Last week we were lucky enough to have the talented Stewart Smith in to give an inspiring talk on code play. Stewart is an artist / programmer from New York who currently operates a consultancy in London called Stewdio.

Donna writes:

Last week we were lucky enough to have the talented Stewart Smith in
to give an inspiring talk on code play. Stewart is an artist / programmer from New
York who currently operates a consultancy in London called Stewdio. Stewdio approaches art and software through the lens of graphic design.

He has a real enthusiasm for playing with digital tools; not
just making things for clients, but following through on ideas that come out of
play and experimentation.

One project Stewart spoke about was Windmaker. This is an
ambient weather widget which applies the current wind conditions to (almost)
any Web site.

It uses United States ZIP code to grab local conditions from
the Yahoo! Weather RSS feed. It then breaks down a Web site into individual pieces
such as text blocks and images. Finally, WindMaker sets the pieces in motion
according to the strength of the wind.

See it in action here:

WindMaker from Stewdio on Vimeo.

http://stewdio.org/windmaker/

Take a look at some of his work on his website below:

http://stewdio.org/

And watch windmaker in action on wklondon.com here.

Brilliant stuff.

Thanks for coming in, Stewart.