Method & Apparatus is an e-zine on the use of free/cheap/accessible tools to create works of digital art. The idea is to publish creations along with some documentation of the creative process that led to them, in the spirit of the scientific practice of reproducibility. Think of it as pairing a film release with its “making of” (on a much much smaller scale).
We will soon be seeking contributions for the Winter issue! Your contribution could be written work, visual assets, a game, a piece of music, a very short movie, or anything else that can be shared digitally in under 10 GB (somewhat arbitrary; it’s Gmail’s Google Drive attachment limit).
Because of the digital medium, we especially want to encourage works that could not otherwise be published on paper, such as games and animation.
By “cheap/accessible” we mean that the tools used to make the art should have as many of the following things true of them as possible:
- Does not cost money to use (or very little)
- Cross-platform (works on most modern OSes or browsers)
- Is easy to learn; has good documentation and a friendly community for beginners
- Is open source
For example, here are some tools that would qualify:
- For games: Twine, GameMaker, Inform 7, Unity, LOVE2D, Ren'Py, JavaScript's Canvas, PuzzleScript
- For music: Beepbox, Audacity
- For visual assets: GIMP, Inkscape, Blender, the browser-based 123D apps, TinkerCAD
If you have any question about whether the tool you have in mind qualifies, feel free to contact us by email: methodandapparatus@gmail.com
We will pay contributors! The first issue will be sold on Gumroad for $2. After the next issue is published, the previous one will be made free and its earnings will be split evenly among contributors. That said, this experiment may fail catastrophically—if you cannot afford to work for free/peanuts, perhaps consider holding off until we figure out what we're doing. :)
If interested, submit your work:
- The piece.
- Documentation, e.g. files having something to do with your process. This part could include a technical how-to manual, a “lab notebook”-style timestamped log of progress, theoretical ramblings, photographs, diagrams, a stream-of-conscious diary portraying your descent into artistic chaos, etc.
Send all files in a .zip to methodandapparatus@gmail.com with subject [APPARATUS E-ZINE]. We’re looking forward to seeing what you contribute!
Legal stuff for contributors: you retain ownership of your work. You grant to Method & Apparatus a perpetual, non-exclusive license to distribute and sell your work. In sending us your work, you certify that you have the right to grant this license.