Life
November 3, 2008 at 1:55 pm · Filed under Life
Watch CBS Videos Online
It’s work like this that makes my paltry experiments in motion detection interfaces look downright moot. Neuroscientists have gotten as far as to embed a chip inside a monkey’s brain, and figured out what brain activity signals that the monkey is trying to move its arm in what direction. This video shows a man typing out thoughts with his mind. With his freaking mind! I agree with the commentator that this is evolution. Convergence is evolution. Not Darwinian evolution, but evolution nonetheless.
I quit. You win, neuroscientists.
November 2, 2008 at 5:09 pm · Filed under Life
Coming from New England, I never thought I’d be so into foliage. I think it’s because living in Boston proper we never got to see the colors that the burbs or Vermont had to offer unless you actually left the city to traverse there, and who wants to do that? Well, I’m shamelessly admitting that I am. Into the leafs. I dig fall foliage. There, I said it. I’m a foliphile. Pdx has some redonculous skill when it comes pigment loss. It’s like the entire city is putting on an art show for you.
Anyway, I also sincerely dig staying home with my wife and poochy poochino working in this new yard we have.
So, there it is. I’m soft.
October 28, 2008 at 2:56 pm · Filed under Life
Yahoo pipes - redonculously sexy visual coding engine that shall enable me to save countless hours while also providing a slick vehicle for hackery extraordinaire. Thanks Amber!
Control the music in my entire office and each of its separate zones from my iphone? Shit, yea.
I need a moleskin sketch book. All the cool kids have them.
In a classic case of cosmic irony, I just stole some chocolate out of bennies desk while he’s getting his face drilled.
October 24, 2008 at 12:14 pm · Filed under Autodraw, Lab, Life, Webcam Motion Detection
Last week I had a showing at Equilibrium, the Human Mashup. The show’s goal was to ask "How can art and technology and the synergy of the two address humanity’s next evolutionary step?". Being a staunch singularitarian this was right up, or is it down, my proverbial alley. I built an application that allows a user to take a self portrait photograph and then draw themselves on a wall simply by using and moving their hand. The premise was to use the human as the sole interface to draw themselves, exploring the convergence of man and technology. A one day only installation, I didn’t have to high of hopes for it’s exposure. On the flip side, this being my first showing ever I was like a greedy 8 year old on Christmas morning, and extremely anxious to see how people would interact and respond to the installation. The methodology of controlling an interface without the normal peripherals such as a mouse, keyboard, touch screen, kiosk, or otherwise was foreign to all that attended. What transpired blew me away. The attendance, response and exposure far exceeded my hopes. I barely had to explain at all to users how to run the application. People just stepped right up to the installation and began to interact with it. They were actually learning on their own while performing the drawing. People were actually converging with the technology. Furthermore, those that were done performing their drawing became evangelists, telling those who followed them their idea of how best to use the application. At that moment it became cemented in my mind that I had succeeded in my experiment. People had invested themselves in the piece to the point of bringing out their own inner artist. Several times I stepped in to ‘coach’ people on how to get the most out of the motion detection while drawing their portrait. The response I got was unexpected. People took personal offense that I was pushing my artistic ideas on their own drawing. Again, success. I was also sent to the floor several times by attendees who said they had come to the event specifically to see my work which they had been following online. There were even several people who mentioned that they had hooked my work up to projectors at parties they were holding. Wha?! Seriously, amazed.
I’d like to thank several people for the night. Steve Benoit for all his help with testing the application, videography and film editing of the event. The result is the shweet movie posted above. Rachel Kjack and Adrienne Fritze from SAO and Working Artists Online respectively for their organization and inviting me to submit my work. All that attended, I met some inspirational folk. And finally, my wife Lisa for her unending support and diggin’ me even when I have late night dreaded ‘code eyes’.
Looking forward to the next event.
Related:
the online version of the installation
the flickr gallery of finished drawings
previous blog post
working artists online
software association of oregon
October 13, 2008 at 12:23 pm · Filed under Life
This Friday -[Oct. 17th]- I will be part of SAO and the Portland Working Artists Network in presenting at Equilibrium, the Human Mashup, using the synergy of art and technology to revolutionize society. I am currently designing and developing an interactive art installation. A brief description of the project is below. I’m super excited to see what other installations are on display. If you’re in the Pdx area and interested in what Equilibrium has to offer please stop by and paint yourself on the wall.
Brief Description
In the spirit of Multiplicity and Convergence an interactive installation will be developed that allows viewers to draw a self portrait on a wall using a motion sensing application, a camera and projector. The application will allow a user to take a self portrait photograph. They will then have the opportunity to draw themselves on a wall simply by using and moving their hand as a paintbrush. The idea is to use the human as an interface to draw themselves. The drawing will be performed using code that analyzes and compares the location of the viewers hand to the location of pixels in their photograph. As the viewer waves their hand a paintbrush will paint their snapshot onto the wall. The resulting image will then be automatically uploaded to a photo gallery on Flickr. A different version that uses music as the paintbrush and an online image as the self portrait can be viewed here.
Photo by .:9:.
September 30, 2008 at 6:26 pm · Filed under Life
Look familiar?
Look around you, look in the mirror… we’re all sheep [or goats in this instance] following the fed, following special interest, following our two party corrupt system, following each candidates fear campaign, following laws solely instituted for monetary gain. And, we’re about to elect more of the same under the guise of change.
As usual, our two party system has produced candidates that differ only semantically, and now they’re both backing the administration’s fleecing plan. They want us to pay for their financial investment mistakes and are using the same old fear tactics to sell it.
For once it’s seems as though we stepped up and said no, and the House may have actually listened. Millions of emails were sent and the initial bailout fleecing was squashed.
Stay strong, keep emailing your masters, call them… call them out.
End fear mongering. End the Fed. End the corruption. End the two party system.
Stop being a sheep and get involved.
September 22, 2008 at 12:52 pm · Filed under Life
I wasn’t alive in 1955, but Portland today is how I envision it must have been. Well, 1955 with an uber progressive green living attitude, lots of pot, people riding around on 10ft high bikes, mopeds, scooters and every car from a land yacht to a space mobile. When I say 1955 I refer to the neighborhood community attitude. Last night the two guys we’re buying our new house from threw us a party to meet all the neighbors on the street. Read that sentence again. Surprising, right? Well now recall that we live in a major city, not Nebraska. Now it’s jaw drop shocking! Especially coming from Boston, where the greeting you’d typically get from your new neighbors is a ‘hi, don’t fu#cking park in my street spot’.
These guys and the neighbors are unreal! They all made dishes, had wine and enjoyed the night talking about the hood.
Thanks Jack and Ric, it’s not everyday you find a house FSBO that results in the sellers throwing a welcome to the hood party.
I’m still unsure where or when I live. All I know is I like it.
This photo is hilarious. I tried to pose in my best leave it to beaver stance.
September 19, 2008 at 4:13 pm · Filed under Actionscript Sound Visualization, Actionscript Sound Visualization with Drawing Api, Lab, Life
drawn entirely with code, with an assist from radiohead.
Think of code as the ‘painter’. The ‘painter’ analyzes the the color of each pixel in the image you pass it. Other code analyzes Mp3 data and controls the ‘painter’. Thus, the ‘painting’ is performed using music as the artist.
go here to draw your own
September 11, 2008 at 6:03 pm · Filed under AS3 Sound Visualization Engine, Actionscript Sound Visualization, Lab, Life
Remember when I used to take photographs and post them on flickr?
Well, I guess I’ve been distracted making things, rather than just recording them.
This is one of those things. A sound visualization engine built in Actionscript. It works by analyzing the raw data of an mp3 file, taking a snapshot of its sound wave every 31 milliseconds and placing it into a ByteArray. The ByteArray is fixed to 512 floating-point values, where the first 256 values represent the left channel, and the second 256 values represent the right channel of audio. I then loop through all 512 channels and assign animations based on each (again every 31 milliseconds). The animation effects are assigned randomly applying blurring, scaling, motion and sizing based on the sound wave values. For added effect I added a photo of cannon beach I took and masked it with the sound wave. After all the song is about a beach.
Check it out here: AS3 Sound Visualization Engine.
Music: Beachcomber Blues - Dolorean
September 4, 2008 at 3:28 pm · Filed under Drawing, Lab, Life, Webcam Motion Detection
You have to admire a job that allows you to make a bumble-bee/owl (a bumblowl?) fly around a mural merely by waving your finger… all while drinking beer.
This is an elaboration on my actionscript webcam motion detection experiments, built as an installation for the Inverge party hosted by North. The idea was to take motion detection and combine it with art in the form of digital drawing and 2d space in the form of a wall mural. The concept is to allow human interaction to affect physical space, freeing oneself from all traditional user interface. The application works by constantly monitoring a webcam, taking snapshots of each frame every millisecond. The pixels in the current frame are compared to pixels in the previous. The difference in brightness within each section determines whether or not motion had occurred in this area of the screen. If motion is detected the coordinates of a rectangular grid around said motion is recorded and the owl is ordered to go to that point. The line drawings begin and follow the owl recording a ‘flight path’. A mask is drawn to prevent the owl and its drawing trail from going in front of some of the trees giving the mural a sense of dimension.
Thanks to the great Eric Natzke for the drawing inspiration and open source, and NORTH for being forward thinking enough to encourage digital experimentation.
To try a version of the experiment for yourself, go here: AS3 Motion Detection Drawing Installation. [webcam a must, obv]
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