igargoyle

1st Tangible Exchange was a rip-roaring success!

Above, Alice Tseng-Planas's textile capacitive sensors and breadboarded Qprox chip with LED indicators

Many thanks to the organizer/presenters Alice Tseng-Planas and Syuzi Pakhchyan, Mark Allen for availing Machine Project, presenters JooYoun Payek and Gilad Lotan, and the assembly! I'd guess we had about 30 people at this first meet-up. Some were in town for SIGGRAPH 2008, some had met or come through advanced degree technology programs like Tisch ITP and Parsons CD&T, some were crafty, and some were just intrigued by the concept of the event. We began a contact list, shared information, and were proud to bolster LA's burgeoning tech-arts social scene with a wearable and materials technology special interest group.

texchange blog

More event images below:

Alice's touch-pad quilt interior



Trying out Gilad's imPulse device, a wireless telepresence device for sensing and visual/haptic display of two participant's pulses



Syuzi presents some materials like conductive thread and textiles, laser cut and sewn circuit traces and sensors, and other projects presented in her new O'Reilly/CRAFT book, Fashioning Technology.



JooYoun gives a sneak-peak at her SIGGRAPH 2008 presentation

Bio-Visualization Apparel @ The Last HOPE

via Make Blog

In the video link above, Sean Montgomery presents his EEG multicolored LED hat, ECG shirt, and GSR bracelet. Respectfully, they sense and visulize brainwave, heart rate, and skin conductivity.

Electronics Sewing Circle

From: Machine Project dot com:
Sunday, August 10th, 2008
1pm - 3pm

THE FORMAT:

contribute a tutorial introducing a single topic or technique

gather to make connections across disciplines
leave with tangible, usable techniques and patterns


From: the Machine Project mailing list:
"
Please join us from 1pm-3pm Sunday August 10th for a meeting of Tangible Exchange (tex), a sewing circle for people who like to sewing electronics into stuff. This casual meet up is for those seeking skills trade, collaboration, inspiration, techniques, and exposure to topics with an emphasis on fiber, physical computing, textiles, wearables, and all matters of materials. If you have experience in these topics and are interested in contributing a tutorial or presenting a topic, please email textopic@gmail.com with your idea. If you have no experience but are curious, come to meet other people who are interested in the same topic. If you have neither experience or interest, but are really thirsty or get confused and think something else is happening at Machine Sunday afternoon, come by anyway and we will give you a nice cool glass of water.
"

My N430

This is the work I exhibited at Maker Faire this Spring. I've been hacking my Archos PMA-430 into wearable computer prototypes for 2 years, and hacking my Nokia N95 for about 9 months. The top image shows a video feed from my Nokia to my Archos, while the image below it shows the unhoused wiring that adds functionality such as USB connectivity and power.

Systems integration is designed for field-reconfigurability and use of ubiquitous technologies such as USB ports and ethernet or phone cables. I can charge both devices from AC, my motorcycle, its solar panel, or even a random computer in any number of libraries, cafes, etc. The two devices link up through a retractable 8-conductor ethernet cable, although I can use a multitude of available cords. The green terminal blocks allow field connections without soldering, since I believe the universal connector is bare wire if no adaptors are nearby.

I have hundreds of images of my work, and lots to write about, so there will be much more ahead. Just a Heads-Up.

Mixed Reality Exhibition: SIGGRAPH & SL

PR:
"
ACM SIGGRAPH SpaceTime Student Gallery in Second Life Gallery

Opening at SIGGRAPH 2008 Wednesday, 13 August at 5 pm PST

For the first time ever, the ACM SIGGRAPH SpaceTime Student Exhibition will be holding both a physical and a virtual opening at the SIGGRAPH 2008 conference in Los Angeles.

In a reflection of the integrated nature of the 2008 conference, the SpaceTime Student Gallery will be integrated throughout the ACM SIGGRAPH Village this year. To further underscore this concept, the ACM SIGGRAPH Education Committee has partnered with the Otis College of Art and Design to extend the SpaceTime Gallery into the virtual world via Second Life. The Otis SL gallery will include virtual versions of both the animation and print work from the physical gallery. To introduce this virtual gallery to the SIGGRAPH public, there will be an official opening on Wednesday, 13 August at 5 pm PST at the SpaceTime Student Gallery in the ACM SIGGRAPH Village at the conference.
"

Wearaware and IGargoyle Do Maker Faire

Come meet Nym and I and bring your wearables! We're here to profile and promote the community's work on this site, so let's meet, get some media, and get it up here. Come out, come out, wherever you are!

I'll be exhibiting my latest in the Wearaware collection.

More roving telepresence hacks from the brothers!

More Soon!

Introducing: My Technomadism Hacks

I haven't been posting much, but I have been researching, developing, rapid prototyping, and hacking. I'm applying my love of desert camping, travel, wearable technology, and embedded computing to my urban flagship; a duosport motorcycle. Here's a first look:

solar-nav-storage:

This photo shows items I transformed into a top case and a tank bag.

While commuting, the top case can hold gear from errands. While touring, it can carry as much gas a my tank holds plus water. I can remove it anytime. This allows off-roading without extra fuel sloshing around in an enlarged tank. It is made from an LP case, and stability tests will determine if it's indeed more versatile than a top case and replacement gas tank; easily at a savings of at least $200.

The tank bag is made from a folding map case, magnets, and wiring. It's appropriate that it holds my phone with GPS, a non-networked highway infrastructure computer, compass and pencil pack, map, and a solar battery charger for my bike and auuxilliary device battery. I'm sure it'll still also hold an actual paper map or two. I can't find many tank bags with top map pockets that will fit my sloped gas tank. So, I made a form-fitting one that mostly multplies the functionality of the feature I wanted most anyway; a large map pocket.

Tissue Workshop update

Boing Boing TV covered the TC&A cloned tissue cultures at Machine Project.

Tissue Culture & Art (TC&A) this weekend

Here's a brief blast of some of this weekend's LA haps, with details below:

Saturday-
1pm: Dorkbot SoCal @ Machine Project
8pm: The Tissue Culture & Art project (TC&A) talk @ Machine Project
8pm-1am: Censor This Show @ Basswerks [I'm exhibiting a video installation there!]

Sunday-
11am to 5pm - Mini Tissue Engineering workshop and lecture @ Machine Project

From Machine:
"
Dear friends,

We have an ambitious weekend planned. Saturday night at 8pm, tissue culturing pioneers SymbioticA will be on hand to discuss how to grow ears, minature leather jackets, and other fascinating biological experiments. Sunday afternoon they will be leading a workshop in tissue culturing (or meat cloning as we like to call it). Saturday afternoon we are hosting a meeting of Dorkbot, featuring HDR photography, self organizing robots and super efficient vehicles. Details below.

Love,

Machine

-------------------------
Saturday Dec 1st 8pm - Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr, SymbioticA, University of Western Australia:
Free

The talk covers the work of The Tissue Culture & Art project (TC&A) that began in 1996 as an R&D project into the use of tissue technologies as a medium for artistic expression. Some of TC&A’s projects include the Pig Wings, Semi-living Worry Dolls, Disembodied Cuisine (the first time that tissue engineered meat have been grown and eaten), victimless Leather, Extra Ear 1/4 Scale (in collaboration with Stelarc) and NoArk. The talk will also discuss SymbioticA, A unique laboratory dedicated to the research and critic of the life sciences form an artistic perspective, located at the School of Anatomy & Human Biology, University of Western Australia.

more information > http://machineproject.com/2007/11/25/symbiotica/

———————–
Sunday Dec 2nd 11am to 5pm - Mini Tissue Engineering workshop and lecture
Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr, SymbioticA, University of Western Australia:
$55 materials included, space limited. Registration now open

Tissue engineering enables researchers to grow three dimensional living tissues constructs of varying sizes, shapes and tissue types. This half-day hands on intensive workshop will introduce artists and other interested people to basic principals of animal tissue culture and tissue engineering, including its history and the different artistic projects working with TC and TE. The workshop will involve a demonstration for how to extract and cultivate stem cells from bones bought at the butcher. These advanced techniques can be done with homemade equipment and kitchen gear.

registration > http://machineproject.com/2007/11/25/tissue-engineering-workshop-and-lecture/

---------------------
Dorkbot SoCal 25 - Bullock (HDR Photography), Hoetzlein (Intelligent Things), Hertz Sr. (Supermileage Vehicles)
Saturday, December 1st 2007, 1pm
Free

Three awesomely diverse and diversly awesome presenters for Dorkbot's triumphant return to Machine Project.

1. Today's digital cameras have a limited dynamic range compared to film. If you shoot a photo of a landscape with a beautiful cloudy sky, your landscape will be properly exposed, but your clouds will be washed out or vice-versa. High-Dynamic Range photography allows you to circumvent your sensor's limitations by taking multiple photos with different exposures and combining them on your computer. All you need is a camera capable of manual exposure settings, a tripod and a computer and you'll be on your way to HDR mastery. Presented by Dave Bullock.

2. Rama Hoetzlein will present a range of projects, including videos of mechnical and robotic sculptures, self-organizing systems and systems for knowledge organization. Themes will include the relationship between physical (embodied) and non-physical (mental) activity, knowledge representation, and systems of belief. The relationship of these projects to the interdisciplinary questions raised by intelligent systems will be introduced with the intention of engaging in an open discussion.

3. Professor Barry Hertz will be presenting on the development of ultra-fuel-efficient vehicles developed from 1980 to 1988 at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. The distinctions held by the U of S engineers include winning every SAE Supermileage event entered during nine successive years, breaking three amateur world records, and shattering the absolute world fuel economy record on May 29, 1986 with a vehicle that got 4,738 miles per US gallon (5691 MPIG, 49.6 mL/100 km).

For more information > http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotsocal/

Machine Project
1200 D North Alvarado
Los Angeles, CA, 90026
213-483-8761

[via Machine Project Events list]

Censor This Show!
29 artists, 3 bands, a comic, and no cover
Saturday, December 1 8pm-1am
Basswerks Gallery
5411 W. Adams Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90016
http://www.basswerks.net

Animatronic Animal Masks with Sensory Enhancers

Lion Of The Sun's custom creations are literally fantastic! Some masks include color and infrared vision systems, articulated ears and jaws, and boosted hearing to simulate the senses and movements of the animals they model. It's also practical, since foam and faux fur materials tend to inhibit the wearers' senses already. From standalone ears and tails, to headpieces and full body suits, expression through play as real-life avatars is by design. Lionel's site has oodles of animals and plenty of pictures, so crawl around!

Mixed Reality Cartography Corset

A wearable device for Gordan Savicic's "Constraint City: The Pain of Everyday Life", includes: "A chest strap (corset) with high torque servo motors and a WIFI-enabled game-console are worn as fetish object. The higher the wireless signal strength of close encrypted networks, the tighter the corset becomes." Whether it is meant to be painful or pleasurable seems unclear.

I suggest exploring the link below to glean the project's conceptual background. I find its discourse reminiscent of Stelarc's. I do share the artist's interest in sensing the electromagentic waves permeating our environment; even to the extent of mapping it to haptic feedback. However, regarding the restriction of the public through normally undetectable information layers, I do not share his tenet that secure WiFi networks are as actively constrictive as this project asserts. Perhaps wireless security cameras and traffic lights are even more controling than secure WiFi, since private citizens should have the right to encrypt their networks from the public without suspicion of conspiracy.

[Link via Make:]

Glog On

Well, despite error messages I had received while trying to Glog from my Treo 650, it turns out my images did indeed get posted. These are from BarCamp LA-3 from March.

MobileCamp LA was a complete blast, and I won a Nokia N95, which will be much easier to Glog from. I am running the Glogger application, rather than using MMS, but I will be relying on WiFi until I transfer my service over from Sprint. I have several hacks in mind for my N95, as hinted at in the my Maker Square post, and I will get into that later. I look forward to Glogging about my future hacks, and more. Some of them will be Meta-Glogs, since they will help document my wearable technology work.

I am also going to be checking out the application included with my N95 called Lifeblogger. It will be interesting to share my comparisons of Lifeblogger and Glogger and playing with ways to use each application to do so.

SEAMLESS 2008 CFP

"We are looking for fashion design which pushes the boundaries of technology — computational & conceptual couture & wearables, fashion with a social agenda concerning technology (although may not have embedded technology), and fashion produced using algorithmic fabrication or innovative manufacturing techniques. Because of the exhibition format, it will also be possible to show architectural textile installations"

CFP at twenty1F and past years

GeoLogging BurningMan

Marc Merlins 2007 GeoLog Map
Marc Merlins 2006 GeoLog Map

[2007 Playa map links via BoingBoing]

Los Angeles regional Burning Man Decompression TODAY

In honor of today's street festival, don thee all thy Pornj apparel, and Glam-Tech Warriors; Mount Up!

Webcam in My Left Breast

Strages says "it screamed being submitted". You too can submit links -> igargoyle at gmail dot com.

[ Found by Strages. Thanks Strages! ]

SOLAR DEATH RAY (for hot dogs)

SOLAR DEATH RAY (for hot dogs). Bask in the fiery power of the sun! Eat questionable meat products afterwards! If you're going to Burning Man, you can try this out for yourself.

Come on over to the Alternative Energy Zone AEZ and cook your wiener on the SOLAR DEATH RAY 3000

"Where we Harness the Sun for Destructive Fun"

Warning: Do not look into beam with remaining eye.

Okay okay, so this is a little off topic, but it's Friday. Plus all the people in these pictures clearly are full prosthetic. I swear.

Transmaniacon "Game" by Lamprey Systems

The incredibly offensive Lamprey Systems is back, and one of their new games is called Transmaniacon, which deals with... you guessed it, Transhumanism. If you haven't heard of Lamprey systems from the early Mac days, don't download this before considering that this is the same person who created MacJesus - Your personal savior on a floppy disk, and the incredibly sick, Operation Resuce game. He doesn't shy away from making art that offends, so this may be one hell of a bleak view into the cyborg future for all I know.

Transmaniacon 23.9 Mb The Future's Not What It Used To Be!

Transhuman... Posthuman... Transmaniacon! Now become an Overman or Uberwoman without painful augmentation surgery or messy nanotech tissue replacement! Transmaniacon's patented Neuro-Synaptic Interocitor gently restructures the nervous system while inducing therapeutic mutation in the germ-line cells.

"It's like watching 100 years of alt.binaries.slack pics in five seconds through dog-vision!"
- Reverend Ivan Stang

Those who are daring enough, and have a Macintosh with OSX, please comment to the true nature of this game.

[ Link ]

MCThis: Wearable VJ System

MCThis is a performer in Los Angeles who wears a harness that holds a video camera and projector for VJing at various events in the Southern California area. He captures live video, feeds it through a video mixer and a laptop, and then reprojects the video. He also captures video from stationary cameras that are fed to his wearable computer over wireless connections. Check out this short quicktime movie to get a sense of his style. I can't imagine wearing something like this, but I'm sure he puts on one hell of a performance!

[ Link to MCThis.com (warning, flash site!). Link to photo album. Via ch33t4h ]

Japanese Cyber Girl

From a glogger who was in the Japanese Nippombashi / Den Den town, the heart of Osaka's Otaku culture district.

[ Link via Glogger ]

Programmable Tattoos

Tattoos are cool, but for many there's that hungover realization that getting snoopy etched onto your ass was not the most intelligent move possible. If nanotechnoligists have their way though, instead of looking up a laser removal clinic, you could just reprogram it. I'm sure many will still opt for the old school way of injecting ink under the skin, but this kind of tech is cool, not only because you can change the branding on your skin, but also because it could be used for a display, like in the concept photo to the right. The concept? Millions of robots the size of dust motes moving under your skin.

The dermal display, still a theoretical idea based on fact, is being worked on by Robert A. Freitas, Jr., a senior research fellow at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing in Palo Alto, Calif.

The display would consist of billions of light-emitting robots implanted under the skin and capable of rearranging themselves to spell out words and numbers and produce animations.

They would display data received from other nanobots in the body designed to monitor a person's vital signs. Instructions from the patient could be communicated by touch-screen-like finger taps on the skin.

No speculation on when this could become a reality, but here's hoping it's soon.

[ Link via Cliff. Thanks Cliff! ]

Dorkbot OpenHack in LA

If you don't know dorkbot, you should. It's geeks doing very geeky things, or as igargoyle reader Ro Bo puts it, 'Dorkbot is an international umbrella for creating flesh-and-bone networks of “people doing strange things with electricity.”'. I'm totally facinicated with creativity and engineering that comes out at these meetings, so I'm really pleased that socal has a dorkbot of it's own now.

Like Burning Man, dorkbot melds techology with art. On that vein, here's Ro Bo's account of dorkbot LA's OpenHack, a kind of anything goes hardware hacking session:

In the spirit of interrogating the manufactured reality rising around us, May’s OpenHack got back to basics with some olde fashioned deconstruction. Falling under the screwdrivers and inquisitive, scavenging minds were consumer electronics, their test equipment, and some not-so-household gear. Normally used for diagnosing other circuits, a Tektronix Type 321A oscilloscope and a Model F-29 volt-ohmmeter were reduced to sheet metal, coils, and their own circuit boards. Apparently Silicon Valley and the Aerospace industry provide for decades of dumpster diving dementia to come. Since surplus radiation dosimeters don’t charge themselves, we had the opportunity to stare down a ruggedized Kelekey “charger radiac detector” unit model K-125. Then we gutted it. We learned that radioactive mystique is sometimes more interesting than a few decades-old battery blocks. However, there were many more objet’s d’art liberated from their boxy shells and scattered around the multiple operating tables. They included a cylindrical, translucent, phosphor-free picture tube from an oscilloscope, the lightweight metal heat pump from a victimized Sony Vaio laptop, the electromagnetic nubs from a cupric neck massager, and the cold cathode and fluorescent light tubes from two flat lined flatbed scanners. The picture tube was like a hollow but durable glass billy club, or “CyberCudgel”. We left eviscerated laptop entrails strewn across the dais to warn upcoming presenter's machines to behave, but they rebelled nonetheless. A young woman even tried to fix her cell phone, and we all hope that worked out well for her. Those who just sought advice on a project had to be careful where they set something down, lest they look away, only to find it lying in pieces seconds later. I appreciate everyone who not only brought in items for the group to dissect, including Tom Jennings, and for their personal restraint in allowing the items to arrive in one piece. This allowed the group to share the anticipation of what may spring out from behind every turn of the screw.

Ro Bo is excited to be contributing to igargoyle, and has more to come, including some stuff on space and cyborgs. For more information on dorkbot, visit http://dorkbot.org/. LA's next meetup is on June 3rd. Information on dorkbot in southern california can be found here.

[ Link to more images from the day. Thanks Ro Bo! ]

Talking to Your Kids About Mitochondrial DeAging

"A Short History of Blogging (and why it flamed out)"
"7 Habits of Highly Effective Cyborgs"
"What to Expect When You're Expecting a Clone"
"Our Hive Mind, Ourself"
"Look Young Forever" [Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen]
"The Easy Way to Stop Playing World of Warcraft - A 12 Step Guide"
"Grilling Vat-Bread Meats the Bobby Flay Way!"
"Dianetics Revisited - The Truth About Scientology"
"The Home Depot Do-It-Yourself Guide to 3-D Printing and Nano-Fabrication"
"THE HOMO SPAIANS SUPERIOR DIET - Why Post-Humans Don't Get Fat"
"The Way to Program Poker - Training Your Celebrity Poker-Bot to Beat Other Celebrity Poker-Bots"
"Coping with Post Singularity Depression"
"The End of History: This time for sure"
"Trendspotting for Fun and Profit"
"Is Your Smartphone Codependent?"

[ Link to full version. Via Rich Gibson. Thanks Rich! ]

i heart cyborgs

I admit it. I'm in love with cyborgs.

[ Link via Jess. Thanks Jess! ]

Biojewlery

I just love this jewlery. It reminds me of the Diamond Age for some reason.

[ Link via del ]

Cyborg Steven Hawking

A friend of mine waited two hours in the rain the other day to see Steven Hawking, so when I saw this photo of Hawking as a cyborg, I just had to share it with you.

Audio Balerinas and Audio Peacocks

Ah to be an artist- an artist obsessed with wearable audio. Imagine spending over twenty years coming up with new ways to put speakers on people in creative ways. Maybe you think that's crazy, maybe you think that's brilliant. In either case it makes for some funny pictures. Actually kind of inspiring actually. The above photo is of the "AUDIO BALLERINAS", which incorporated solar panels, along with speakers and samplers.

This other photo is of the "AUDIO PEACOCK", which to me makes me think of a human megaphone, which while amusing makes me think of hearing loss since it uses 16 loudspeakers (150 watts).

The "audio-plumage" is highly directional and functions like an electroacoustic radar dish -- esthetically it has much in common with the way a peacock parades itself in front of the pea-hen (the audience). An Audio Peacock can either amplify its own electronic instrument and voice or receive sounds from outside sources via transmitter/receiver and disseminate them in a space by orienting his high-tech "plumage". Four Audio Peacock units can be acoustically choreographed as a mobile quadrophonic loudspeaker system.

[ Link via del ]

GypsyMIDI Controller

This thing looks really cool, but basically what it does is translate movement into MIDI so you can make music by dancing. Personally I would rather be able to sneak up on people better instead of announcing every movement I make, but to each his own. I don't think this will revolutionize music or dance, but it does look pretty cool, but I'd actually prefer something like Isa Gordon (aka "The Psymbiote")'s data glove.

[ Link via engadget ]

Femtech - Mutaytor Future

This is a "Femtech", also known as a "Teen Raver Barbie Clone", from the Mutaytor performance group. The Mutaytor is more known for it's dancing and drumming than technology, but three of the people in the group are amazingly inteligent engineers with artistic flare. While this picture doesn't have a wearable device associated with it, I like it all the same.

The teen raver Barbie clones from Mutech Corporation are America's greatest weapon in the WAR Against Ravers. All models utilize genetically enhanced chameleon and firefly DNA coupled with Mutel Obtanium processors for realtime bioluminescent pattern generation and state of the art industry standard graphical user interface. Black Rock edition anti spectator tactical shields, Amazon support suspension, and LED finger sensory overload systems are also standard.

[ Link ]

Banksy: What are you looking at?

I'm on a roll today...

[ Work by BANSKY ]

George Orwell CCTV

How To Avoid Surveillance

[ via enjoy surveillance ]

WARNING: Do not touch the artwork

Christian Ristow and highly dangerous robotic mouth wall sculpture.

The Man and his mouth Credit: Karen Marcelo

[ via tribe.net ]

NYC2123 Part 3 Online

Part 3 of the web comic NYC2123 is now online. Go check it out!

42 Ninjas Productions is happy to announce that Issue 3 of NYC2123:Dayender is now available at nyc2123.com. From our homepage, you can download Issue 3 as a zip archive of jpg files for viewing on your PSP, or you can simply read it online.

[ Link ]

Machine Animal

[ Link via wmmna ]

MoMA's SAFE Exhibition Photos

I just wrote about this, and lo and behold, teh intarweb delivers me with photos. Here are my favorites from an amazing photoset from Core77:

SAFE : Design Takes On Risk, the first major design exhibition at the New York MoMA since its reopening featuring more then 300 products designed in response to Psychological and Physical Threats.

The 'Camcopter S-100' by Gerhard Heufler is a compact and lightweight helicopter with an autonomous flight-control system, was originally designed for aerial mine detection by the company Schiebel.

The 'Motherboard Shirt', by the Georgia Institute of Technology, has built-in sensors that are attached to the soldier's body and to monitor worn at hip level. It is activated when there is a break in the circuit, signifying a bullet wound. The Monitor records the vital signs of the soldier and relays the information to an on-site medical triage unit.

The 'DraegerMan PSS 500 Air Unit for firefighters' by Jakob Wagner.

The Securitree transmitter. Created by Raul Cardenas Osuna.

How to Disappear kit and vending machine. The kit can be purchased from vending machines located on city streets. Inside an anonymous video-cassette case, the buyer will find a booklet with instructions on how to dodge surveillance in public places, alsong with a selection of "disappearance gadgets".

The 'Urban Nomad Shelter', by Cameron McNall and Damon Seeley, is created to provide an inexpensive and well-designed shelter for the homeless. The bright colors and the use of translucent vinyl, ensure that the homeless are visible, which is important to ensure their safety.

The 'See and Be Seen Parka', by Adam Thorpe and Joe Hunter allows the user to notice what is happening behind him.

And bonus, MoMA has put up a flash interactive exhibition on their website. Nice.

[ Link via del ]

SAFE: Design Takes on Risk

The Museum of Modern Art in Chicago is doing an exhibition called SAFE from October 16, 2005–January 2, 2006. It looks and sounds really compelling. From their website, I found this image, which seems to take on the concept of an increasing surveilled society. I wanted to build something like this for Burning Man, but I didn't have access to a pile of security cameras unfortunately. Here's the describtion of the show:

SAFE: Design Takes On Risk, the first major design exhibition at MoMA since its reopening in November 2004, presents more than 300 contemporary products and prototypes designed to protect body and mind from dangerous or stressful circumstances, respond to emergencies, ensure clarity of information, and provide a sense of comfort and security. These objects address the spectrum of human fears and worries, from the most mundane to the most exceptional, from the dread of darkness and loneliness to the threat of earthquakes and terrorist attacks.

From we-make-money-not-art, I found out about one of the other things that will be shown at MoMA in the SAFE exhibition. Suited for Subversion by Ralph Borland is a wearable art piece which uses both low and high tech to create a political statement and padded target for riot police.

Suited for Subversion is a project to create a suit that protects the wearer at large-scale street protests. The suit also monitors the wearer's pulse and projects an amplified heartbeat out of a speaker in the chest of the suit.

I really like this suit, even if it does look pretty strange. It reminds me of this idea I had for a suit that would stick out spikes when the user felt threatened, much like a blow fish. Ralph Borland's suit on the other hand seems to engage conflict by use of the bright red color, but also discourages it by vocalizing the wearer's heart beat.

SAFE: Design Takes on Risk looks really cool, I wish I had some time in my busy schedule to go cover it in person.

[ Link via we-make-money-not-art ]

Austrilian Locative Artist Colab

For all the Australian artist geowanking geeks out there:

Organisers hope to tap into developments in so-called "locative media" such as global positioning systems, mobile phones and movement sensors.

Dr Rackham said the way internet users had seized on Google's new mapping services, building new ways to navigate them and turning them into useful tools, showed how quickly ideas move from experimental to mainstream.

The 10 artists taking part in the media lab have worked with everything from three-dimensional internet interfaces to old-fashioned textiles, as well as the internal spaces created in video games and other computer environments.

The group organizing it is called ANAT. Maybe some cool art/tech will come out of it.

[ Link ]

New NYC2123 Comic Out

New NYC2133 comic out. This one looks as good as the first!

[ Link ]

"Alcohol Makes My Liver Convulse"

[ Link via warren ellis ]

Mystery Photo

I have a PDF that goes along with this mockup image, but I'd like to see what others think it is.

Clue: It's called "Aetherspace".

DIY Wearable LED Display

Leah Buechley has made a very cool wearable LED display, that besides looking brilliant, can play the Game of Life! You know you've always wanted to play with conductive thread, or at least I have. My girlfriend is slowly working on a plaid skirt that I'd love to put LEDs on the bottom fringe.

design 1. Pick a garment to sew on, a pattern that will let you sew your own garment, or design your own pattern.

2. Design your display. decide on the number of LEDs you want and their general placement. This will depend on the garment you chose and the microcontroller you intend to use as well as how you'd like the display to look. I decided to sew a simple tank top and I chose to place the LEDs evenly across my tank top every 2". Since my tank top is approximately 28" around and 12" tall I needed 84 LEDs.

3. Decide on the microcontroller you want to use. Choose one with an internal oscillator, and make sure you have enough i/o pins to control your matrix. It's a good idea to pick a microcontroller you are familiar with and read the data sheet carefully! It can take some reading to discover that what you thought was a general purpose I/O pin is input only or an open drain output.

4. Decide on the power-source you want to use.

Very cool, I'd like to see more projects like this.

[ Link via del ]

Leaving for Burning Man

Next week won't be dedicated to cyborg news. Instead I'll be blogging the Burn as much as I can. Hopefully I'll be able to post a bunch of photos of cool engineering along with my own personal narative. Wayne Coreia has invited me over to his tricked out RV so I'll try to get some pics of his mobile hardware setup. I know he has a satellite connection, and a washing machine and dryer on it, who knows what else...

Also working with PlayaInfo, and will share what I can with what they're doing, and what it's like to set up hardware in some of the most extreme of circumstances. Personally I try not to take PCs or other equipment that I can't afford to loose, because you just never know what the dust, wind, and heat will do to them.

Who knows, maybe I'll even run into a real cyborg this year. Here's hoping.

If you have any story ideas or cool links, please contact me using igargoyle @ gmail dot com. Thanks!

Frankenstein's Cyber Ninja Destroyer

Not sure exactly what this is, but I found it on del.icio.us:

Pretty good, would like to know more about it.

Cyberpunk Comic for PSP

NYC2123 looks like a very promising cyberpunk comic, which is available on the PSP and online. Very transmetropolitan.

[ Link via boingboing ]

Cyborg Fashion Show

Ahahahaha...

Yes, it's that time of year again: the primary impact that Burning Man and methamphetamines have had on the computer industry is the SIGGRAPH Fashion Show. This year we learn that, In The Future, your clothing will look like an office building's HVAC system pooped on your head.

Oh wait, that was last year too. Nevermind.

"The event's latex-clad emcee and founder, Isa Gordon, referred to herself as the 'cyborg host' and read her lines from a head-mounted teleprompt running a Microsoft operating system. The device, which rested over one eye like a pirate patch, crashed several times during the show, then died mid-show when batteries ran out, requiring a return to paper scripts."

I wish I could have gone and seen the show, here's a quote about a device that I considered building a while ago. Darn, there goes my venure capital! Heh...

Virtual reality goggles from Electroboutique turn your environment into a fashion show by painting everything you see with Photoshop-like filters. Instead of viewing the world through rose-colored glasses, why not gaze at it "Matrixified" with cascading lime-green gobbledygook text?

And here'a a picture of an LED jacket I quite like:

Maybe I can do a real report on the Cyborg Fashion Show next year. Given my dad's connections to SIGGRAPH, I'm sure I could get free tix. I once was a SIGKid even.

[ Link to Wired Article via jwz ]

Mr Bubbles' Birthday

I love robots.

[ Link via jwz ]

Cyborg Dolphins

I can't remember where I found this, but I really liked the idea of a dolphin saying more than "Thanks for all the fish". I wonder what videogame it's from.

Funny thing is, cyborg dolphins aren't completely fictional. A dolphin named Fuji in Japan lost her tail to some disease and her thumbed counterparts from Bridgestone Corp built her a new one.

Hyperfabric

Hyperfabric is this cool art project that involves a very reactive fabric.

"You can press, grab, twist, punch and play with the screen. It can even support your full bodyweight. The Hyperfabric screen is specially designed to communicate with a computer to generate interactive computer graphics, in realtime."

Adam Montandon writes:

"Been reading your igargoyle site for a while. I just finished this digital art project, and I thought you might be interested.

It's a digital art project called "Hyperfabric" that creates a very
touchable touchscreen, made out of an elastic-like fabric, so the screen warps like rubber, and can sense how hard your press it, where you press it, and you can even have lots of people using it at once, you really feel like you are going "through" the screen."

Since this is an installation, it probably helps a lot if you are able to get up close to interact with it. I wish I could experience it, since it's hard to imagine, even with these mysterious photos.

[ Link via Adam from the HMC MediaLab ]

It's about the art, stupid.

Steve Mann says it's not about Wearable Computing, but what you do with it. If you're not aware of his various artistic endeavors, check out this PDF, it really does a good job of summarizing his patterns of deconstruction in social hierarchies, and other technological memes.

And here's a picture of "SeatSale", an expiring licence to sit:

[Existential Technology: Wearable
Computing Is Not the Real Issue!, Steve Mann; Interrogative Art, Performances, Cultural Criticism, etc...]

Ken Stelarc

A Brit named Zoe Khamsin came up with this cyborg art based on the very cool cyborg artist, Stelarc.

I wonder if Zoe Khamsin will make a toy 3rd arm under this vein. How about a Ken Stelarc EXOSKELETON to go with the Barbie Dreamhouse?

[Ken Stelarc via cofuturist blogger Regine at Near Near Future]

Stelarc, Cyborg Artist

Just found a series of links about an interesting cyborg-artist, who has been working in performance art since the 1970s. BMEZine has an article about his earlier work with suspensions, but I think you'll appreciate his more cyborganic experimentations:

And from CTHEORY:

Selarc's experiments seem similar in many regards to the work of The Psymbiote and Steve Mann. I sure hope Stelarc brings his peformances to Los Angeles!

[Official website, Recent peformances via snfg on del.icio.us/tag/cyborg/]