Forrest's Computer Art Gallery

Hi! My name is Forrest Cahoon, and I'd like to welcome you to my computer art gallery. I am a mathematical artist, and practically everything that you see here was done by programming on my Linux computer. (Well, I did import image data into a program of mine for my self-portrait, but more on that later.)

Ok, I started this page years ago, and it was just a computer art gallery. Soon, I felt the need to put other stuff online, and I just kind of slapped it up here at the top. Now at least they're in a list:

I'm very happy about my wedding to a beautiful, intelligent woman on December 31, 2000.
I wrote a JavaScript program to help me learn Chinese Characters which I call Hanzi Quiz.
Here are some pictures from my 1999 trip to China.
Here are a couple of my old writings, from the early 1980's:
- A poem called X, and
- An essay entitled A Radical Cosmology.
I also dabble in music. While I think my musical ideas are worthwhile, my playing technique, ahh, leaves something to be desired. Seriously. I mean, while I still think a few people (like my mom) might enjoy listening to this, it basically sucks.
You have been warned!
That having been said, this piece is me playing flute and cello, and is dedicated to my musical friend Harry Haecker.

Now, on with the computer art stuff ....

I wrote a Java applet related to my studies of patterns of polygons. It's Java 1.0 so it should work in older browsers (as long as they have java). The source is here too.

Like everyone these days, I'm using tiled backgrounds, so if you don't have a browser which allows you to see those, too bad. Even so, you should check out my about the backgrounds link -- you can get some neat designs to tile your screen with there.

Before using any of my art, though, you must check out my copyright statement.

The Pattens of Polygons Stuff

The MPEGs

The Other Stuff

About the backgrounds

Your comments are appreciated. Send e-mail to forrest at abstractfactory dot org.
Encrypted mail is welcomed: here's my GPG public key.

...and finally a few links...

I was always hesitant to put links on my page, because it seems that everyone has these long lists of links no one could possibly be able to follow. If you've come here, though, you're probably interested in computer art, and if so you really should check out my friend Aliceia's gallery. The large repository of computer artists' works known as SITO has some cool stuff, too.

I also enjoy listening to music a great deal, and provide for the curious these pointers to what I like: mostly I listen to the sort of jazz which you find on the ECM label. I also really like this band called The Moon Seven Times, who deserve much more attention than they seem to be getting right now.

For a long time I have had my choice for album of the year 1998 up here: Ruth MacKenzie's Kalevala. Since it is already 2000, I thought perhaps I should add an album of the year for 1999: I choose Thimar, by Anouar Brahem, John Surman, and Dave Holland.

(Yes, I know already 2000 was a while ago ... I'll fix it eventually.)

I have to add that I'm exceedingly proud of my little sister, Germaine. Her thriving art-and-poetry site shows lots of talent, and good taste. It's in an ... uhmm ... transitional state right now, but I still encourage you to check it out.

All of my computer work here has been done using Linux, and am very happy with the Debian distribution. Linuxers all know the place for serious news is Linux Weekly News, and often not-so-serious discussion can be found on Slashdot. But you knew that, didn't you?

I'm not that political, but you should note that this site is GIF free, due to Unisys' obnoxious patent. I also Boycott amazon.com because of their abuse of the US Patent system (which is very broken when it comes to internet "innovation").