The Things We Miss

Life goes on, it slides past us no matter how tightly we try and hold on to it. People talk about the past often as if it was this great thing but not always. Each of us has one thing that we tend to fixate on, a moment, a year, an age, a person or a place. That can be what inspires us, what drives us forward to do whatever we do but it does not have to be.

There is also one great thing that you miss this most, it can be the same thing, person or place. However, it does not have to be.

I find often what I miss most changes from time to time as life changes. Yet, there is one great thing that always comes back to me. The things that we return to are those that are of the most importance to us. I find that I miss the ocean most of all, the sound of the waves upon the shore, the vast space open and yet full of uncertainty, awe, fear and joy. I don't want an over crowded beach with silly people sunbathing, kids screaming and music blasting.

I want an empty beach, a beach that's quieter. You don't often find that at least not around the places I've had a chance to visit of late. It's like here, almost no matter where you go out in the woods or the country the sounds of people intrude into the quiet. The birds, the car horns and the sound of the wind all go hand in hand.

Still, perhaps we miss what we miss the most simply because we do not have it. If we had it, it might not mean the same to us. *disappears*

Video Footages

Alright here's a link to some of the video clips, I took Thursday night before the performance to document the current form of the light up shirt. I'm not going to leave these up forever but  for now I'm not sure where else to put them.

FaceBook - Video Files

Unfortunately the video option on Blogger doesn't work and I don't care for the YouTube, stuff. Alright no a lot of word vomit for today, just a bit.

Seva

Seva is a word meaning service in Sanskrit.
Seva may also refer to:

• Volunteer work; selfless service; work offered to God (in Indian Religions)
• Seva, in Indian cuisine, a snack food made by deep-frying strands of chick pea flour dough flavored with chili powder, salt, and sometimes coriander
• The Seva Foundation, a non-profit foundation that fights blindness and poverty
• Seva, Barcelona, a municipality in the comarca of Osona, Catalonia, Spain
• Abbreviation of rare east-slavic name Vsevolod
• Seva (Puerto Rico) is a fictional town described in the novel Seva by Puerto Rican author Luis López Nieves.
• Seva (short story): by Puerto Rican author Luis López Nieves.
• Seva in Tirumala: Arjita Sevas at Tirumala Venkateswara Temple.

SEVA may refer to:

• Stand-up EVA, an extra-vehicular activity in which an astronaut partially emerges into space

Link: Information copy and pasted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Last Of The WIP Images

Alright so I don't have a great camera and it looks rather worse when there isn't enough light. However, it was fun and I rather enjoy the quality that the video footage I took came out as. I'll post some video links later, I'm still waiting for those to upload--slowly one at a time.

This is group project documentation, this documentation was not of the actual event but of some of the work leading up to the event--the night before.

Artists Involved: Adolfo Cifuentes, Amy Burrel & Jay Garst
Link: Poster & Fuller Space

All of the above images were taken Thursday night December 10th 2009. This was video/photo documentation for class as we decided not to use the light up shirt during the actual performance on Friday. Actually we decided not to go with white clothing at all. So this was a practice run, trying to get the kinks worked out of the surveillance camera, the projection and a few other little things. Ahaha, I must've tried putting that projector all over that room before finally settling on it's final location--though unfortunately I didn't take pictures from Wednesday night.

Anyway, I have some pictures from the actual performance night and some video from both Thursday and Friday night that I will post--once I finally get it up. *disappears*

What is Technology Meant To Do?

I'm bothered by the assumption that technology is meant to wow us. I understand it and I agree that to a great extent it is out there; and that's what people expect. However, it bothers me. Why should technology have to wow us? Why can't something simply be just as beautiful and elegant?

I don't think that technology should have to amaze people in fact I think that, that is a great fault in a lot of the tech or digital art that I see. People try and do too much with it. It's fun to play with, it's fun to do something spectacular that wow's people. However, the danger that I think a lot of people fall into is creating something that is too busy.

If you create a technology based art work that is too much it detracts from the work, from your meaning or whatever you were going for. If you go for simply wowing people, then it doesn't have any greater value then that.

Wow, art is fun. There is a lot of it out there because that's what people like. Things that pop, things that catch their attention; but does art like that hold their attention or have any real lasting value beyond the moment?

WIP Shots

Alright so I know these images suck, the lighting is bad at home and not much I can do about it but I wanted to post them. Having issues sewing on the inside of the arms because they're too small to fit well with the sewing machine. I think I'm going to have to put the last bits on by hand, but still a pain to sew in the sleave.

Anyway, it was decided that even the LilyPad components are probably going to snag on the fabric and rip it or at least create problems with. So I've been thinking of various ways to cover them. I like having the component's visible--though I have not fully figured out why that is, I think it has something to do with enjoying the ability to see how things work. Which at this point I can go either way on. I also decided to back the components on the inside of the shirt because some of the little bits on the back were poking threw and were a little sharp.

We also got the hangers up yesterday in the space. Inbetween holding things and passing tools, I took a few quick snap shots.

Alright that's it for now. Other things to do and finish and yeah. At least it hasn't snowed again so far. *disappears*

Inside & Out

Alright just real quick other things to do, other places to be and it had to go and snow last night. My sister loves it but man I'd really rather it hadn't done that. Yuck.

Alright that's it for the moment. Someone else who got snow enjoy it for me. *disappears*

Success

So, despite previous failures and despite previous issues... there are some good things. You learn from failing at least some of the time. We're still not sure about the eventual outcome of this pieces, it might be used in the show this Friday and it might not. Still working with it; however, at least it works. :)

Aspiring Artist's Dabbling in Electronics

Aspiring Artist's Dabbling in Electronics: Another item of note for those artists who are dabbling in electronics.

If you purchase a mixed package of resistor's thinking you will get the one's you want. The resistor's within that package are color coded. They are not all, 45 ohm to 65 ohm (or something to that effect), resistors.

So in other words you can't do what I did; just pull any of them out of the package and use it and think that everything will work out just fine.

Both images were taken from Wikipedia - Electronic Color Code, if you would like more information then is in this post, it can also be found on the Wiki. I didn't read it too in depth because a great deal of it went over my head--part of the problem for any aspiring artist dabbling in electronics--well, if you lack a technical and math side to your brain anyway. *disappears*

Problem's Post 1

So... I keep running into problems with the electronic stuff. Every time I figure it out I think, 'Why didn't someone mention that?' Why isn't that on a list somewhere of what to watch out for or to be aware of when creating an electronic circuit/soft circuit really? Well, there probably is somewhere, on one of the various websites that deal with circuit's and the Lilly Pad, I haven't had the time to look. (Hahhaha time what's that?)

So, what I decided to do is start listing the problem's I've had and why I've had them. Start my own list and then I'll see if I can't find something later. If I can find it great if not well I have my own (though some of this is conjecture and not being a tech geek, will only go so far.) Still, I have only run into a very small number of techy people who seem to be able to converse on the subject of electronics in a way that makes sense, who can understand what I'm saying. Everyone else I feel like we're speaking different dialects of the same language and getting no where; curious that.

1. Adding extra stitching doesn't help your cause, it doesn't make better connections. The added stitching/conductive thread adds extra resistance to your circuit and can actually cause it not to work. So going back over everything to make it more conductive actually isn't a good thing. For example see: Attempted Glove Light Project
 
2. So apparently you don't need a resistor with the LilyPad LED's? I added one because I had six LED's and with the other ones I needed a resistor for about every five LED's. However, it didn't work. So I took the resistor out and now it works perfectly. So I went to the LED Calculator, to try and figure it out. Either I'm not understanding the spec's on SparkFun - LilyPad LED's, correctly or something, because according to the Calculator with what I put in there the 1.5 vol AAA, battery shouldn't even power the six LED's, let alone anything else. I guess I still need a dummy's guide to electronics. (Really the whole power source thing is confusing and I ask people to explain it and they don't want to. Though the general consensus is you shouldn't hook up a larger battery to the lilypad.)
 
2a. EDIT: The LilyPad LED's do have a built in resistor on them. You do NOT need to add a resistor to the circuit with those. I appropriated the image from SparkFun, because in this image you can see the resistor on the little board. (see the little black thing next to the LED light with the green/yellow'ish lines on it. According to another smart man I know, that is a resistor that has been placed on the board.) If you try and do something one way and then do it this way that is a GOOD thing to know.
Some of this stuff really comes across as being at cross purposes for me and not being easy. The LilyPad stuff almost tries to make it too easy without any good explanations. So that if you do one and try and do it the other way you run into a whole separate set of problems. Hahaha the Data sheet above for this LED light doesn't even explain it right, we had to do the math... anyway, yeah.

Issues, problems, uncertain questions that why I try and voice them come out all wrong. Either that or apparently I just don't speak tech. Never had this big of a problem communicating on something before. Anyway, enough rambling more work to do. *disappears*

What is Art?

I keep coming back to this question over and over again lately. So I'm going to post a bit that came up yesterday during the final critique for the Engaged Art Class, and FiberAwareness Project [link] (which I think I will actually try and keep going for now in some capacity). So, anyway no long rambling word vomit today, too much to do and too many places to go that are not sitting in front of my computer.

I've been thinking that perhaps the question is wrong. What is art? Art is a generally broad term, it's rather like human. What would you say if I asked you what is human? Human are people, animals are animals, plants are plants, humans are sentient, etc. However, what we do is we do not necessarily define the 'state of human' we categorize it within another definition within another label, within another state. So what if the question is not really, 'what is art?', but something more along the lines of, 'What categories should we put under art?'

Until more recently I've always rather told myself that I considered any form of creation art. However, in taking classes that look at art and work in a different way and different bodies of work and different ways of considering art; I've had to ask myself if that statement is true. My reactions to some of the stuff in my Digital class and in the Engaged Art class are, 'That's not art!' But what is being show is a form of creation, something that someone worked on, spent time on and made. Thus by the previous definition in my head it should be art.

So what is the socially ingrained response that says, 'this isn't art?' If that isn't art in my head then what exactly is it?

If art is this broad category that in its most simple form says something along the lines of; creation (action/experience) = art

Be it the act of snapping an image, doodling on the bathroom wall, mom cooking in the kitchen, my sister finger knitting, my dad fixing a car, or a weaving or a drawing, to a display of information, a website, etc.

Then what categories fall under the broader heading of 'art', the generalized, main stream, typically thought of as art. There are a few terms that come to mind but I don't really like them such as; high art, craft, etc. However, I feel that there should be something better...

Because Time Flies...

And there never seems to be enough of it to do everything. I did a quick mock up for this because I wanted to try and remember what I was thinking. Since I don't think I'm going to get around to doing this.

We'll see what happens. *laughs* I would like to do something that succeeds with lights.

Okay, no time for major word vomit, other things to do.

And another more serious mock up to do before class later today. Not to mention many other things.

 *disappears*

*laughs* The Glove Failure and Why

Well according to the mildly helpful tech guy--who could not seem to understand a word I was saying when I tried to explain anything *sigh*--the problem with the glove. There were a couple. Not that I didn't already know that. I think we eventually managed to over come the language barriers. It's amazing how you can be speaking the same language and still not connect at all.

1. The extra stitching that I put on the glove added extra resistance in the circuit which means it needed more power in order to actually light up. (aka, I screwed myself over by over doing the whole thing. This is a habit I need to break, yet somehow I keep thinking... if I just do a little more it'll work!)

2. The little 3volt battery that I was using to power the thing wasn't really enough power to begin with. So with the added resistance in the circuit it really wasn't enough to power my ten little LED lights.

But who wants a great big battery hanging out in odd places? There hast to be a better power solution. Yes the triple AAA battery isn't that big but... Oh well. Anyway out of time and a big crit this Friday I need to finish stuff up for. And I have see the light! Hahhaha, about like saying I know what it's like to take a break or 'down time' what's that? *disappears*