Open-Source Art and the Rise of 'Creative Coding'

"Some people write, some people paint, there are some people can basically think in visual code and do some of the most beautiful things you've ever seen," Keith Butters, co-founder of the creative agency The Barbarian Group, says in the latest episode of PBS' Off Book series. From data visualizations to interactive video projections, many of today's groundbreaking artists are working with software: open-source tools like Processing, Cinder, and openFrameworks. Off Book's video, below, interviews Daniel Shiffman, of NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, Butters, and Jonathan Minard and James George, who are behind RGBD Toolkit, which blends 2D and 3D video. So many projects are packed into five minutes, it's a little frustrating -- the art never gets a word in edgewise! Luckily PBS has listed the works in a spreadsheet so you can check them out one at a time. 

For more videos from PBS Off Book, visit http://video.pbs.org/program/off-book/.

Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg is the former executive producer and general manager of Atlantic Studios at The Atlantic.