tonight

(too much computer lab)

3 new clocks based on people

one day in the life of peter

one day in the life of jenna

one day in the life of joanna

(these clocks are actually made based on surveys I had them fill out, instead of being made up from random information like the other clocks I've made thus far)

(they will now be imported into final cut pro and have text added to them)

I think there is something successful/interesting about the little tidbits of information at the bottom of the page, like

"it was a friday... nothing out of the ordinary but he felt a little sad"

Maybe this is better than the flashing text that spells out all the day's activities? Or maybe a combination of both would be best?

I wish this was my idea

struggles

I am struggling with self-confidence at the moment, which is strange for me. I didn't even notice it until someone made a comment the other day that I seem to be "on a roll" with all these "great ideas" I've been having. And I realized at that moment that I feel exactly the opposite. I am seriously doubting these ideas and this new way of working, in which I am attempting to involve other people in my projects and placing myself within a larger context of community, instead of simply making self-portraits as I did last year. Obviously the projects are still self-portraits, but instead of focusing solely on myself I am comparing my own life to the lives of others, whom I may or may not know. But it seems to drag the process out so much longer; having to depend on other people is kind of a drag when you're trying to get things done.

What happens to an artist who runs out of ideas? I wonder about this a lot lately. Not that I think my idea ocean will ever run completely dry, but my thoughts come and go like the tides. Sometimes I feel like they go way, way out. And I start to panic, even though I know that they'll eventually creep back in. The moments between feel so long sometimes.

personalized clocks

Try playing these at the same time and see if you notice the difference between them. They are still in the experimental phase, but I think I'm getting somewhere. The top video is supposed to represent a person who felt like their day went by really fast (10 frames per second), whereas the lower video is a slower day (only 5 frames per second). When viewed small like this, though, it's hard to tell. I think it will be more successful when days are layered into weeks and you can see the change in speed between one day and the next within the same video.

I can't figure out why quicktime keeps stretching the video and making the circles into ovals. It doesn't happen with larger AVI files, just these smaller ones. But the larger files are too big to upload to blogger, so these will have to do for now.

The next step is to actually collect information about different peoples' experience of a day. I've made up a survey for people to fill out, but the question is who to study. One idea is to randomly select 100 people from my local phonebook and send them the survey in the mail with an explanation about the project and a self-addressed pre-stamped envelope so they can return it to me when it's done. I am excited about the possibility of sending each participant a dvd of their "clock" and documentation of the whole project once it's complete.

All the Time in the World

A site specific installation at Heathrow Airport. 

(Read about it here).

(reflections of) your shining bodies

I never saw your face

People In Order

Lenka Clayton is a visiting artist at Alfred this fall. She gave an artist talk to the school today and showed this short film she made with Justin Price. It was broadcast on public television in Britain during a prime time commercial break.

the relativity of time

This is my newest concern. I am working on using the computer to process data derived from surveys about a person's subjective experience of one day. "One day in the life of so-and-so," as the saying goes. Each person's day will be represented by a different clock (which will be an animation played on a digital picture frame like a looping movie, with a box around the picture frame that has a hole cut out in it so it looks like a clock) and then each person's clock will have a label underneath it stating their name --  so instead of the usual London, New York, Tokyo, etc., the clocks will read Erica, Peter, Brett, Lucy, etc. I will explain more about how it works later (when it's not so late and I can make some sense out of words), but until then you can see sketches of the clocks here and here. They are still in progress (I have to figure out color, etc.), but if you imagine them next to each other on the wall I think it might look pretty cool.

midnight cowboy

the red affair

sweet bacon

~~~

wig night

(oh, what a night)

Jason Rhoades

my animation from Conflux

I went on a walk with a pedometer strapped to my arm. With each step I took, the pedometer triggered a digital camera to take a picture of whatever was above me at that moment. Then, when I returned, the artist (Matt Roberts) uploaded the images to a software program that made a little animation of my walk from a different perspective. Here it is:

time geography

(from Wikipedia):

Time geography or time-space geography traces its roots back to the Swedish geographer Torsten Hägerstrand who stressed the temporal factor in spatial human activities. The time-space path, devised by Hägerstrand, shows the movement of an individual in the spatial-temporal environment with the constraints placed on the individual by these two factors. Three categories of constraints were identified by Hägerstrand:

1. Authority - limits of accessibility to certain places or domains placed on individuals by owners or authorities
2. Capability - limitations on the movement of individuals, based on their nature. For example, movement is restricted by biological factors, such as the need for food, drink, and sleep
3. Coupling - restraint of an individual, anchoring him or her to a location while interacting with other individuals in order to complete a task

arial photograph of Alfred

I got this arial photo of Alfred from Google maps. I have been thinking about photographing the chalk line mapping project I've been posting about from an airplane once the drawing is complete. But what this photo makes me realize is that I don't think I'll be able to get this whole picture from a small two-prop plane. And even if the plane was able to go this high, I don't think you'd be able to see the chalk lines anymore (they'd be miniscule). So I'm not sure what to do. Perhaps I could take photos of individual sections and piece them together in photoshop.

 

tinysaur

(found on Core77)

I love surprises

There is a hole in the wall between my studio and my neighbor Joanna's studio. A few weeks ago we made a little shelf between the sheets of drywall and promised to leave each other surprises. I left her the little mouse a few days ago, and this is what I found today... 

beet cake!

(photo response to Maggie's tiny mobile)

Maggie's tiny mobile!

the hug shirt

This was voted one of the best inventions of 2006 in Time Magazine. It's a shirt that can be programmed with the "hugs" of different loved ones (their body temperature, heartbeat, placement of their hands, how tight they squeeze, etc), and then said loved ones can "hug" you from afar by sending a message from their cell phone to the blue tooth device inside the shirt. 

From their website:

The Hug Shirt™ is not meant to replace human contact, but to make you happy if you are away for business or other reasons and you miss your friends and loved ones! It also has some very interesting applications in the medical field with the elderly and children. And is fun to use and very soft!Interfaces and systems must be intuitive, natural, and compatible with our emotional status. 

Combining emotion and technology should be part of every design process. An increasing mobility of humans throughout the globe, due to business or study reasons, has brought family members to spend most of their time apart from each other. Humans need physical contact with each other. Technology should allow for a pleasant Human-Human Interaction.

Adults, especially elderly people living far away from their families, deprived of tactile contact for a long period of time will tell you just how depressing it feels. A hug, a handshake, a pat on the back, and a kiss are all very important and bring us close to others. People need to be touched at least 70 times a day! Start noticing how many times you shake hands or hug a friend, and you will see that it really makes you feel good, and if you didn’t get enough hugs give us a call and come visit!

Halo teleconferencing system

"It consists of one half of a conference table, placed opposite three huge plasma screens in a specially designed studio. Callers in other studios appear on the screens in life-size, as if they were sitting opposite. All studios are designed with the same furniture and decoration, to aid the illusion. There are no delays: sound and image are perfectly synchronised. Users can make eye contact with one another across the continents. Sound emanates from the right direction, adding to the verisimilitude. It is not quite like being in the same room, but close enough to allow natural conversation, with all the interruptions, gestures and telling facial expressions that entails."

naked ladies party

I hosted a clothing exchange at my house last night. It was crazy.