Program: Sunday, Monday

How do we make the invisible visible? How do we make the unthinkable thinkable?, Yoshiki Ohshima

Abstract. The computer is a dynamic medium for creative thought, a concept famously articulated by Alan Kay. The author has collaborated with Alan Kay for over 25 years, and his work is deeply influenced by his and early computing pioneers’ vision. In this talk, the author will demonstrate both past and present work, much of which is deeply rooted in principles such as collaboration, live programmability, interactivity, and visualization. The projects presented will include:
• Parks PDA: An early electronic theme park guide done at Disney Imagineering R&D.
• Squeak Etoys: An end-user authoring tool with block-based programming.
• Shadama: An interactive particle programming system with dynamic code translation to GLSL and GPU code.
• Croquet Greenlight and Croquet Microverse: Real-time collaboration systems in 2D and 3D with live programming capability.
• Local AI UI framework: An interactively programmable UI system that integrates AI agents.
The author will provide historical context, drawing on the work of visionaries such as Licklider, Engelbart, and Kay, and will explain how these foundational ideas are being revitalized in his work. The computer enables users to create vastly different artifacts, which may be complex or built on novel ideas. To understand such artifacts, we can harness the computer’s power to generate explanations that convey these ideas to other users.
Besides the ”medium” idea, the topic of software visualization has high relevancy to the philosopher Arthur Koestler’s domains of creation. Koestler highlighted the human creation falls in one of three domains: humor, scientific and artistic. Software visualization brings scientific (”AHA”) and artistic (”AHH”) reactions, and often an effective visualization often evokes the ”HA-HA” reaction. The author will discuss this aspect in the talk.
The talk will conclude with a discussion on future directions. Humanity faces large and difficult problems, and solving them requires us to work together and think together more effectively.

Bio. While attending graduate school at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yoshiki joined Walt Disney Imagineering R&D in 2000 as an intern, where he helped develop prototypes of Disney’s theme park attractions. He has also been involved in Alan Kay’s research group and participated in the research and development of the educational programming environment Squeak Etoys, eventually taking a leading role. Yoshiki has worked at the Viewpoints Research Institute, SAP Labs CDG, and Y Combinator Research, all of which were founded or co-founded by Dr. Kay. He co-founded the Croquet Corporation and developed several multi-user applications. He is a visiting professor at Shizuoka University and is involved in Mozilla's local AI project. Yoshiki was awarded his PhD from the Tokyo Institute of Technology for designing and implementing a massively parallel particle programming system.

Code that Generates Visual Art, Benoit Baudry (Joint Keynote with SCAM)

Abstract. Algorithmic artists write code, and the artwork exists when the code executes. Code execution lets artists explore variations of their ideas, fine tune the subtle balance between randomness and identity. While all these artists explore different aesthetics and forms, from Ikeda’s audiovisual minimalism to Licia He’s automatic watercolor, the practices of all these artists have one thing in common: the artwork is the result of the execution of a program. The generated work can be projected, broadcast through a light installation or a sound device. In this case, the unique work generated at a given moment exists only for the audience present at that moment. Sometimes artists program machines to bring the artworks into the physical world, for example with a pen plotter. In this case, a particular execution is fixed on paper, wood or metal and it exists beyond the time of the execution of the program. Artists who practice algorithmic art have developed strong software expertise. Casey Reas and Ben Fry created Processing in the early 2000s. This Java library is still actively maintained and developed today, and is part of the toolbox of many digital artists. Lauren Lee McCarthy has built an inclusive community of artists and developers around the open source project p5.js, which is now at the heart of million of artworks, educational projects, and cultural initiatives around the world. Many artists document their work on open source platforms such as Github. Algorithmic art is deeply rooted in everything we love about software: code, execution and the performative nature of software. In this talk, we go on a journey into the code that generates art, we wander into seminal art works, explore open source software for the arts, and perform code.

Bio. Benoit Baudry is a Professor in Software Engineering at the Université de Montréal. His research focuses on automated software engineering, software diversity and software testing. He favors exploring code execution over code on disk. He collaborates with new media artists to outreach software research and contributes to the algorithmic art scene.

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Location and Other Information for VISSOFT

The room assigned for VISSOFT is ABINEAU (both Sunday and Monday). This is located in the NAU High Country Conference Center (HCCC) building, ground floor.

Banquet location

Grand Canyon Brewing @ Flagstaff. 20 min walk from the venue. Student volunteers will walk participants there.

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Awards

Best Paper Award: Interactive Diagrams for Software Documentation
Adam Štěpánek, David Kuťák, Barbora Kozlíková and Jan Byška

Best Tool Demo: Extending iTrace-Visualize to Support Token-based Heatmaps and Region of Interest Scarf Plots for Source Code
Joshua Behler, Giovanni Villalobos, Julia Pangonis, Bonita Sharif, and Jonathan Maletic

Distinguished Reviewers: Katherine Isaacs and Jane Hoffswell

MIP: Visualizing the Evolution of Systems and Their Library Dependencies
Raula Gaikovina Kula, Coen De Roover, Daniel M. Germán, Takashi Ishio, and Katsuro Inoue
Voted the Most Influential Paper from VISSOFT 2014.