Call the Mayor Day – Feb 9th, 2010

Filed Under Art, Events, SF Bay Area | 2010-02-09, 14:41

I moved to San Francisco because of the art scene and the amount of all around fun you can have in this city. I now call SF my home for both me and my business. Unfortunately there is currently a “War on Fun” that is attacking the venues and events in our city. It is slowly chipping away at what makes San Francisco unique.

On Tuesday, February 8th you are invited to make your voice heard and help stop the tearing apart of the essence of San Francisco. From the Facebook event:

Before you say no, read this article.
http://sfappeal.com/culture/2010/01/whats-shaking-down-sf-venues-call-the-mayor-day-thats-what.php

Call Gavin Newsom and tell him we do not want our clubs and venues raided by the police department, and we seek better solutions to preserve SF Venues, Arts & Culture. Be sure to remind him you are a registered voter in the city of San Francisco.

Telephone: (415) 554-6141
Fax: (415) 554-6160
Email: gavin.newsom@sfgov.org

Many thanks to Debra Walker, candidate for dist 6 Supervisor for this idea, presented at Flux Summit on Jan 21, 2010 at the “What’s Shaking Down SF Venues” panel.

In addition to encouraging people to call from home, my friend Ani Niow is also a temporary phone booth being setup in front of City Hall that you can use to call Gavin from his doorstep.

If you’re not sure what to say, metaphorge has a good list of talking points.

image via SFAppeal

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The Matrix Bullet Scene In Lego Stop Motion

Filed Under Art, Movies and Music, Video | 2009-11-25, 13:46

I love stop motion and I love Legos. LegoMatrix put them together to recreate the classic roof-top bullet-time scene from The Matrix. The accuracy with which they’ve recreated this defining scene is amazing. They took each frame of the 44 seconds of this scene and recreated it with as much accuracy as Legos would allow, and then some. While the video itself is amazing, even more impressive is the “behind the scenes” of how they actually put it all together. Building camera rigs, figuring out all the tricks they’d have to do to make it accurate, let alone what Lego pieces to choose!

By the way, you can check their accuracy below:

Well done guys!!

via Great White Snark via Geekologie

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In Bb 2.0: A YouTube Collaboration

Filed Under Art, Websites | 2009-05-14, 11:43

Want to make your own ambient Kutiman mixes? Thanks to the work of Darren Solomon of Science For Girls and several YouTube contributors you can (as long as you like Bb). The project is called “In Bb 2.0” and can be found at www.inbflat.net.

Darren put out a call for people to post YouTube videos of them playing instruments (or singing) in Bb major. He gave some guidelines on what works best, but left it open for people to be creative. The result is incredibly fun. You can play all of the videos at once, or just a few. Try playing a couple, and then bring in a few more, adjust the volume, start/stop, etc. The resulting sound has an incredibly pleasant ambient quality. Rather than a mash up where things were forced together, it flows incredibly well regardless of which video you play and when you start playing it. I’m also very fond of the spoken word video.

If you want to contribute to the video, Darren outlines the guidelines on the site. He’s not putting every video up because he wants to maintain the feel of the project. I agree with his choice as I’m not sure Rap Chop would really work.

via Jaku

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Zenta’s A-Pod Hexapod Robot

Filed Under Art, Geek, Video | 2009-04-08, 12:35

After seeing the video of Zenta’s hexapod in action I just had to share it. It’s design, fluid movement, and lifelike qualities make it absolutely beautiful. The video just had me saying “wow” every few seconds whether it was picking up a can of soda and not getting thrown off balance, or being dexterous enough to pour a glass of water. As my friend Neil put it, “This robot is so lifelike, it will either have you cooing with delight or running away screaming.”

The creator, Zenta, is no stranger to hexapods or robots, having quite the robot family. If you’re more interested in the construction and parts of the A-Pod, check out his post which is chock full of great photos and how-to info.

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YouTube Remixed Into Awesome by Kutiman

Filed Under Art, Movies and Music, Video | 2009-03-04, 13:27

Sorry for the reblog, but I had to share this. DocPop guest posted this over on Laughing Squid:

Thru-You is the new album by Israeli funk musician Kutiman. All of the album’s sounds were painstakingly culled from YouTube videos and masterfully mixed into 7 fantastic tracks. It’s like the “Entroducing…” of the internet! Hurry over to Thru-You.com to watch these amazing videos where you can also find the original links to all the sampled tracks by clicking the “credits” button.

Excuse me while I pick up my jaw from the floor. Absolutely amazing stuff! Go check it out

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Timescale: A Call For Artists

Filed Under Art, Burning Man | 2009-02-28, 14:06

Timescale is an art project of great magnitude. A mile long, with 27 concrete columns over 6′ high, and a variety of artwork, this piece will be a scaled representation of the history of the Earth. It’s being created by Ardent Heavy Industries, the not-fire-art parent group to Interpretive Arson, which means the people that brought you Dance Dance Immolation and 2pir are working on it. I’m very much involved with this project (guess who did the website?) and highly recommend anyone that wants their art to be on display at Burning Man (and who knows where else) to submit a proposal. You only have until March 18th to get your proposal submitted, so don’t wait! Here’s the official “Call for Artists”:

We are now accepting proposals for all 27 Timescale chapter columns!

Timescale is a journey through 4.57 billion years of planet Earth’s geological and biological evolution, extended across one mile (5280 feet) of open playa. Beginning with the formation of the Earth from a cloud of gas and dust, participants will traverse through time — advancing two million years with each footstep, culminating at the present day.

Twenty-seven chapters in Earth’s growth are highlighted along the way, allowing participants to appreciate the transformation of our planet and the exponential complexity of living things. Each chapter will be marked by an 8-inch square column rising from the playa surface. The 6.5-foot tall column holds a clear box that contains a sculptural representation pertaining to that period of time.

We are actively looking for artists to create column sculptures. Pieces should evoke an event, creature or other aspect of the chosen chapter’s unique story. We will provide a well-lit clear display box eight inches wide and deep, and twelve inches tall. Electricity will be available for your installation if coordinated in advance.

For more information about this Burning Man art project, including display details, a list of chapters, and an artist proposal submission form, please visit the Timescale web site at: http://www.timescaleproject.com

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Dracul: Prince of Fire, a Fire Ballet

Filed Under Art, Fire Art, SF Bay Area | 2009-01-09, 16:44

Last night we gathered with a large number of friends for the second performance of “Dracul: Prince of Fire” at The Crucible. We’ve been to several of the previous fire ballets and knew that the tickets were worth every penny. Apparently so did the rest of the Bay Area as the performance quickly sold out.

For those that aren’t familiar, The Crucible is an Oakland based non-profit organization that encourages collaboration of Arts, Industry and Community through training in the fine and industrial arts. You can take classes there on topics such as welding, neon, jewelry making, wood carving, fire dancing, and more. This fire ballet is a celebration/fund-raiser for their 10th year in existence. With your ticket purchase you will get a wonderful show, plus you’ll be helping a great organization.

The show itself was amazing from start to finish. I’m not a fan of ballet personally, but as readers know, I love me some fire. And there was plenty of fire for the evening. I don’t want to give away any parts of the show, but it had me applauding both the performers as well as the people behind the fabrication. In addition there was a lot of amazing aerial performances as well as humorous nods to popular culture.

I highly recommend going if you get the chance. I would recommend wearing warm clothes however, as it is held inside The Crucible’s warehouse, which is not know for its warmth. People will give you envious looks (rather than weird ones) should you bring a warm blanket. The show runs Jan 7th-10th and Jan 14th-17th. There are still several nights left at varying ticket prices, but they will sell out. For more info, check out the page on The Crucible.

The following trailer for Dracul uses footage from previous performances to give you an idea of what to expect:

Visual Illusion Jewelry

Filed Under Art | 2008-12-28, 23:21

These necklaces and earrings from Tania Hennessy on Etsy are amazing. Not only are they eye-catching, they’re also made from recycled vinyl records! Click over to her store, Aroha Silhouettes, to check out all the different pieces.

via mindhacks

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Fire on the White Holly In the Sausalito Yacht Parade

Filed Under Art, Burning Man, Fire Art, SF Bay Area | 2008-12-15, 12:01

For 19 years, the Sausalito Yacht Club has held the annual “Lighted Boat Parade”. Everyone brings their boats out lit up with Christmas lights and cruises around the Bay. This year for the 20th time, they held the same parade, only there was a new entry, the White Holly, which took things a step further by being loaded up with fire art from around the Bay Area.

The White Holly is a “High Endurance, Expedition Vessel” primarily used primarily for research missions. It’s a pretty hardy ship, but one has to wonder if anyone had in mind what it was used for on Saturday. Unfortunately I wasn’t there, but I saw multiple comments on my Twitter stream of friends mentioning going on a boat, needing ear protection, etc. The best being “It’s like we took Crude Awakening and stuck it on a ship. There’s nowhere to run or hide. God help us.” I wasn’t fully aware of what was planned until the next day.

So what was on the White Holly? Well up front there was Epiphany, a 25′ steel sculpture by Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito that many remember from the Crude Awakening installment at Burning Man 2007 or maybe Maker Faire 2008. It had a “beating” heart of fire. There was El Diablo, a jet engine repurposed for shooting fire (and being noisy) by Jack Schroll. There were also flame effects built by the Flaming Lotus Girls and Bob Hofman installed on the boat amidst the Christmas lights. Don’t forget the Tesla coil hanging off the side of the boat upside down sending arcs into the water. And to top it all off, the loudest air raid siren ever produced, the Victory Siren, announced to the entire area that the White Holly had arrived.

Videos and photos are still trickling online, but here’s what I’ve found so far:
Wally also posted about it over on Planet Wally
There’s also a good video over here.
Friends Leslie and NetDiva were lucky enough to be on board and have posted their Flickr sets from the White Holly.

The Victory Siren

Tesla Coil Test

Megavolt2’s Video

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Khronos Projector: Messing with the concepts of space and time

Filed Under Art | 2008-10-20, 16:55

Prompted by a twitter, I revisited a project I was amazed at several years ago, the Khronos Projector. It’s an incredibly cool project that blew my mind when I watched videos of it back in 2005. I hope to some day catch it in person and get a chance to play with it. I’ve shown people the videos off and on, but realized I never made an actual post about it. So here it is!

Basically the Khronos Projector takes your normal 2 dimensional picture and adds ~~the 3rd~~ an additional dimension of time. You interact via a touchscreen of sorts (depending on the setup) and can rewind/fastforward time in only parts of the image. They’ve also added video input since I’ve last checked up on the project, which really starts to mess with your concept of space & time. It can be a bit difficult to describe in words. Seeing it in action makes it all “click”:

Khronos Projector (few demos):

A new way to interact with a soccer game:

Khronos Projector (live video input + Chromatic Time mode):

While I was looking for Khronos Project online, I came across something else that played with time/space and video with realtime input and altered output. It’s just a proposal from Liam Mclaney as far as I can tell, but it has a really neat video to go with it (his post explains how it works):

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