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April 28, 2005

making things before art school

This is pretty representative of my aesthetic in high school. I made this as part of a presentation about the Civil War. It was meant to demonstrate, in a compressed scale, the way civil war soldiers would have to lob their bullets at the enemy. The guns didn't have enough power to aim directly at the target even at short distances. They would have to aim high and arc it to hit anything like you would with a catapult.

(click to enlarge)

So I built a catapult. The ammunition consisted of several Koosh balls. It's made out of a few pieces of wood, a rat trap, elastic tubing, dowel rod, a small box, popsicle sticks and hot glue.

The dowels weren't strong enough so I whipped out a little lamination action.

Never ever underestimate hot glue at a structural material. I don't need any nails. Throw a few sticks worth of hot glue on there and things will be dandy. Screw being archival, this is business.

Even then I was thinking about the design of the interaction. Finger tracings didn't do a whole lot of good.

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April 22, 2005

sketch

click to enlarge

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April 21, 2005

five envelopes and a bunny

DSC02022-1.jpg

DSC02026-1.jpg

keeps my hands busy at least

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April 19, 2005

just what am i doing with a contact microphone, a length of shade cloth and Sari

http://www.thenaturalhome.com/shadecloth.htm yummy shade cloth, I'm thinking about 30%
http://www.gemplers.com/a/shop/product.asp?T.. cheaper shade cloth
http://home.earthlink.net/~erinys/contactmic.html how to build your own contact mic
http://physics.kenyon.edu/EarlyApparatus/Electricity/Microphone/Microphone.html an early mic, resistance between two pieces of carbon is directly related to the pressure between them
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/greenery/viol/violbits.html a little about using a retail contact mic for tuning
http://science.slashdot.org/science/05/04/17/0845214.shtml?tid=146&tid=126&tid=14 reading previously unreadable piles of ancient rubbish scrolls through infrared
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1013.html considerations for building a cold frame
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/victorygarden/knowhow/pp/antiqueplanters/index.html casting old looking planters out of a moss concrete mixture
http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/HGIC1704.htm considerations for building and function of a greenhouse
http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/hortcult/greenhou/building.htm more of the previous, but more in depth
http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1105/ this time with steps and more pretty line drawings
http://www.sherrysgreenhouse.com/pages/structures/greenhouses-build.html lots of links about greenhouses
http://www.annaortt.com/index.html how about that, a gallery representing several people i know
http://www.alamut.com/proj/98/nuclearGarden/bookTexts/Lovelock_Oklo.html nuclear reactions that occur naturally in the environment, and much prettier than a gigantic cooling stack
http://www.bluechairpress.com/artdolls.html DaDa Dolls
http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~khoshnev/RP/CC/Contour%20Crafting.htm the concrete extruding whole house printer
http://www.discover.com/issues/apr-05/features/whole-house-machine/ a candy article about the extruder
http://science.slashdot.org/science/05/04/10/189239.shtml?tid=146&tid=14 there are scientists drilling down to the edge of the earth's crust
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/magazine/10NIELSENS.html... it's a whole new ball game when it comes to how to survey people's media viewing, sub-audible messages and everything
http://www.jamespiatt.com/pillorytablebom.html Pillory dinette, maybe art, maybe bondage, maybe interesting
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/005284.php turning light into sound, it seems like one of those experiments that is fundamental as human feel out how technology can work with life/nature
http://justinecooper.com/KHG/index.html photos taken behind the scenes by an artist in residence at a natural history museum
http://www.sciammind.com/article.cfm?... figuring out what dejavu is and how it happens
http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/SIMPLICITY/ an interesting blog by a professor form MIT Media Lab
http://smart.tii.se/smart/index_en.php interactive institute, these guys are responsible for Brain Ball
http://www.kenfeingold.com/feingold-moma4.97.html Feingold on interactive art and how it fits into the bigger picture *
http://thecontemporary.org/pages/education/edu_currsched.html The Contemp 's Art survival skills lecture series starts soon. I'll be there
http://www.arttec.net/ArtProjects/GeorgeStone/BodyBags.html a little about building the body bags for George Stone
http://www.arttec.net/index.html A great guy who seems to be responsible for a good deal of tech behind a good deal of contemporary art
http://chromogenia.typepad.com/artatlanta/2005/04/weekend_recap_b.html Susan Krause gets a small mention for her show in Atlanta
http://www.tcef.org/php/shownews.php?item=20040603 funny pictures of Krause and Jarivs on a trip to Argentina
http://www.fylkingen.se/hz/n3/cascone.html "Post-Digital" Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music
http://www.shreddies.org/gmaps/ Site seeing via Google Maps
http://www.kottke.org/05/04/lessig-tweedy-copyright Lessig and Jeff Tweedy speaking on copyright
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_%28aesthetic%29 this is what cool is
http://www.mesagarden.com/index.html lots and lots of succulent seeds
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/08/opinion/08greene.html... Brian Greene on the legacy and the 100th anniversary of some of Einstein's greatest accomplishments
http://science.slashdot.org/science/05/04/09/2121254.shtml?tid=191&tid=14 manipulating objects in the computer space via purpose-made 3d printouts and camera interface
http://www.kottke.org/05/04/pick-two "good, fast, or cheap, pick two"
http://www.succulent-plant.com/home.html tons of succulent information
http://news.uns.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/2005/050305.Rube05.localwin.html reports of the 2005 Rube Goldberg contest winning team from Perdue
http://www.ubu.com/film/fluxfilm.html 37 short Fluxus Films
http://www.tokyoflash.com/viewwatch.php?id=75&KW=radio-active-watch radio active reactor symbols interpreted into a watch
http://mocoloco.com/archives/000990.php The absolute best play structures that I've ever seen. click through to their web site i must see some of these in person. i must meet the people who build these. I would love to do this.
http://instantsoup.interaction-ivrea.it/index/index_instantsoup a set of recipes to teach interactive and industrial designers a thing or two about physical computing. I'll get around to trudging my way through this eventually.

Posted by cliff at 02:18 AM

April 14, 2005

susan

An old friend found me online recently. She was around when photography was still my medium of choice. Not many people would let me photograph them and she did. She was amazing back then and by all accounts, still is now. Here's how I remember her. Very contrasty.


p.s. I didn't realize how all over that "rule of thirds" I was, before i even knew it existed. That's all talent, baby... or, uh cheating. One or the other, really.

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April 08, 2005

with a pile of screws left over

I decided to retire some pieces recently. Most things will get scraped for parts. I'm so over some of my earlier pieces still hanging around in storage. I never want to see some of them on exhibit again. As is my long-standing tradition with old projects, I saved the little iconic parts of them. I can't bear to let pretty things go. So, I usually I rip off a section and stick it on my wall. That is where the top 2x4 off of my Wall is going, all the straps and simple mechanic included. Here's a video.

Click to play (2.9mb MPG file)


Bell

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April 01, 2005

rund

http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/005056.php a bowl of water the reacts to your heartbeat when you hold it
http://www.mcwetboy.net/maproom/ a maps blog
http://www.wickedproblems.com/index.php an interactive design community site
http://www.digitalmediatree.com/tommoody/?31478 one minute rave
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/005077.php wearable furniture for impromptu situations
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1443218,00.html on the Beck's Futures artists
http://www.livejournal.com/community/craftgrrl/3674467.html really cheap, short run, home-brew screen printing
http://www.fincher.org/Misc/Pennies/ penny stacking, small structures
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/03/29/translucent_tombston.html cast glass grave markers, I would love to have something like this
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.04/robot_pr.html some kids out of the southwest beat a bunch of MIT students in a submersible robot contest
http://www.eyebeam.org/...in_conversation_with_cat_mazza_p_1.html fiber and tech artist
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=... A visual display of data should be simple enough to fit on the side of a van
http://www.brokenoff.com/diamondrings.html i want to marry the kind of girl who would like this as an engagement ring
http://www.brokenoff.com/thediamondproject.html# more from that series of projects
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/000694.php An Album of Fluid Motion
http://members.tripod.com/~NPK1/moss.html# a decent page about moss but it doesn't link to any other sources on the web. nice pictures. discuses several application.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss
http://www.mossacres.com/info_5.asp a commercial site with some straightforward tips and recommendations on moss gardening.
http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/design/2004sp_moss.html i nice story about getting rid of the grass and letting the moss grow
http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/gl_plants_other/article/...1378228,00.html one recipe for the famous "moss slurry"
http://www.gnps.org/Massie.pdf the best single document i found online about all aspects of moss. i didn't look very hard though.

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