Genuary 2025
As a self-taught coder, Genuary was my chance to connect with the creative coding community. Instead of following the official daily prompts, I challenged myself to clear out my own backlog of ideas — audio reactivity, video transformations, gesture recognition, and generative typography. What started as clearing out a notebook of "what ifs" turned into 25 different interactive experiments. The full write-up, with live demos and source code, lives on the blog — see "Code 26: Vibe coding Genuary" below.
25 daily creative coding experiments.
1. New day, old me
Used ML5 gesture recognition to manipulate video elements with hand movements — a filter that gives the illusion you are changing.
2. Boid control with a finger
Applied hand gestures to control flocking patterns, optimized with quad trees.
3. Sequenced visualizer
Created paths using Perlin noise, displaying a new word from "I love making things" on each click.
4. Bubbles
A 2D simulation of bubble physics — though it didn't quite match my expectations.
5. Pinch to sequencer
Implemented pinch gestures to select and trigger sounds in a sequencer.
6. Sequenced visualizer (audio reactive)
Built a video sequencer that generates visuals in response to audio input.
7. Raytracing flocks
Finally implemented performance improvements for my flocking systems.
8. Boids connected by proximity
Pushed my boids alignment algorithms beyond regular flocking behaviors.
9. Marbelling on connect
Created digital marble prints when ellipses collide — embracing the beautiful mistakes.
10. Mondrian again
Developed scrolling Mondrian-style textures that split into more complex patterns on mouse hover.
11. I love making things
Animated "Things I love making" transforming into "I love making things," with words exiting and entering the frame.
12. Text falls musically
Built a system where typed letters fall through animated noise fields, creating music as they descend.
13. Mouse streaming in a text stream
Created a stream of text with letters that rotate based on mouse interaction.
14. ASCII camera
Used streams of text characters to display camera input, creating a typography-based image.
15. Aligning my love
Developed a text stream that responds to mouse position, pushing the words "I love making things" away.
16. Recursive framing
Explored recursive framing techniques for a potential web installation.
17. Embroidered type
Manipulated typography to mimic the aesthetic of embroidered text.
18. Digital incense ticks
Crafted a variation of boids that resemble smoke trails from incense sticks.
19. Incense trails, continued
Refined the incense-smoke boids into longer, slower-curling trails.
20. Raytracing flocks (digits)
Programmed boids that merge to form white light while raytracing along digit-shaped walls.
21. Even time can flock
Created flocking systems that align to display the current time. A variation of this lives on the home page of my website.
22. Squared camera
Transformed video input into real-time character-based art.
23. Plex flocks
Extended the boid system by adding plex structures between the agents.
24. UV plant veins
Developed an algorithm to mimic the vein structures found in trees and leaves.
25. Spinning in stream
Letters caught in a spinning stream — the closing experiment of the run.
Genuary 2025 — the full set
The poster bringing the whole month of experiments together.