Michael Ang

I moved back to San Francisco (though currently in Vancouver en route to Alaska… see the next post). Had the chance to take Strange Attractor to a meadow full of wildflowers in Northern California. The meadow was filled with several species of butterflies. There were white butterflies (positive ident forthcoming) feeding on the minerals in the mud at the edge of the meadow. I installed Strange Attractor and several butterflies came to visit over the course of a few hours. The white butterflies seemed to prefer the white laser cut flowers. The preference of the butterflies for the flowers seems to vary with the species but more tests would be needed to confirm this.

Aside from the “results” it was interesting to see the flowers out in a natural setting and wonder what role technology has in a mostly wild location.

Flickr photo set

Natalie Jeremijenko and I released two dozen butterflies in the OOZ garden. We helped them feed from some watermelon in the Strange Attractor artificial flowers then observed their behaviour. The Monarchs stayed at Strange Attractor longer and were more likely to leave, fly around the garden a bit and return to the flowers. The Painted Ladies were less likely to return once they took off. The flower design seemed to matter, with the laser cut acrylic disks being more popular than the inkjet printed designs. The blue, orange and red laser cut disks appeared to be more enticing than the white one.

A robotic Monarch was employed to see if it would attract or repel the real butterflies. They seemed mostly indifferent, but longer observation is needed as the effect is most likely to be seen as butterflies approach from a distance.

Flickr photo set

My Blue Flower was featured in the Art Work column in MAKE Issue 10. The article is called Illuminated Circuits and focuses on artists who use electronic circuits for both their form and function. I’m in there along with Peter Vogel (one of my personal heroes).

Wow, the ITP Show just keeps getting better and better. Haven’t had a chance to really go through the projects yet, since I’ve been docent for my Strange Attractor.

Rhizome calls Strange Attractor a highlight and it’s nice to be in the company of the other projects they mention! Been very happy with the response to the work so far. People seem drawn to it and really interested in the deeper issues of human interactions with ecosystems.

Here’s the picture Phil Torrone (of MAKE Magazine) took of the installation:

One day left of the show. May 9 5-9PM at 721 Broadway. Come check it out!

There was a great writeup in the New York Times about ITP this past Sunday. The core of ITP is its open and collaborative atmosphere.

I’m quoted in the article Interactive design blooms in NYU hallways on CNET a few weeks ago. They also quote Clay as calling ITP “the center for the study of the recently possible.”

Wow… what a crazy semester. The ITP Spring Show 2007 is this Tuesday and Wednesday from 5-9PM at 721 Broadway.

It’s going to be jam packed with a new record of 140+ projects. More interactive arty goodness than a brain can comfortably comprehend!

My Strange Attractor will be there.

My thesis project presentation is online. Make sure you make it past the first few minutes of silent sparkles (the videos are archived automatically and the sparkles are when I was setting up).

I took some pictures at the Biology and Art: Two Worlds or One? conference presented by the New York Academy of Science.

I hadn’t realized that Theo Jasen had used a genetic algorithm to get the lengths for his beach animals. There are 11 sections in each leg that contribute of the shape of the motion. If he had tried 10 possible lengths for each of those sections the possibilities exponentially rise. So he wrote a program to try some different possibilities, see how well they met the criteria, then use those as the basis for a new generation of possible solutions. The net effect was to navigate through the space of possible solutions in an evolutionary way. All this on an Atari!

A lot of thought provoking discussion in the talks. Awesome to see some of the scientists presenting their work and having some of the same enthusiasm as the artists. The talks on animal locomotion and how visual representation affects the teaching of science were standouts for me. Michael Joaquin Grey kind of blew my mind with his combination of conceptual, aesthetic and entrepreneurial work. Still processing…

I started a page detailing some of the projects I’ve worked on since starting ITP. Also I’m really starting to dig DokuWiki.

I was interviewed about my thesis a little while ago for Jeffrey Leblanc’s online video show Talking To ITP.

Interview part one
Interview part two