Light Pattern, like other programming languages, is a list of rules, a grammar to communicate with a compiler. In Light Pattern, this communication happens through source code made up of photographs. Instead of using words to communicate to the machine, it uses changes in brightness, contrast and color from one image to the next.

Source excerpt

Here is an excerpt of a program that writes "Hello, World!" to the screen. The same subject was used, so that changes in color and exposure are made more clear visually. It was written in the original version of Light Pattern, which read each photo's shutter speed and aperture from its metadata in place of the brightness and contrast of the image itself:

See more Hello, World programs →

Recipes & the machine

Light Pattern can be used to create any simple program. The language is unusual in that it's nearly impossible to write the same program exactly the same way more than once; even when the program functions identically, the photos that make up the source code will be different every time a program is constructed. The programmatic recipes are strategies for pairing programs and images that relate in some way. They are patterns to construct programs repeatedly, exploring the same theme with differing images.

Writing complex or lengthy Light Pattern programs can be difficult. So there is also a machine that takes the photos to write a program automatically.

My writing on Light Pattern

• “Light Pattern: Writing Code with Photographs” AbstractFull article (PDF) Leonardo, Aug 2015, Vol. 48, No. 4 (MIT Press)
• “Light Pattern: Building an Algorithmic Photography” ICP

Press

• Kill Screen Daily
• ARTnews
• Vice / Creators Project (archived)