June 12, 2009
the same drawing application that some dude used to draw a new yorker cover.
After playing around with it for about three minutes I drew (completely with no planning – it sort of turned out this way) a self portrait as something fuzzy wearing a blue shirt. Here it is warts and all:
This is the true me indeed!
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June 11, 2009
Tried to get access to Fido’s website and saw an error I should never see. Especially from a major data and telecom provider. wow.
Wow. And just after attending the Canada 3.0 conference where a rather bleak picture was painted of Canada’s new media present it is especially illustrative of the attitude our major service providers seem to have.
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March 21, 2009
From a Guardian article written by George Galloway on being prevented from entering Canada:
More than half a century ago Paul Robeson, one of the greatest men who ever lived, was forbidden to enter Canada not by Ottawa but by Washington, which had taken away his passport. But he was still able to transfix a vast crowd of Vancouver’s mill hands and miners with a 17-minute telephone concert, culminating in a rendition of the Ballad of Joe Hill. Technology has moved on since then.
Original article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/21/george-galloway-canada
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March 19, 2009
It is now March 19 and the 36 inch balloon/tablet combination is neutrally buoyant. Excellent. Last night (night of March 18) it was still stuck to the ceiling.
See attached video.
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March 9, 2009
Another little experiment. I took a little button and wired it up to the arduino. Set a little timer on it so that it would only register button presses if there’s at least a 20 second pause between button presses. When the button is pressed and the timer says it is ok, a processing application sends email. The way my code is written it could be a signal from any number of sensors and could send to any number of email addresses. Pretty neat all round.
No picture of this one.
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March 9, 2009
I bought a 36 inch diameter rubber balloon to test both its lifting power and its ability to hold helium under pressure. The problem with helium is that the molecules are so small they seep through most otherwise impermeable materials. I filled the balloon (by chance it was red) 4 days ago. I tied it to the most massive tablet I had. it lifted it! so I’m on the right track as far as volume of helium needed to lift the clay. The problem is that in the four days the balloon lost about half the helium. That rate of loss is too much for me to seriously consider using rubber balloons. The properly sealed mylar balloon I inflated about three weeks ago has only now lost about 1/4 of its helium. I have a number of 36 inch mylar balloons to pick up tomorrow.
Attached is a link to a video I shot today at the end of my test.
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February 28, 2009
I mean the hundred dollar pen for my wacom tablet. I haven’t seen it since last August. I finally bought a new one yesterday and have resumed my series of drawings.
Here’s the first (test of pen style) drawing from the new part of this series. It is perhaps a self portrait. Or perhaps not.
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February 28, 2009
I am very intrigued with the connection between the helium balloons and the clay tablets. My life written in clay suspended in mid-air by shiny, reflective, electrically conductive mylar balloons. I also have very small jars (that can be seen at the beginning of the fifteen second video called “Clay Table” in which I am pouring the clay dust created when I scratch my words into the surface of the tablets. I’ve embedded the video below.
I am beginning to visualize an exhibition where the gallery is filled with these suspended (neutrally buoyant) tablet/balloon things. Each one will be at a different height based on how full the balloons are and how heavy each tablet is. By the end of the exhibition all the tablets and jars will be on the ground and the balloons will look like beached jellyfishes.
I am interested in (as Philippe pointed out in a comment on my blog on the discolab ning site) the earthyness of the clay and the lightness of the helium balloons. The fact that the clay wins the day and drags the balloons down to earth also intrigues me.
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February 28, 2009
Here’s some video documentation of me making one of many many clay tablets. I basically hand form them and try to make the surface as smooth as possible without leaving many little bubbles within the clay.
I listen to internet radio (usually New Wave hits from the eighties) while making them. I also listen to the same music when I’m writing on the tablets. That way I’m in the right kind of nostalgic mood to write.
Anyway, here’s the video. It was shot on New Year’s Eve when I came into the studio to finish the clay I had bought.
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February 28, 2009
Sadly not documented. (I didn’t think it would fly — that’ll learn me.)
I bought my tank and brought it to the studio. The tank is about the size and weight of a large scuba diving tank. Mylar balloons don’t hold the helium (or at least the cheap ones I have).
I made a test and inflated a balloon and to hold it down I used some wire I had and twisted it around one of the smaller clay tablets. I then added two more balloons and oh my didn’t I achieve neutral buoyancy. I didn’t document that auspicious occasion but I did make a short video of the clay and three balloons a little later. There was sufficient leakage out of two of the balloons so that it no longer could hold the tablet suspended but I can re-fill them later.
Here is the video:
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