and Woz, but usually Bill Atkinson gets forgotten. Bill developed QuickDraw, which was the key technical part of the Mac GUI, and also a lot of interface elements that we take for granted, like the selection lasso and the menu bar. But for me, the key piece he contributed was HyperCard, which was really ahead of its time as far as a tool for non-programmers to build their own applications. HyperCard spawned a very active community of users, but this was pre-internet, and people were literally sharing their programs by mail—I think if it had stuck around for a few more years, it may have found a lot of success in the new networked world.What’s your favorite relic piece of technology from your childhood?
See above. If someone were to make a HyperCard t-shirt, I’d wear it pretty much every day.A visualization created using a custom-built Processing app designed for the OpenCalais semantic web service.What fantasy piece of technology would you like to see invented?
I’m going to stay in the exact same vein, and say that I’d love to see a simple app-building tool targeted toward non-programmers, and particularly youth. I can imagine a simple to use tool that would let anyone build and share their own mobile/desktop apps, for their own purposes. With HyperCard, people would build simple apps to track baseball scores, or to monitor growth in their gardens—I’d really like to see a return to this kind of ‘small scale software’ idea.All images courtesy Jer Thorp.