THE PRINCIPLE
AfterMachine does not ask you to make a beautiful isolated image. It asks you to intervene in a story already underway, under a simple graphical constraint and with an outcome you will no longer control afterwards.
In production, a browser can intervene again after a new cycle has passed. By default, one hundred public contributions must be added after your previous turn. This prevents one person from taking over the artwork and gives you a reason to return later.
Line, circle, curve, free drawing and polygon are directly available. You choose the gesture. Free drawing follows your real motion and is never converted into straight segments.
The rendering ages, but history does not disappear. Older marks sink visually into the matter while recent contributions remain sharper. Aging belongs to rendering, not to deletion.
AfterMachine asks for no account, name or geolocation. A signed first-party token is used only to apply the participation rule. It does not claim to prove a human identity and is never displayed in the artwork.
Tap or click once in the artwork.
Press at the start, move, then release at the end.
Press at the centre and open the circle.
Press at the centre and stretch the shape horizontally and vertically.
Place three vertices in sequence.
Place three to six vertices, then validate the shape.
Press at the centre, choose the radius, then the opening of the arc.
Draw from start to finish; the Machine will give the curve an organic tension.
Draw freely without lifting your finger, mouse or stylus. The motion stays curved; it is only simplified and smoothed for clean storage.
Freely connect two positions already present in the matter.