Megashear Open Studios

General - No Comments » - Posted on October, 24 at 10:08 am

I’m showing a collection of gigapan prints at the Cataclysmic Megashear Ranch open studios. Here are the show details from the Megashear blog:

Wide Open At The Ranch: Who’s Showing

For Open Studios 2009 (Oct 24, 25), we’ll be filling our walls, shelves, nooks, and crannies (and we do have the best crannies) with our art and that of our friends. Here’s who’s showing:

raNcH caTs-n-RatS

CakesandBacon (furniture, tile mosaics)
Craig Dorety (electronic arts / new media / instruments)
David Barsotti (paintings on canvas and paper)
James Labinski, with David and Hijin Hodge (multimedia)
Jamie Nasiatka (sculpture / kinetic art)
Lisa Pimental (mixed media, recycled scrap)
Mauricia Gandara (painting, mixed media)
Pernilla Persson (photography)
Sergio Penteado (jewelry, metal sculpture )
Will Welch (both kinds of ceramics)

and guest artists

Barb0bot (drawings)
Dave Cherry (oil paintings)
David Hodge (multimedia)
Eva4
Heike Seefeldt (paintings / mixed media)
Hijin Hodge (multimedia)
Maju Carvalho (jewelry)
Malcolm Nicoll (functional glass art, paintings)
Michael Ang (gigapixel photography)

with intermittent live and electronic music by The Old Joe Black Eyed Amy Pea Clarks, Craig Dorety, Rocky Mullin

Cataclysmic Megashear Ranch (Studios) Open Studio Poster

BookServer launched!

General - No Comments » - Posted on October, 21 at 8:49 pm

On Monday the Internet Archive launched the BookServer initiative for distributed lending and vending of ebooks over the Internet.

I’m proud to be part of the Archive team on the project! Here’s Brewster Kahle and a few of the people (Mike, Sam, Raj) behind the BookServer:

Here’s the blurb from the BookServer page:

bookserver diagram

The widespread success of digital reading devices has proven that the world is ready to read books on screens.

As the audience for digital books grows, we can evolve from an environment of single devices connected to single sources into a distributed system where readers can find books from sources across the Web to read on whatever device they have. Publishers are creating digital versions of their popular books, and the library community is creating digital archives of their printed collections. BookServer is an open system to find, buy, or borrow these books, just like we use an open system to find Web sites.

The BookServer is a growing open architecture for vending and lending digital books over the Internet. Built on open catalog and open book formats, the BookServer model allows a wide network of publishers, booksellers, libraries, and even authors to make their catalogs of books available directly to readers through their laptops, phones, netbooks, or dedicated reading devices. BookServer facilitates pay transactions, borrowing books from libraries, and downloading free, publicly accessible books.

Who Benefits?

Authors find wider distribution for their work.
Publishers both big and small can distribute books directly to readers.
Book sellers find new and larger audiences for their products.
Device makers can offer access to millions of books instantly.
Libraries can continue to loan books in the way that patrons expect.
Readers get universal access to all knowledge.

Video from Dorkbot Talk

General - 1 Comment » - Posted on October, 21 at 8:10 pm

Video from my Dorkbot SF talk on Light, Electrons and Emotion is now online on ustream.tv. Thanks to Karen for organizing, Tcho for hosting, and the video team for broadcasting live!

My slides are available and also embedded in this page below!

Mang @ Dorkbot SF 7/23/2009

General - 1 Comment » - Posted on September, 22 at 12:38 am

dorkbot san francisco
People doing strange things with electricity

time:
7:30pm Wednesday
23 September 2009

place:
Tcho!
Pier 17
San Francisco, CA 94111

FREE ADMISSION but donations to our host Tcho much appreciated.

Michael Ang – Light, Attraction and Emotion: Projects with Photons,
Biology and Electrons

Inverse Parasol is an illuminated parasol that becomes a portable
space for personal interaction on dark nights. Strange Attractor seeks
the intersection of human and insect aesthetics as an intended object
of desire for both humans and butterflies. Mang’s recent work with the
GigaPan robotic camera system explores how the tool can be used to
capture story, emotion, and discrete moments of time. Together these
projects represent the use of technology to explore and interact with
the physical, biological, and social world around us.

Michael Ang (http://www.michaelang.com) is an artist, hacker and
engineer working at the intersection of art, technology and human
experience. He is a graduate of NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications
Program (ITP) and currently works at the Internet Archive in support
of its goal of Universal Access to All Knowledge.

http://michaelang.com

Mark Pauline – Survival Research Labs

Mark will talk about what ever the hell he feels like. Probably the
robot-building business, large scale machine performances and 30 years
of intriguing machine prank/art anecdotes…
Mark Pauline (born December 14, 1953) is an American performance
artist and inventor, best known as founder and director of Survival
Research Labs. Pauline founded SRL in 1978 and it is considered the
premier practitioner of “industrial performing arts”, and the
forerunner of large scale machine performance. SRL is known for
producing the most dangerous shows on earth. Although acknowledged as
a major influence on popular competitions pitting remote-controlled
robots and machines against each other, such as BattleBots and Robot
Wars, Pauline shies away from rules-bound competition preferring a
more anarchic approach. Machines are liberated and re-configured away
from the functions they were originally meant to perform.

Pauline has written of SRL, “Since its inception SRL has operated as
an organization of creative technicians dedicated to re-directing the
techniques, tools, and tenets of industry, science, and the military
away from their typical manifestations in practicality, product or
warfare.” Since its beginning through the end of 2006, SRL has
conducted about 48 shows.

In August 1990, ArtPark, a state-sponsored arts festival in Lewiston,
New York, cancelled a Pauline performance when it turned out he
intended “to cover a sputtering Rube Goldberg spaceship with numerous
Bibles” that would “serve as thermal protective shields” and be burned
to ashes in the course of the performance.[1]

According to Pauline “I like to make machines that can just do their
own shows… machines that can do all that machines in the science
fiction novels can do. I want to be there to make those dreams
real.”[2]

http://srl.org

Timothy Childs – Technology and Chocolate

Timothy will talk about different technologies used in the making of
Tcho chocolates!
Timothy is the Co-Founder and Chief Chocolate Officer of Tcho!

Timothy leverages his experience as a serial entrepreneur, super
taster and inventor to engage a multidisciplinary community around the
art and science of making the world’s best chocolate. As a founder and
Chief Chocolate Officer at TCHO, Timothy is the creative force behind
the company.s vision and strategy, including TCHO’s Flavor-driven
approach to chocolate making as well as TCHOSource, the company’s
project to improve livelihoods and generate prosperity throughout the
cocoa value chain.

Prior to founding TCHO, Timothy launched the successful retail brand
Cabaret Chocolates, where he co-pioneered single-origin marketing with
distribution through national outlets. He is also the founder of early
stage companies in the Internet and computer graphics industries and
also co-founded VeRGe and the Web3D RoundUP. Before becoming hooked on
chocolate, he developed machine vision systems for NASA’s Space
Shuttle program.

Timothy is a sought-after speaker whose other obsessions include
community building, artistic and cultural movements, paragliding and
multi-camera video time-lapse projects.

http://tcho.com/

Please mail Karen Marcelo (dorkbotSF [at] dorkbot [dot] org) if you
would like to open dork (10-15 min mini-presentation)

Update: Video and slides from the talk are now available!

GigaPan of Guillermo Carrion’s studio at Espai Carolines in Barcelona

General - No Comments » - Posted on August, 25 at 11:01 pm

Guillermo C was kind enough to let me take a GigaPan inside his artist’s studio in Espai Carolines in Barcelona. Guillermo’s work includes three-dimensional paintings of the city and you can see some (completed and in progress) in the GigaPan. Guillermo added some snapshots on the gigapan.org site picking out some details like Michael Jackson and white on white gigafunk. The full image is 770 megapixels (almost 100 times larger than the image below).

GigaPan of Guillermo C’s studio at Espai Carolines (gigapan.org)

See also the GigaPan of Carl Pisaturo’s 2881 Gallery in San Francisco, California.

Blue Flower at Maker Faire 2009

General - No Comments » - Posted on May, 30 at 12:25 am

Blue Flower will be at the Maker Faire this weekend (May 30/31) in San Mateo. Look for it in the Expo Hall near the giant Maker Faire banner between the signs for the cafe.

Blue Flower is a possible answer to the question: what would a flower look like if it were electronic? The physical structure of the flower is also an electronic circuit. Without a circulation of electrons (current flow) through the structure of the flower it remains lifeless. As current is induced in the flower the LEDs begin to glow, providing a visual signal similar to a biological flower’s display.

Blue Flower is the first part of an envisioned ecosystem of interdependent electronic flora and fauna.

Preview of Asta Lake GigaPan

General - No Comments » - Posted on May, 28 at 8:45 pm

Here’s a preview of a GigaPan I did at/on Asta Lake on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. Still compiling all the pictures and video from the trip!

Igloo Panorama

General - 3 Comments » - Posted on May, 10 at 6:14 pm

Here’s a panorama from inside an igloo just outside Igloolik in Nunavut. You can click and drag to pan and use ctrl and shift to zoom in and out. That’s my brother on the right and also notable are our most gracious hosts on the opposite side and smoke hole at the top of the igloo. The temperature outside was about -14 degrees Celsius (7F) and it was quite cozy being inside out of the wind and all bundled up.

(The QTVR panorama will take a few moments to download. You need QuickTime installed to view it.)

Make your own swine flu!

General - No Comments » - Posted on April, 30 at 4:25 pm

You can use my Post-It Note DNA Synthesizer applet to make swine flu in your very own home (some assembly required).

The applet visualizes genetic sequences in colours matched to the popular sticky notes. It can be used as a guide for making your very own stick-up sequences!

DNA Synthesizer applet with first line of recent H1N1 swine flu

Photos of using the synthesizer in 2007 (when avian flu was de rigeur)

Page St Garden Spring Gigapan

General - No Comments » - Posted on April, 29 at 10:57 pm

Click on the image below to go to my Page St Garden Spring Gigapan. This is a relatively small one from the front of the garden — it’s composed from only 55 images. In the GigaPan you can see the native garden and Strange Attractor on the right and the area with succulents on the left. Please add snapshots to identify the different plants!

Page St Garden Spring Gigapan on gigapan.org

Michael Ang

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