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From Canada, we’re very happy to feature Dan Tapper @visualcodepoetry, who will explore “Format Bending – TouchDesigner as a Sandbox for Reimagining Data”.

Format Bending explores TouchDesigner as a transformative environment for working directly with raw data.  Beyond standard real-time visuals, it shows how to load varied file formats as textures, warp them on the GPU, then rebuild or mutate them. 

Dan demos visualizing, encrypting, and processing media in off-label workflows that fuse art play with problem-solving, turning TouchDesigner into a tactile system for living data. Attendees gain tactics for unconventional media wrangling, creative crypto loops, and folding them into their own networks—technical tools and conceptual sparks for bending formats and reshaping data.

Dan will show how media files can be visualized, encrypted, and processed in unexpected ways, creating workflows that merge artistic experimentation with practical problem-solving. TouchDesigner becomes not just a playback engine, but a tactile system for exploring data as living material.

Attendees will gain unconventional media tricks, creative encryption tactics, and project-ready workflows—practical tools and fresh perspectives on using TouchDesigner to bend formats and reshape data.

Dan Tapper is an artist, educator, technical director and creative technologist interested in the intersection between information and experience. His work focuses on the unseen and unheard, using radio and imaging technologies to capture the sounds of the earth’s ionosphere, map supernovas, and capture microscopic worlds. By utilizing elements of conceptual art and science in his work, Tapper draws attention to the unperceived wonders that surround us and the poetry that can be found in data.

#TDTokyo2025 #TouchDesignerCommunity #FormatBending #Data #EncryptionDecryption

Helios 2024, currently on view @naisanorth Jan 14th toApril 1st. To coincide with the exhibition I’ll be doing two workshops (Jan 27, Feb 17) around how i gather and shape data and build simple sensor based data collection systems. Sign up on the NAISA website!

Works include: real-time audiovisual data work, live VLF ionospheric radio antenna and CRR visualization, data discs (records with sun data etched into them)

Program note below:

Helios 2024 is a celebration of the sun in its phase of solar maximum by audiovisual artist Dan Tapper. Using solar data gathered from space organizations alongside DIY devices, seen and unseen structures are converted into images and sound, allowing us to reimagine the sun and engage with its energy in new ways. The exhibition combines old and new works from Tapper’s long-term practice of capturing cosmic data and converting it into audiovisual installations, physical data objects, digital images, and sound works.

Helios 2024, currently on view @naisanorth Jan 14th toApril 1st. To coincide with the exhibition I’ll be doing two workshops (Jan 27, Feb 17) around how i gather and shape data and build simple sensor based data collection systems. Sign up on the NAISA website!

Works include: real-time audiovisual data work, live VLF ionospheric radio antenna and CRR visualization, data discs (records with sun data etched into them)

Program note below:

Helios 2024 is a celebration of the sun in its phase of solar maximum by audiovisual artist Dan Tapper. Using solar data gathered from space organizations alongside DIY devices, seen and unseen structures are converted into images and sound, allowing us to reimagine the sun and engage with its energy in new ways. The exhibition combines old and new works from Tapper’s long-term practice of capturing cosmic data and converting it into audiovisual installations, physical data objects, digital images, and sound works.

Helios 2024, currently on view @naisanorth Jan 14th toApril 1st. To coincide with the exhibition I’ll be doing two workshops (Jan 27, Feb 17) around how i gather and shape data and build simple sensor based data collection systems. Sign up on the NAISA website!

Works include: real-time audiovisual data work, live VLF ionospheric radio antenna and CRR visualization, data discs (records with sun data etched into them)

Program note below:

Helios 2024 is a celebration of the sun in its phase of solar maximum by audiovisual artist Dan Tapper. Using solar data gathered from space organizations alongside DIY devices, seen and unseen structures are converted into images and sound, allowing us to reimagine the sun and engage with its energy in new ways. The exhibition combines old and new works from Tapper’s long-term practice of capturing cosmic data and converting it into audiovisual installations, physical data objects, digital images, and sound works.

Helios 2024, currently on view @naisanorth Jan 14th toApril 1st. To coincide with the exhibition I’ll be doing two workshops (Jan 27, Feb 17) around how i gather and shape data and build simple sensor based data collection systems. Sign up on the NAISA website!

Works include: real-time audiovisual data work, live VLF ionospheric radio antenna and CRR visualization, data discs (records with sun data etched into them)

Program note below:

Helios 2024 is a celebration of the sun in its phase of solar maximum by audiovisual artist Dan Tapper. Using solar data gathered from space organizations alongside DIY devices, seen and unseen structures are converted into images and sound, allowing us to reimagine the sun and engage with its energy in new ways. The exhibition combines old and new works from Tapper’s long-term practice of capturing cosmic data and converting it into audiovisual installations, physical data objects, digital images, and sound works.

Helios 2024, currently on view @naisanorth Jan 14th toApril 1st. To coincide with the exhibition I’ll be doing two workshops (Jan 27, Feb 17) around how i gather and shape data and build simple sensor based data collection systems. Sign up on the NAISA website!

Works include: real-time audiovisual data work, live VLF ionospheric radio antenna and CRR visualization, data discs (records with sun data etched into them)

Program note below:

Helios 2024 is a celebration of the sun in its phase of solar maximum by audiovisual artist Dan Tapper. Using solar data gathered from space organizations alongside DIY devices, seen and unseen structures are converted into images and sound, allowing us to reimagine the sun and engage with its energy in new ways. The exhibition combines old and new works from Tapper’s long-term practice of capturing cosmic data and converting it into audiovisual installations, physical data objects, digital images, and sound works.

Tune into @wavefarmradio this Saturday at 11am to hear me in conversation on Very Low Frequency (VLF) natural radio with @naisanorth artistic director Darren Copeland. The second half of the show plays my 2015 “stream of consciousness” VLF documentary Some Call it Noise. As well as hearing and talking about sounds from the wonderful Steve McGreevy, @semiconductor_artists, Alvin Lucier, @patricksyk, @joycehinterding, @honorharger and more.

Link in bio

PSA for techies to get outside and record the wonderful textures of spring/summer. I tried going all nature presenter in Fall 2025 and completely forgot to do anything with the footage until rediscovering today.

Tools: Scaniverse @nianticspatial and @touchdesigner as usual.

Have fun out there!

Porting pendulums from @processing_core into @touchdesigner. So fun to add in wonky forces and make spirograph patterns. Using the 0° pendulum crossing to trigger notes.

On April 13th we welcome watchers and presenters alike, bringing together creative coders, Node based algorithmic artists, and anyone fascinated by the beauty of code-driven art. Think Touchdesigner, Processing, p5.js, shaders, creative coding frameworks, generative art made by human logic, loops, and a whole lot of curiosity.

Open call

Due to popular interest, we’re excited to announce that we’re adjusting the format. We’re moving from invited speakers only to a mix of invited speakers and an open call for anyone who’d like to share their projects. This change will also apply to our Physical Computing Show & Tell.

We’re so happy to see this community growing, and honestly blown away by how many of you have incredible work to show. We want to make room for all of it.

Facilitated by @rubiat.svg
In collaboration with @newsystems_
Supported by Toronto Event Generator @torontoeventgenerator @glouberman

#creativetechnogy #newmedia #torontotech #showandtell creativecoding

On April 13th we welcome watchers and presenters alike, bringing together creative coders, Node based algorithmic artists, and anyone fascinated by the beauty of code-driven art. Think Touchdesigner, Processing, p5.js, shaders, creative coding frameworks, generative art made by human logic, loops, and a whole lot of curiosity.

Open call

Due to popular interest, we’re excited to announce that we’re adjusting the format. We’re moving from invited speakers only to a mix of invited speakers and an open call for anyone who’d like to share their projects. This change will also apply to our Physical Computing Show & Tell.

We’re so happy to see this community growing, and honestly blown away by how many of you have incredible work to show. We want to make room for all of it.

Facilitated by @rubiat.svg
In collaboration with @newsystems_
Supported by Toronto Event Generator @torontoeventgenerator @glouberman

#creativetechnogy #newmedia #torontotech #showandtell creativecoding

Waveshaping images using @makenoisemusic 0-coast in @touchdesigner

I'll be uploading an experimental .tox on Patreon (component tier) later today of the first pass at the technique.

#formatbending

Sorting and pixel shifting experiments
📺 @touchdesigner
🎵 @makenoisemusic 0-coast

Going old school for this one. Starting to put together a little sequencer where I can place objects on an overhead projector, and use their placement to drive sequencers and control voltage. Object tracking done using openCV in @touchdesigner , controlling @vcvrack and I can select/deselect objects and spurious blobs to choose what’s fed into the sequence.
Love how much easier it is to work with python libraries in the new TD update <3

Whipped this up today so still very rough but gonna have lots of fun with this I think!!

Experimenting with some pseudo fluid dynamics. Added in some 3d blob tracking and Gaussian shading on clustered points for fun

Made in @touchdesigner

Had a lot of fun this week testing projectors at @csvtoronto and building demos with their new multi wall projector system to demo at the Geary Art Crawl @gearyartcrawl .

Messing around with motion capture (mediapipe @blankensmithing @domscott.art ), game controllers, gaussian splats and of course lots of @TouchDesginer POPs. Thanks to everyone who came by and played.

Music = Golden Ridge B side form Celeste by In Love with a Ghost

Wobbly bodies
Experimenting with soft objects
Made in @touchdesigner