Bill Nye the Science Guy on Pluto

Good one Bill Nye

Artin' it up

More Sparklers!


I like this drawing, I'm still not sure what this whole project will turn into. I'm enjoying the process and it's progress right now. In this image I am apparently absent, but I am still controling the path of the energy. This and my ideas about the universe are guiding my experiments right now. The images below remind me of brush and ink.










I managed to get the new book of Carl Sagan lectures thanks to my mom, who picked it up at what I will call a "secret" book sale. The book is called "The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God" , and so far I will say I am really enjoying it. I've been thinking about cosmologies, our place in the universe and how it relates to craft/art pretty obsessively lately, this helps to keep me all fired up and wondering. Yeay Carl Sagan!


Night on the side of our building

Working on a Map of the Universe in Time

ZKM Space Invaders Installation

More neat stuff from Computerland, as Lavanya calls it.

Suggestion Box

The Suggestion Machine is up and running!

Wilderness of the Mind

I'm not sure what kind of trees these are, but they remind me so much of Dendrites! I am excited about this upcoming project, but I am not sure how long it will take me to "spin" the wires and threads to make this work. My first experiment with this kind of installed spun sculpture took thirteen frantic hours to spin, so I am kind of worried. I have the seminar room booked for the 29th, but it seems pointless to put something like this up and take it down a few hours after completion. I'm trying to find a better location.

Who are we anyway?

Tonight I have decided to stay up all night and finish writing "the letters" to my class. I keep feeling unsatisfied with what I've written, so I start again and peel off what feels like another layer of social film. Obviously I hadn't pushed it enough, so now I am trying to do just that, push this as far as it can go. The writting is broadening out and at the same time becoming more random and intuitive. I've begun to feel like I am speaking continuously in an empty room. Ironically, what is ultimately an attempt at connection has made me feel separation more acutely. So many unanswered questions. Everything is becoming a reflection of myself.
I am nervous of what people will construct from this experience. Relationships will be permanently altered based on what they "see" in these words.



Today: I made notes frantically, went to Tamaras wonderful jewelry sale, had coffee and breakfast sandwiches with Nick and Laura, crocheted hyperbolic forms, talked to Amanda on the phone, made homemade cocoa, drank wine, and read science magazines.I did manage to make it to the hardwear store today as well. I picked up some wood and other supplies, as a result my red suggestion boxes are drying out on the deck as I type this. So I should put those up tomorrow sometime, I'll post updates and locations as soon as it's on the go. I'm crossing my fingers they won't get stolen. I picked up some zipcords to attach them to things, but that won't really stop anyone from cutting them down. (I think I might put one on our apple tree, Lavanya.) It's definitely worth a shot.

Last night the Earth moved through the Leonids, debris from the comet Tempel-Tuttle. As a result there was a meteor "storm" predicted and it should have been visible from Nova Scotia near the constallation Leo. I went in search of shooting stars with a nalgene bottle full of rose, but alas it was way too cloudy. I bet I'll find some videos on you tube eventually.

Today Dan and I took pictures of beautiful messes.

Skateing bulldog

He's cruisin'.

Suburban Wilderness Adventure!

Dan and I decided to have a little fun on our way back from my sisters birthday on sunday. We made our walk home more challenging, climbing rocks and lurking around the woods between the condominiums. We stopped to listen to crickets and admire the last wild rose clinging to bare branches by the roadside. The day was strangely warm and heavy with the weight of falls coming to an end. It will snow any time now, we are on the cusp of winter.

Spinning notebook is up!
Yeay scanners. I've started documenting everything, it's good fun. Plus I have a dog that will eat/tear up anything. She doesn't discriminate between toilet paper rolls and notebooks. I love her, it's annoying, but on the upside it does remind you that things are impermanent.
Here she is:

Puddles and Sky, behind the Motor Inn

Walking today on the way back home to pick up my cake decorating supplies. I always cut behind the Motor Inn.

Walking through puddles

Toriton Plus: Water Surface as Music Controller II

ok, I just found this video on You Tube and I must say I am amazed. I wish I could have thought of this! The sound is beautiful. I commented on this persons blog and asked if they had any tips on the faraday waves. Crossing my fingers.

realities blending day

I started reading Sylvia Fraser's "The Green Labyrinth, exploring the mysteries of the Amazon" on the bus today. En Bref, so far is is a womans journey to try Ayahuasca, a powerful hallucinogenic drug used by shamans for further spiritual enlightenment and to find cures. It is the plants that share secrets with the shamans and inform them how and what to use in order to heal.
It is fascinating and I am right at the part where she is about to take Ayahuasca. Shes been interested in exploring just what is real, and the validity of her western view of reality. I can't wait to read about her trip, I expect it must have had life altering consequences.
The whole day today has been quite a mind bender, in Architecture and Craft class we discussed new architecture, robots, virtual Space, virtual Reality, second life and teledildonics. All that talk of the mind just led me thinking more about the body! Our mind is just one part, despite it's pivotal role. History has proven we don't give the sum of our parts enough credit.
I also walked through puddles!

Thursday Already?

This week is flying by so quickly, it feels like sunday was yesterday! I've been felting away, making polyps (like jellyfish polyps) and other things. Everything is coming together at once, I was hopeing to get some wood or metal to make the suggestion boxes today, but it is pooring down rain and it's so grey out I slept until noon. Don't get me wrong, I love the rain, I just really need to be more productive right now.

I have so many ideas for my installation class I don't know what to actually put together, I have to get the colony/entity project finished asap. I'd like to start working on synapse; a sound/fibre installation that involves the human mind bridging the figuraive "synaptic gap" between the sounds and the spun sculpture. Also scrying bowl; my attempt to create sound controled faraday patterns on the surface of water in a large bowl by surrounded with speakers. These are very brief explanations, of course, I just don't feel like getting into the whole artist statement/proposal thing right now.

Here are some of the interesting spots I checked out at nscad for installtions, I don't really know if any of these spots will work for what I'm doing, but exploring is always fun.

Through the black window, under the deck:



You can hear people walking above you, it's unusually warm and light streams down from between the boards above you:



Hallways:



The inaccessable room:

Sunday, procrastinating and some work

Still thinking about that one.
Otherwise the polyps are coming along. I have been mostly making ivory coloured vessels, but I'm still debating using some colour.


Dan and I had a fairly productive day, he worked on drawings for his animation and I made more polyps (see the shapes next to him on the VCR). We snacked and baked and I put off studying for my exam, until, well, I'm still putting it off. Oh well.

Work best working random

Outside:
I've been taking a lot of photos of screens lately, tv screens, window screens, computer screens. This might lead to an interesting installation, evenutally. Right now I'm just in the experimentation stage using my digital camera. I've also been taking a lot of images and video out my window. Which could end up being an interesting collection of visuals and audio captured at that in between point. I'll try to post quite of few of the bits here.


I have also been thinking (and searching for images, if any of you out there have any) about seeds and seed structures. This electron microscope image of hexagonal architecture of the seed led me to start playing with prototypes made of coffee filters. I plan on finishing this large sphere tonight, hopefully. (I just need to save a few for coffee tomorrow or I'll be pissed.) It also turns out that it is mathematically impossible to create a spherical tesselation with just hexagons, you must you pentagons too. I looked up images from nature just to be sure, don't believe me, look at this Antarctic krill eye.












Stage 1:

Stage 2: At this point they are starting to get a little out of hand. It's been quick to put together so far with staples, but if I were to make something more permanent it would have to be sealed together properly. I also thought of making textiles based on this experiment, and so I think I may integrate the hyperbolic, lichen-type shapes I've been crocheting into a colony like textile. It's exciting!

I've been doing all sorts of fun tests and experiments, including pulling out the waves of fabric in bath puffs and dreaming about recontextualizing them, I love the mesh.