vvvv japan meetup / Kyoto vol.1
Last Saturday (July 22, 2023), we held a long-awaited vvvv Japan Meetup at the BASSDRUM office, also known as Demachi Gadget in Kyoto. It had been since April 2020 if we include virtual meetups, and all the way back to May 2019 if we consider physical meetups.
Why has it been so long since the last meetup? How did it go this time around? I'd like to casually summarize my perspectives as an organizer.
The Situation Around vvvv
vvvv (currently vvvv beta) is a node-based programming language that was born in Frankfurt in 1998, operated by a community-based model. Although there have always been a steady number of users, the community activities in Japan became more vibrant after the launch of the vvvvook, written by Minoru Ito in 2014, which led to the establishment of the vvvv Japan Community.
Since then, the gradual community activities in Japan also came to a halt due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020. The last active engagement was when core users participated online in the vvvv festival "NODE20" held in Frankfurt in October 2020.
At first glance, it may seem that the community activities that had been slowly declining were finally stopped by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, I believe there might be more causes to this than just the pandemic.
Self-destruction called vvvv gamma
In 2020, the next-generation vvvv was announced. With its concept, user interface, and operation completely revamped, it was born as a completely new tool. The old vvvv was renamed "vvvv beta".
From the materials of vvvv Japan Meetup / Kyoto vol.1.
This vvvv gamma has seen major advancements in vvvv that cannot be listed here, such as the implementation of loop processing (like if and foreach), which has been a weak point of node-based programming environments until now, a significant evolution in 3D rendering due to the incorporation of the Stride game engine, the ability for those who can write in C# to intuitively build patches, and the ability to directly load numerous plugins written in C#. As a result, the operation of vvvv has changed significantly from the beta version, and it has evolved into a tool that can truly be called brand new.
As a result, some users have left the tool, some have devoted their time to learning gamma, and others have continued to create things using beta or in combination with other tools, effectively resetting the vvvv Japan Community.
Of course, I think there was an option to continue community activities with the beta version, but seeing the main members transitioning to gamma and witnessing the powerful GPU libraries being developed for gamma made me feel that at some point, we would have to start learning gamma.
Above all, the fact that issues I had been grappling with in the beta version could be easily resolved with gamma, and high-quality images could be easily produced, was a big attraction for me. As a result, I made up my mind to start learning gamma in the summer of 2021. From there, after more than a year, I have become able to use gamma with the same familiarity as beta.
So, the reason for the timing of the resumption of the vvvv Japan Meetup community activities was that I couldn't engage in community activities because I was spending time mastering vvvv gamma. Once that phase was over, I wanted to have friends with whom I could share this excitement, so I decided to hold a meetup.
Hosting the vvvv Japan Meetup
The location for this meetup, "Demachi Gadget", is also a place where Ben from Derivative Inc. hosts TouchDesigner Kyoto Group meetups and workshops.
This time, we had 6 participants out of a capacity of 8. This included 3 students, 1 user from the vvvv beta community, 1 person active in the MAXMSP community, and 1 from BASSDRUM. Among these 4 were past workshop participants or those who had come to intern at BASSDRUM, like Mr. Shigemoto, whom I personally invited. This made me realize the challenges in attracting attendees.
The flow of the event consisted of sharing the current state of vvvv (30min), basic usage (1h30min), and finally, under the guise of casual conversation, we had an exchange of introductions, the reasons why they became interested in this workshop, what they normally do, and how we can make the vvvv Japan Community more interesting.
While I was quite negative before the start, once we got going the response was not bad, and I saw a lot of both the good points and challenges of vvvv. It was very meaningful. I'm glad we held the event.
Finally, I would like to share, in bullet points, the various opinions that emerged during our casual conversation and the challenges that came into view, and then conclude.
Quite a few people don't own a Windows laptop.
This would require us to either prepare PCs on our end or get sponsorship to promote the widespread use of vvvv notebooks.
The functions overlap with TouchDesigner, but it's not as stable as TouchDesigner.
The visual aspects are stronger than TouchDesigner.
Preferences for the UI vary from person to person.
It can't be used on a Mac.
The environment surrounding Open Frameworks and MAXMSP.
The dominance of TouchDesigner.
The update to vvvv gamma is a significant update unlike any other.
Were there any languages in the past where users left due to a significant update?
There's no place to learn.
There's also no place to know its appeal.
Nobody is using it.
It doesn't help with employment.
If we hold a workshop, we should establish a specific direction for the visuals, like "Let's create visuals like Refik Anadol!".
With the rise of other tools such as Unity and Unreal Engine, there's less reason to purposely do generative programming.
Many people are interested based on the artwork, so create artwork using vvvv gamma.
Finally (Tokyo Edition),
Even though I've just hosted this long-awaited meetup in Kyoto, I'll be leaving Kyoto and becoming a resident of Tokyo from August. I wanted to hold it once before I left Kyoto, and I had promised one of the participants that we would host it, so I'm glad we were able to do it at the last minute.
Going forward, I'm thinking of actively hosting meetups in Tokyo and getting feedback from those who have actually used vvvv gamma. I hope more people will become interested. I can't possibly run this on my own, so I'm hoping to gather more people who can join me in this effort.
I occasionally post works made with vvvv gamma on Instagram, so please check it out if you'd like: https://www.instagram.com/takuma.nakata/
Author / Takuma Nakata
Tech Director, Visual/Spatial Artist
Takuma grew up in Brazil, Senegal and Indonesia, and currently lives and works in Kyoto as a computational (visual | spatial ) artist. He is passionate about converting virtual phenomena into physical experiences. In May 2019, Takuma was selected as the first Japanese creator in Adobe's global career support program, Adobe Creative Residency, and focused on his creative work for a year. He joined BASSDRUM in July 2020.