My name is Ryan. This is my online scrapbook for you to add to your lifestream. I've stitched together some of my musings. Here are things that have caught my interest.
Just completed an awesome installation for our Physical Computing module at uni. Required to power the entire project by Arduino, we created an interactive installation that allows the participant to tap various balloons creating light and sound within a game space. Found the Arduino online forum really helpful when searching for help in coding. It has been my most favorite project yet because it was the simplest and most artistic piece. Calling it “Retro Balumination.” Any buyers?
Portable Fuel Cell @ WMC 2010, Barcelona. Swedish company, Myfc, has made an interesting and sustainable product which allows people (mostly in developing countries) to charge their mobile phone from anywhere using a portable fuel cell.
I learned that some African villages have leap froged technology and are making simple payments day-to-day by just using their cellphones. Actually keeping the phone charged is an issue. Great solution, low cost.
Liquid Athletes
SAM (Sound Activated Mobile)
3D to 2D dimensional drawing
Sensory Glove
View from 2nd floor
Last week my classmates and I attended the Kinetica Art Fair last week. What appeared to be a throw back to over-sized office toys from the early 90s was actually art installations dealing with kinetic, electronic, robotic, light, sound, time-based and interdisciplinary new media art. I felt like I was thrown back to my high-school science fair days where each artist had a corner of the room exhibiting their latest inventions.
Some of my favorites included:
Lilian Lijn- Liquid Reflections
Sam Zealey- Kyte 2010
Chris Levine- LIght is Love
Tom Wilkinson- Square Dance
Also an immersive room filled with LED light strands called “ocean of light” by squidsoup (http://oceanoflight.net)
Rosaline de Thélin used fiber-optic cable as a medium to create hologramlike artwork inspired by astronomy and quantum physics.
While trying to get some ideas for our new Sustainability project, my friend Steve showed me an amazing piece done by Alex Roman. The content in this video is made completely with animated CG about architecture art across a photographic point of view where main subjects.
are already-built spaces.. Interested more about this project visit here: thirdseventh.com/. More about the Spanish local, Alex Roman here.
WARNING: Please watch in full-screen. Lights off. Optionally with bag of popcorn. Truly brilliant.
Dear Sophie,
I saw your exhibit, ‘Talking to Strangers,’ today at the Whitechapel Gallery in London and I felt completely moved. It was more of a humbled feeling actually and noticed that your work made people smile through serendipitous actions and random acts of kindness.
I felt that while reading each project it was if I was eavesdropping on private conversations between you and your subjects. I especially liked your “Take care of yourself” piece and “The Sleepers.” Your works were great inspirations as I worked on an interactive narrative project for my masters degree at LCC.
Very cool write up. Can I buy you a glass of wine?
Merci,
Ryan
I’m thankful for the amazing food I’ve had over this past Thanksgiving week in London. Feels like I never left home :)
Video for the track ‘Thick Mugs’ by Vertical Montanas. www.nosotroscinco.com via: lookbothways
An experiment in interactive narratives, using a photographic heartbeat of 3214 images to document an Eskimo whale hunt in Barrow, Alaska. Simply Amazing.
The past few weeks at school I could not help but notice the security guard standing near the entrance turnstiles. I thought to myself- were they always there or did I just not have my morning coffee yet? As I headed towards the cafe cue I grabbed the thin school newsletter and read the front page article:
“Two members of the ‘Oppose’ group could face disciplinary action after staging a two-day sit-in at the London College of Communication over course closures and staff cuts. Louis Hartnoll, a third-year BA Creative Advertising student faces a possible three-day suspension, while LCC graduate Joana Pinto risks losing her alumni status.”
Now that sticker on the back of the bathroom stall makes sense “School Sit-in this Friday.” So I go from pay cuts, to job cuts, and now school cuts?! I can’t catch a break. As I read further I found that the University Union has not been told that up to 100 universities in London are planning to make collective “redundancies.” I was not sure what that term meant at first but learned that not only would jobs be cut but it also means 1) bigger class and seminar sizes for students 2) greater workloads for staff who remain 3) university staff on the dole rather than helping people to learn.There are a lot of angry journalist majors at LCC and I wouldn’t want to be one to cross them!
I have not been keeping up with what has been going on with US education systems but I assume this is a worldwide epidemic. If you are in the UK and want to help or learn more: http://www.ucu.org.uk/defendeducation
This weekend I went to a fabulous museum called “The Museum of Everything” located on the corner of Regents Park Road and Sharpleshall St. N. London (tube: Chalk Farm Station). The museum is fairly new, having only opened this past October 2009. Since then it has received so much attention that they will stay open until the new year and hopefully be permanent.
Upon arrival you think you are either walking into a bohemian speak-easy or a fight club garage down a dark alleyway. What I loved most was not only that it was FREEZIE but the curation of the exhibit. Each contemporary artist was nominated by another artists and each work description was then written about by another famous artist in the industry. Truly collective. Supposedly its Britain’s “first space to show works by Outsider Artists, described here as “un-taught artists who live or lived outside of modern society” (about two thirds are no longer alive). One piece that was exhibited was a yarn-wrapped sculpture created by an artist with downs syndrome, who was mute and deaf.
In tiny crevices and under dusty beds, there lies a secret creativity by the unknowns of society. Unexpected, delicate and profound, this democratic work has inspired the world’s greatest artists.
Last Monday a few of my classmates and I attended a special invite to the Google Technology User Group for a preview of Google Wave. I was itching to find someone with open invites but was happy to hear that everyone who signed up was automatically getting active Wave accounts.
Some of the initial stats were quite impressive so far: .5% of waves are public, the longest wave has 1134 blips, 8% contributed to a public waves, 98% have tried photo uploading. Since I was granted access I’ve been using wave mostly with other wavers and some of my classmates. I still feel however that I cannot get the full experience since my entire network isn’t on Wave yet. In class we use it for sending documents, images, and creative to each other in collective environment. To do so I needed to install gears.
I think the branding choice of Google Wave is quite interesting. Since I’m studying HCI stuff in LCC we recently discussed how some theorists compared innovation to “waves” or the build up of an idea and movement of interaction.
What do you think of “the wave?”
