John Thomas Martin

Throughout time we've asked ouselves: what came first, the chicken or the egg? There are so many facets to that question. So much so, it's like a cultural diamond in the rough.

I've taken this age-old quandry and explored its imagery – but more specifically, how the golden ratio is the driver with its mysterious, ever-present, Fibanacci-sequence engine incessantly asserting itself into our lives.

Another shape similar in form is the human eye. Like chicken eggs, and along with its lids and lashes, the width is about 1.6 times the height, on average. I don't think The Beatles had this in mind when they wrote Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds but they did talk about eyes...

Similar to slip-scan photography, JavaScript can transform images by taking a column of pixels and reproduce them elsewhere. The effect is a smear of whatever color(s) happen to be hanging out in that column.

I've used this technique to form a moving background to a collage with a dragon-like font, which I think is appropriate to accompany images of dracaena, aka the dragon tree.

Click any mouse button to see things a different way. There's a line to assist with your slip-scanning. The actual image being scanned is partially hidden but it is the repeated image you see I kid you not.

This is an exploration of nonlinear, narrative, programming logic. It's like a game, sort of. You can type words or small phrases depending on where you'd like to go.

Fans of The Wizard of Oz will enjoy this little trip to that familiar merry old land. As the title suggests, this is only some of the amazing fable that captured my imagination as a kid. You won't see any munchkins or Auntie Em, for example, but you might find yourself in the Witch's Castle. Oh my!

I spent a little extra time exploring different treatments of typography, going as far as using an array in rotation inside a for loop to build a descending arc of text. Enjoy!

Joaquín Rodrigo (11/22/1901 – 7/6/1999) was a blind, spanish composer well-known for writing outstanding guitar music. He also wrote an athletic flute concerto, Concierto Pastoral. It is one of the most difficult ever written for the instrument. I chose a few bars of the energetic first movement for my first foray into audio visualization.

Just 10 seconds with some reverb to give it an ethereal air, these vivid colors and striking patterns were driven by technical acrobatics in the music. This project is also a chance to show off my flute playing albeit many, many years ago. Betty Ann Diaz is also heard on piano. Have a listen.

NOTE: This animation might contain seizure triggers for those prone to photosensitivity reactions.

Here's some more animation while I explore object-oriented programming, the superformula, and the superellipse. Yes, this did tax my brain!

Did you play the lawn game croquet as a kid? I did and boy, did I have fun. I dove into my memory banks for this project and thought about my boyhood fascination with color (and Disney animation too). Afterall, that was my favorite part of the game, hitting those striped balls with colorfully designed mallets.

Be forewarned though, it's wild; this one's a doozy.

Photo by Katie Burkhart on Unsplash

(In my best David Attenborough voice...) See where I've wandered across our vast continent. By clicking your mouse, you'll see the expansion of migratory patterns throughout my lifetime, the places I've visited or lived, accumulatively that is.

Using a database of over 29,000 USA cities for a backdrop, I am showing my spots in North America. I've lived in & visited other hemispheres – just showing this one for an excercise in data visualization.

Photo credit: Koyos, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

If you've gotten this far, you've managed to stumble upon a strange place indeed. This is a minimal game involving maximal belief in an odd reality that makes no sense to us, a universe where planets devour stars for their survival.

Hopefully, you can maneuver well enough to survive awhile — you may even reach a new ability level you never knew you had. It's time you found your inner conqueror...