praxis is a modular framework for live creative play with video, images, audio, and other media. Its primary focus is on the easy development of generative and interactive media installations, as well as live performance.
Although programmed in Java, the fundamental design of praxis has much more in common with applications such as Pure Data and CSound than it does with Processing. Unlike these projects, praxis is designed from the ground up to be media agnostic, multi-threaded and completely configurable at runtime. It offers a synchronous dataflow system alongside a robust message passing system (and soon to include live compiled fragments of Java code), behind an interface that aims to hide the complexity and let you get on with creating. What it doesn't offer, as yet, is a huge range of features! :-)
praxis patches are constructed using a simple plain text script, though a graphical patching environment is in the very early stages of development. The praxis environment is coded in Java, and most features should work across all platforms that Java supports. However, it is developed and tested only on Linux. Video input relies on the GStreamer-Java bindings, and so the GStreamer library will also be required for this feature to work (other video pipelines may be supported in the future).
Sign up to the Praxis Development discussion group if you want to be informed of new preview releases or ask any questions.
Update October 23rd, 2009 - A new binary release is now online, along with a revised set of examples. This introduces a range of new features including audio support (including a Jack binding), GUI construction, a new look and feel based on NimROD, and early MIDI support. There have also been a range of bug fixes and many less visible improvements under the hood.
NB. Component documentation doesn't yet reflect all the changes.
History
praxis derives from a framework that I developed for my own creative practice during a year-long Arts Council England funded residency at The Animation Station in Banbury (UK) during 2006. This framework further developed through a number of subsequent commissions. While my original intention was to release this framework under an open licence, a number of non-free dependencies as well as a growing realisation that its design lacked enough flexibility for future development led me to revise this plan. Instead, towards the end of 2008 I embarked on a complete redesign and rewrite. praxis, the process of putting theoretical knowledge into practice, seemed a particularly apt name.
Some aspects of the development of praxis are being supported by Corn Exchange Newbury and New Greenham Arts through the Evolve programme.
Praxis in Action
These two videos give some idea of the areas of work that praxis is aimed at. The first is Sound Pool, an interactive audio-visual installation developed for and shown at Banbury Museum (UK) in November 2006 - this installation uses a webcam to track movement in the gallery and trigger changes to the audio and video. The second is of Magoria, a generative portrait of the people of Oxfordshire, past and present.
