"Noise Bridge is a hacker space in the same spirit as the European clubs like Metalab of Vienna, CBase of Berlin, MAMA of Zagreb, ASCII of Amsterdam. Many other clubs of a similar stripe can be found on Hacklabs. It would not be out of the question to consider Noise Bridge to be a possible San Francisco Chaostreff. Noise Bridge is a hacker space that shares a Dorkbot-like ethic and indeed many of the members of Noise Bridge are long time Dorkbotters.
Noise Bridge is a space for sharing, creation, collaboration, research, development, mentoring and of course learning.
The group as whole has an interest in programming, hardware hacking, chemistry, mathematics, photography, security, robotics, all kinds of art and of course technology.
It is a place for mentoring and asking questions."-(http://www.arcanology.com/2008/01/15/new-bay-area-hacking-space-forming-now/)
So I got invited to this by one of the founding members and saw a really nice space filled with hackers that seemed very organized. I felt like I was in a lab filled with mad scientist. It was one of their first meetings in a new space so it was more of a meet and greet than anything but I brought some bits of technology with me to see if I could learn anything about how to get it to work. I was informed that there was going to be a soldering workshop in the future that would help me wire together some of the different elements I already have like leds and solar panels. I was very inspired by the group that was there and look forward to attending more of their events and getting more involved.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Outside event #1 SF micro controllers meeting @ Carl Pisaturo's studio
I had met Carl during a dork bot meeting in mid September where we discussed robots being used in performance and he gave me his business card. A couple weeks later I gave him a call to see if there was anything I could help him with and he said the SF micro controllers meeting was going to take place that night. I rushed over and was not disappointed. A few people had brought in some very light weight robot legs they were working on. One guy had hacked into a simple lcd screen to get it to display pixilated alien invaders. Another guy had built a battery powered lamborguini. Two of my favorite things that I saw were the TV be gone which uses infrared to turn off TV's and motion activated leds using infrared. That night I met a couple mad scientists charters, one of which ended up inviting me to my next outside event.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Monument to the Goddess
"Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth, a 1988 interview with Bill Moyers,[2] links the image of the Earth or Mother Goddess to symbols of fertility and reproduction.[3] For example, Campbell states that, "There have been systems of religion where the mother is the prime parent, the source... We talk of Mother Earth. And in Egypt you have the Mother Heavens, the Goddess Nut, who is represented as the whole heavenly sphere".[4] Campbell continues by stating that the correlation between fertility and the Goddess found its roots in agriculture:
Bill Moyers: But what happened along the way to this reverence that in primitive societies was directed to the Goddess figure, the Great Goddess, the mother earth- what happened to that?
Joseph Campbell: Well that was associated primarily with agriculture and the agricultural societies. It has to do with the earth. The human woman gives birth just as the earth gives birth to the plants...so woman magic and earth magic are the same. They are related. And the personification of the energy that gives birth to forms and nourishes forms is properly female. It is in the agricultural world of ancient Mesopotamia, the Egyptian Nile, and in the earlier planting-culture systems that the Goddess is the dominant mythic form.[5]"-Wikipedia
• Synopsis- Monument to the Goddess is a monumental architectural installation that reacts to it's inhabitants sound, movement, temperature, and odor.
• Background - The idea for this monument has been growing in my mind over the last few years. On a trip to Las Vegas in 2004 I saw Jeremy Railton's Freemont Experience. It's one of the largest led screens in the world and I was impressed but I wondered how much better it would be if the visuals could move around you in all directions. Two of my very good friends are studying earthen architecture at the CalEarth institute where they create livable dome housing out of mostly earth. I love the idea of using earth but I had never seen a full sphere built with the super adobe technique. On a beach near Pismo, CA I had a vision of a goddess. She was so powerful and and had so much energy I felt compelled to try and show others what I saw. I did a screen printed version of her for a print exchange but knew that it had to be three dimensional and somehow involve energy. After a while i decided the best way to represent her would be as a glass sculpture with neon, plasma, and glow in the dark glass.
• Project Description - The sphere would be hallow and made out of mostly earth using the super adobe construction technique. The sphere will have at least a fifty foot radius and will be half underground and half above ground. The interior would be a coated with a giant l.e.d sphere screen with a glass floor. There will be a goddess sculpture in the middle will be constructed out of glass and all of her different bodily systems will be made of glass as well and filled with different types of electrically charged gases and liquids. A lazer projection system will be built inside of her head that will project out sacred geometry, focusing on metatron's cube which contains all of the plutonic solids. There will be sensors throughout this environment that will track peoples movements, temperature, volume, and odor. If there aren't any inhabitants within the space nothing will happen but the more people move and make noise and heat the more will start to happen. This challenges traditional monuments in which the viewer is expected to pose their family in front of and take a picture for the family photo album.
"The "motion sensing" feature on most lights (and security systems) is a passive system that detects infrared energy. These sensors are therefore known as PIR (passive infrared) detectors or pyroelectric sensors. In order to make a sensor that can detect a human being, you need to make the sensor sensitive to the temperature of a human body. Humans, having a skin temperature of about 93 degrees F, radiate infrared energy with a wavelength between 9 and 10 micrometers. Therefore, the sensors are typically sensitive in the range of 8 to 12 micrometers. Eventually if the people are active enough images will begin to fly completely around them. located near Lake Eufaula in Oklahoma due to the fact that my mother's side of the family owns land in that location."-Howstuffworks.com
• Benefits - The audience for this monument is humanity. I want to try and bring together amazing minds to work on a project that will make humanity proud. The audience is anyone who feels the urge to seek out the goddess. They will walk away feeling apart of the experience rather than just a participant.
There are many different ways to create a motion sensor. For example:
• Detailed timeline and steps to implementing the project- I have given myself at least ten years to get this project going and another ten to complete it. Right now I am going to school full time and trying to network with as many people as possible. First there will need to be sponsors/investors that want to help get this project started. The structure itself is relatively simple and could be finished in four to six months and should cost no more than $300,000. Installing the l.e.d screen will be the next step and could become very expensive. Indoor LED screens for the internal use: from 10 000 to 30 000 USD per square meter (http://www.screens.ru/eng/prices.htm). To make the screen interactive you need infrared l.e.d.s. 5mm IR LED Emitters (20-Pack)=$3.99 (http://www.hacknmod.com/store/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=61) Creating the goddess will require an enormous amount of glass and would take a team of skilled professionals at least three months to complete. Pyrex™ Tubing - Heavy Wall - 44.4 mm - 1 Case $180.00 (www.glass-supply.com)
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Outside event #2 SF Decompression
So I moved to San Francisco which is the original home of the Burning Man festival and a little while after the actual festival was over the local burners put on a great event called decompression. I went in search of the most interesting and cutting edge art and entertainment and found a few interesting things. The S.W.A.R.M. project was there with their robotic orbs and the Flaming Lotus Girls brought out a piece of their giant fire installation, Mutopia. These were great but I had already seen them so I wasn't surprised. Then I went into the twenty one and up area and found what I was looking for, The Wheel of Mashup. The video below is a great demonstration and provides more information than was given at the event but it was also the first time it was shown in public. It was a very interesting looking set up and the crowd seemed to be thoroughly entertained.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Second Life
So Lauren and explored second life together and it wasn't that bad. We went to an exotic garden and met a couple of guys who were from Italy. Then we went to a furniture/art gallery and checked out some works. My favorite part was when we ended up at a club/carnival that looked like San Francisco. I wondered around and found a piano to play but it wasn't interactive enough for me but it made for a good snapshot. I lost my internet connection and when I came back I found Lauren dancing on a stripper pole. I also ended up somewhere strange where two really geeky guys were talking all about resing and they had created old arcade games and were so excited about second life. I was happy to get back to neware and reenter the real world. I now see why people love second life. Maybe in the future I will create an art gallery for myself but I don't feel an immediate need for it.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Bush
“You dial a number and the machine selects and connects just one of a million possible stations.”
Now there are an overwhelming number of people all over the world that are in constant communication with each other. Through emails, text messages, phone calls, blogs, and web cams humans can now spend more time communicating digitally than actually engaging in there immediate surrounding environment.
“A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.”
The laptop is an even smaller device than the memex and is able to run multiple programs simultaneously at an ever-increasing speed and efficiency. It calculates, communicates, produces, and can control aspects of the outside world. Missile defense systems all over the globe can be controlled through a single laptop computer. A musician can record the entirety of his life’s work on one laptop computer. People in any given field can find the most contemporary works in their field and communicate almost instantly with their colleagues. They’re able to exchange their findings with large groups of people who can give feedback.
“In the outside world, all forms of intelligence whether of sound or sight, have been reduced to the form of varying currents in an electric circuit in order that they may be transmitted. Inside the human frame exactly the same sort of process occurs. Must we always transform to mechanical movements in order to proceed from one electrical phenomenon to another? It is a suggestive thought, but it hardly warrants prediction without losing touch with reality and immediateness.”
Animals have been used as our slaves since we begin domesticating them. Then we began to use our intellect to the point where we could convince others to do twice the amount of work needed to survive so they would never have to do any physical labor. We are presently using robotics to do anything that would cost more to hire a staff of people to work as laborers. We could be hooked up to VR machines with feeding tubes and never have to interact in this dimension again. We co
“Presumably man's spirit should be elevated if he can better review his shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems. He has built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory. His excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand, with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important.”
With the Internet we have a wide variety of information that we can browse through at any time of the day. You can bookmark certain pages of information that you find interesting or important and call up that information by clicking a single button. With our search data bases you can pull up multiple sources of information that contain the whole or part of the information your interested in. Not all of the information is relevant to you but you have the option to quickly browse through them to find the most credible source. It is more enjoyable because you do not have to sit in a library with a huge stack of books that took you an hour to find amongst all the other volumes. Now you can easily single out, copy, and reproduce the most important pieces of information on your hard drive.
“The applications of science have built man a well-supplied house, and are teaching him to live healthily therein. They have enabled him to throw masses of people against one another with cruel weapons. They may yet allow him truly to encompass the great record and to grow in the wisdom of race experience. He may perish in conflict before he learns to wield that record for his true good. Yet, in the application of science to the needs and desires of man, it would seem to be a singularly unfortunate stage at which to terminate the process, or to lose hope as to the outcome.”
As Americans we have become so comfortable and attached to our home that we’ve almost forgotten where we came from. We often put or comfort and ease of interaction before our health and well-being. You can now sit behind a computer desk and create hardly any motion with your body in three-dimensional space. I feel like society is cramping itself up. We need to figure out way to interact more with our immediate surroundings while still being able to transfer large amounts of information and stay in contact with others. The great record is the most amazing part of Bush’s article in my eyes. I have heard about this great record before as a place that exist almost in another dimension but I believe cyber space is that dimension. We are free to go into it whenever we feel the need but are not physically surrounded by it or attached to it on a day-to-day basis.
Bush seemed to be a visionary for the future. Most of his ideas have come into existence by now but we always need information faster and more efficiently. The next step is being able to study multiple volumes of information simultaneously without having to use our eyes. This information would be transferred to our minds electronically through a device that hooks up to our neurons. We need to transfer all this information from computers into our minds or transfer ourselves into the computer.
Now there are an overwhelming number of people all over the world that are in constant communication with each other. Through emails, text messages, phone calls, blogs, and web cams humans can now spend more time communicating digitally than actually engaging in there immediate surrounding environment.
“A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.”
The laptop is an even smaller device than the memex and is able to run multiple programs simultaneously at an ever-increasing speed and efficiency. It calculates, communicates, produces, and can control aspects of the outside world. Missile defense systems all over the globe can be controlled through a single laptop computer. A musician can record the entirety of his life’s work on one laptop computer. People in any given field can find the most contemporary works in their field and communicate almost instantly with their colleagues. They’re able to exchange their findings with large groups of people who can give feedback.
“In the outside world, all forms of intelligence whether of sound or sight, have been reduced to the form of varying currents in an electric circuit in order that they may be transmitted. Inside the human frame exactly the same sort of process occurs. Must we always transform to mechanical movements in order to proceed from one electrical phenomenon to another? It is a suggestive thought, but it hardly warrants prediction without losing touch with reality and immediateness.”
Animals have been used as our slaves since we begin domesticating them. Then we began to use our intellect to the point where we could convince others to do twice the amount of work needed to survive so they would never have to do any physical labor. We are presently using robotics to do anything that would cost more to hire a staff of people to work as laborers. We could be hooked up to VR machines with feeding tubes and never have to interact in this dimension again. We co
“Presumably man's spirit should be elevated if he can better review his shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems. He has built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory. His excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand, with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important.”
With the Internet we have a wide variety of information that we can browse through at any time of the day. You can bookmark certain pages of information that you find interesting or important and call up that information by clicking a single button. With our search data bases you can pull up multiple sources of information that contain the whole or part of the information your interested in. Not all of the information is relevant to you but you have the option to quickly browse through them to find the most credible source. It is more enjoyable because you do not have to sit in a library with a huge stack of books that took you an hour to find amongst all the other volumes. Now you can easily single out, copy, and reproduce the most important pieces of information on your hard drive.
“The applications of science have built man a well-supplied house, and are teaching him to live healthily therein. They have enabled him to throw masses of people against one another with cruel weapons. They may yet allow him truly to encompass the great record and to grow in the wisdom of race experience. He may perish in conflict before he learns to wield that record for his true good. Yet, in the application of science to the needs and desires of man, it would seem to be a singularly unfortunate stage at which to terminate the process, or to lose hope as to the outcome.”
As Americans we have become so comfortable and attached to our home that we’ve almost forgotten where we came from. We often put or comfort and ease of interaction before our health and well-being. You can now sit behind a computer desk and create hardly any motion with your body in three-dimensional space. I feel like society is cramping itself up. We need to figure out way to interact more with our immediate surroundings while still being able to transfer large amounts of information and stay in contact with others. The great record is the most amazing part of Bush’s article in my eyes. I have heard about this great record before as a place that exist almost in another dimension but I believe cyber space is that dimension. We are free to go into it whenever we feel the need but are not physically surrounded by it or attached to it on a day-to-day basis.
Bush seemed to be a visionary for the future. Most of his ideas have come into existence by now but we always need information faster and more efficiently. The next step is being able to study multiple volumes of information simultaneously without having to use our eyes. This information would be transferred to our minds electronically through a device that hooks up to our neurons. We need to transfer all this information from computers into our minds or transfer ourselves into the computer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)