Graphs thru 100x

TED - Open Source Ecology

2011-04-22T23:24:00.002-05:00

Novella Carpenter Interview

2011-04-18T14:29:00.000-05:00

2011-04-01T10:52:00.000-05:00

The Farm Institute as taught me nearly as much as I have learned in my four years of college, so I'm really excited to be returning this summer, but in a different position. TFI is expanding the age-range of their programs to teens and adults. Running programs for kids can be taxing because they don't always have their heads screwed on all the way, but with these new programs, the content is going to have to be much more extensive. From here in WI, it looks like the main focus is going to be teen programming, so it will be like teaching high school, which seems a little scary, just being 4 years removed.

I have one coworker who I'm teaming up with for the programs, and we're going to be doing some oxen training, and building a solar greenhouse onto the main office. I'd really like to plant some spring wheat, and while it's growing we could overhaul a bicycle to power a belt. The belt could be connected a thresher, or a grinder for grain processing, or it could power a sewing machine, a table saw... maybe we could adapt it into a small people powered airplane.

The point is that we could take rye or wheat or corn or quinoa or amaranth, and from the point that it reaches our humble farm, we could grow, harvest and process into flour all these grains, without any sort of petroleum intervention. What about calling it the Grass, Roots & Grains Project?

Summer Project

2011-03-31T20:55:00.000-05:00

This guy is a genius. A bicycle powered anything. I think it would be beautiful to build a bicycle that could power a thresher and grinder. With a scythe you could have a petroleum free grain operation.

Canned Food Inventory

2011-01-18T20:31:00.001-06:00

Took inventory on the canned goods today.

We have (from left to right)
1 jar chard stems
2 jars pickled beets
3 jars rattituille
2 jars diced tomatoes
4 jars pured tomatoes
4 jars marinara sauce
5 jars apple sauce
2 jars fast spear pickles
2 jars sliced fast pickles
3 jars fermented spear pickles
2 jars dilly beans

Stinky Day

2011-01-16T17:44:00.001-06:00

At the end of last semester I was short on time before leaving, so I left my big crock of fermenting cabbage to it's own devices. Today I came home after a month vacation to find the stinkiest sauerkraut I have ever smelled—actually the stinkiest thing that could have been called food—and intense mix between blue cheese and armpits.

I should have canned it long before the semester was over. Not only was it stinky, but it had begun to totally disintegrate—stinky cabbage sludge! I was sad that it had been neglected, but not at all to see it outside in the garbage. Gross!

Rotation of Crops

2011-01-13T13:00:00.001-06:00

I'm on the cusp of my last semester at College, and my new job at the Farm Institute seems right on the horizon. I just heard that a greenhouse addition to the main office ala Earth Ship is in the works. We could grow food all year long and heat the house (via passive solar) in the winter. I'm most excited about the prospect of a future farm tech showcase with different hydroponic setups, including a window farm and an aquaculture system. I have an idea that we could make a aquaculture system that raises very small fish that feed on algae — hopefully some that we can fry and eat.

Inside the main hallway/greenhouse of an earthship
[http://new.earthship.org/buildings/global]

Flipbook

2010-04-24T19:18:00.005-05:00

Here is a low-res version of what my flip-book will be! A new way to look at evolutionary history.

From Fractal Tree gif

Click on the image to see the whole thing bigger. Part of it is cut off here.

Proposal Update

2010-04-14T11:44:00.000-05:00

I have an update to my project proposal. I'm going to take it a step further.

See below, a Viewmaster. I'm essentially going to cut out the centers of the slide disks, and attach 3 or 4 of them. All the of images, rather than being separate slides will be a continuous image consisting of many frames. I will create a slideshow of all of the frames running continuously together like a movie. I'll do this by taking pictures of the entire object with a focus on one frame. Doing this will encourage the viewer to see the motion portrayed in the images, while accentuating the unusual shape of the piece. I like this idea most because I'll be able to display it well on the internet!

Lola Dupre

2010-04-13T08:24:00.000-05:00

Some images from Lola Dupre. I'm working on a project on David Hockney, focussing on his construction style in photography and painting. I wonder if Dupre should be included as a current approach. See her photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lola_dupre/

Project 4 Ideas

2010-04-12T15:01:00.003-05:00

I have 2 ideas for my final project. The goal of each is to show motion in one way or another.

The first is to continue building my hyperbolic photographs. I'll make a new, longer, but not larger version of my last. I think 8" is a good diameter, the 24" hyperbole was too much to put together and transport. The size, contrary to my predictions did not improve the object as a whole.

I would show motion as a panoramic where the subject moves from picture to picture, the images would be turned into circles and stitched together using the same method. The viewer could rotate the object to see the consecutive images, but the backgrounds would be seamlessly stitched together. I think this music video from Sigur Ros shows the kind of look I'd go for. Probably a self portrait, I think it might be interesting to do it in the dark too. Maybe the whole project or half would be in the dark.

Sigur Rós - Gobbledigook from Sigur Rós on Vimeo.

This is the style/type of photograph I'd project onto the hyperbolic plane:

My second idea comes from philosophy. We've been discussing reductionism in science, if it is possible and if it is good or bad. While reductionism can lead to a deeper understand of a concept, the focus must, as a consequence become smaller. This would take the form of a flip book. It would show the reduction of a photograph into its basic parts - pixels, color values, then to 1's & 0's of binary. Another reduction, which could possibly go on the back side, would keep the scale the same, but reduce the objects, turning them to black & white, then to outlines, then to text, which would then to reduce to "image". Through this reductionistic journey, the viewer would see the photograph broken down into it's basic parts.

This would be a visual representation analogous to the reduction of psychology to physics. The viewer would see, first hand how detail is lost as it is gained. The goal would be to increase the viewers awareness of reductionism in society and to prevent the misuse of it.

Pig: 05049

2010-04-06T16:07:00.001-05:00

Christien Meindertsma is dutch designer. She put together this incredible book about a pig, number 05049, and what happens to it after it is slaughtered. The book is three years work of finding and cataloguing each product that is produced from this one pig. Below is part of her exhibition of the project: each product, packaged as if it everyone considered it an animal product.

This is from http://ibrahimbaba.wordpress.com/ It's a nice rundown of some of the products included in her book.

Here is an excellent Ted talk about Pig: 05049

TEDxAmsterdam: Christien Meindertsma from TEDxAmsterdam on Vimeo.

I didn't really understand what was behind this piece at first, but after watching and reading some interviews I realized that she's talking about the same farm to table pathways that I'm seriously interested in. My posts will probably head more that direction as my summer job at the Farm Institute approaches yet again. These pathways and networks have really become a dominant theme in my life, with the brassica tree, which will hopefully become a web, and the invisible network/pathway from farm to table.

I'm already thinking about creating a network of milk cattle breeds. I need to find a protein - I'm thinking one that occurs in milk. I think it'll be interesting because we think of species differentiation as very linear, when in fact it can be much more complex. With breeds, often the lines are crossed to form new lines, and lineages are rarely clear. This network would likely match up well on a map of europe, where most of these breeds were created. It could even be done in 3 dimensions, with the z axis showing time. I feel like this could be interesting from an anthropological perspective because it would show the migrations of people through the breeding of the cattle they brought with them.

Some sort of book like Meindertsma's following an old milk cow would be very interesting for me too. If only I had the time... Because they're not meat cows, the different paths followed by their parts after death must be incredible. It makes me wonder how different the processes are in the Netherlands versus the United States. I bet American farmers and meat processors throw more away.

Post Crit. 3

2010-04-02T08:53:00.000-05:00

Critique went well, although mine seemed to go on forever. I felt like things were mostly good, although most of what I remember are suggestions for different substrates, possibly to leave the photograph behind. Maybe this pairing of hyperbole and image was too out there. I'm glad I did it but I'm unsure if people really got it.

I'd really like to do something with metalworking. The more I think about it, the more appealing it becomes. To do something on par with the bean in chicago would be incredible. I think that the reflections might be more interesting than the photographs.

I think the Idea to take out the center would be good. I wish I would have just done it beforehand. One thing on of my professors mentioned the other day was that school and grading and such are just a way to teach self evaluation. I pretty well predicted the criticism I received, so I guess I'm getting good at that.

Construction

2010-04-02T08:40:00.000-05:00

Here are 2 photos I took while I was constructing my project. I like the look of this hyperbolic plane being fed through the sewing machine.

Megadoily

2010-03-21T11:24:00.004-05:00

On Thursday I had a discussion with Aaron Gach, the artist in residence about my work photographing from above and printing photographs on hyperbolic planes. He was complementary, but pointed out that I with each piece I had an excuse for not going bigger. This is a criticism I've gotten from others as well. I said that I needed to go life size with my stuff. The crochet models are nice to play with, but the paper models, without as much elasticity may end up working better on their own.

I found a math professer at Madison, Gabriele E. Meyer, who crochets larger scale hyperbolic structures. Here's one below. Her website is at http://www.math.wisc.edu/~meyer/airsculpt/sculpt07.html

I also found Jean Lee, who is crocheting with rope. This is the only example I could find, and maybe it's the only one she's done. This kind of material could really allow me to go life size using crochet. Jean Lee runs a design studio/blog/vintage store with Dylan Davis called Ladies & Gentlemen. Here's one of their images of the megadoily.

Aaron Gach talked about getting a grant in order to go bigger. I just need a larger purpose...

Schuyler Duffy

2010-03-16T08:52:00.001-05:00

Does some nice constructions

From her site schuy.bol.ucla.edu

Charlott Markus

2010-03-15T22:22:00.002-05:00

I found this from Charlott Markus. I've been thinking about my presentation of the hyperbolic rock image. I like how this textile is framed, and the surface of it will look similar to what my image will look like (hopefully). I wouldn't bust a hole in the wall, but this very complex figure protruding - almost oozing from the wall is really appealing. It does a good job of bringing attention to the shape of the textile. On another note I think this is a good example of a piece of art that was made to be photographed (Sontag).

From www.charlottmarkus.com

Photo as an object proposal v.2

2010-03-11T18:50:00.002-06:00

My original project statement was rather vague.

In this project I'm going to turn my photographs into three dimensional objects. This could be done by, for example, connecting 4 triangular photographs into a triangular pyramid. I will not do that, I will bring my photographs into three dimensional space in a sense, but really I will be changing the properties of the two dimensional space they occupy.

My intent is to create hyperbolic photographs. They will not depict hyperbolic space, rather they will exist in a hyperbolic plane. The best example of this is hyperbolic crochet; it is very much like the form my photographs will take.

A requirement of the project is that the photograph extend into the z-axis more than just the thickness of the paper that it is printed on. In our world, because space is linear, we will perceive these images as three dimensional objects. My interest in this form because these images will not technically occupy three dimensions, rather, they will occupy only two, but those two dimensions, rather than being linear, will be hyperbolic. That is my goal.

The subject matter will be rather simple for this project. One, a large rock, will be used for it's lifelessness. The hyperbolic form is unique in this world to organic life forms. it is not seed anywhere else. This rock makes sense also because it is space filling. The space filling depiction of it will reflect that volume.

Another image will be of a brick wall with moss growing out of the mortar. This image makes sense because it juxtaposes the hyperbolic form of the moss with the crystalline structure of the brick. Both these objects have volume, but for different reasons. The moss could be considered as existing on a two dimensional hyperbolic plane, while the brick obviously exists in a three dimensional linear plane.

There are other images that may be included as well.

I intend to print these images either on canvas using a duotone silk screen process that will be sewn together into a hyperbolic form or onto matte photo paper that will be folded into hyperbolic forms. Both methods will consist of considerable challenges and will be the focus of this project.

Photosnyth

2010-03-09T16:04:00.003-06:00

As much as I dont really like Microsoft, this is a pretty cool thing. It's called photosynth and it puts tons of images together to create a 3d virtual object and a map of the space. Here's one I like

photosynth.net

Gwong Osang - Photo Sculptures

2010-03-08T22:23:00.002-06:00

these photograph sculptures by Gwong Osang are very cool. I like how he's reproducing things with photographs - the limitations he encounters make what he's doing pretty cool. It reminds me of the faces from Golden Eye for N64. I keep thinking about doing something similar to this, but I'd like it to be more architectural, with more straight lines and 90 degree angles

Thanks to accidentalmysteries for posting these pictures

2D-3D

2010-03-06T11:12:00.000-06:00

I found this work by Doug Aitken. For my next project I want to build something out of photographs.

I think I could do something along these lines, were the pictures come together to form a pyramid. I have this big composite of a rock that I want to make into a 3 dimensional object, but not so geometric as a pyramid. I have a bunch of interesting surfaces that i think I could put together into something.

Thought I'd post my images-just imagine they're lined up

2010-03-02T19:25:00.000-06:00

Crit

2010-03-02T11:24:00.000-06:00

Critique was mixed. I felt like I got everything across with my picture that I wanted to. The sterility, the sense of height, how it the perspective changed the perception of the space (going from creepy and claustrophobic to open and emotionless). Geffeler's work always seems a little strange to me - I'm not sure why; I think I captured that feeling in my image and maybe it wasn't well received. It's definitely not like most of the American photographers we study.

The three photographers I was looking to for information were all european, and the pure documentary style reflects that. I wasn't trying to evoke some strong emotional response with the photos, I was just showing the subject from a different perspective. Geffeler's work is not made to evoke strong emotions, and it's not made with any clear reason other than to show spaces from a different spacial and temporal perspective. It looks like it could find it's home in an archive, but it has little use there. His work (and mine as well) occupy this niche between blue print and building. The blue print is this sterile representation of a space. It has no dimension, no color, nothing left behind from human presence. The space has so much more character, dimension, color, texture; it moves through temporal space and requires a space many orders of magnitude greater than the blue print.

The transition between blueprint and building is one example of the transition of ideal to real discussed in philosophy and many of the sciences. One may have an ideal mate, who has A and B and does C and D, but the real mate who falls into these ideal categories will always have other characteristics that make him/her less than idea. This dichotomy of real and ideal is the reason I chose to pursue this style–because it falls in-between what is ideal–the blue print, and what is real–the actual space. It represents the space in a totally unrealistic way that is like the ideal in it's dimension and sterility, but like the real thing it shows signs of human presences - the worn paint, the graffiti , and the drawbacks of the transition from ideal to real - the poor lighting, the unnerving corners; all this without being in the real space.

I took a different approach than much of the class and because of that it wasn't appreciated. My use of text was criticized because it was secondary to my image. Some of the projects had far too much text that dominated the image; I was trying to stay away from this. My fear in this project was that it would turn out as text accompanied with photos. We talked about some photographs resembling post secret submissions in critique; this should hardly be taken as a complement because these postcards are only ever text accompanied by image. It was quite obvious that many of the images were made for the text; the connection was obvious and the art seemed pointless. Last year I had a conversation with David Opdyke, the 2009 Beloit artist in residence, we discussed the role of text in art. One of things he told me, why make art if you can just write it [meaning] on the wall. He made his art because he couldn't express his ideas in words. The idea's were complex enough that it was more efficient to build these huge models than to write it as text.

When text is dominant in a pairing of text and image, does the piece continue to be a photograph, or is it expressed as text equally well? Full sentences often seem overwhelming, and to pair a paragraph or an essay with image seems ridiculous to me. maybe I didn't include as much text as I could have, but I was certainly not going to allow the text to consume my image.

More Inspiration Jim Kazanjian

2010-02-16T16:14:00.000-06:00

Click on the Picture for more kazanjian

New Landscape - Brent Townshend

2010-02-16T08:46:00.000-06:00

From http://www.tc.com/bt/index.html

I want to do this

Blogotheque - Take Away Shoes

2010-02-12T13:16:00.000-06:00

Vincent Moon is this cool man in France who makes a new genre of music video. Here's one from Fleet Foxes

Fleet Foxes - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Fore more go to:

http://vimeo.com/blogotheque

I made another

2010-02-11T15:34:00.001-06:00

Fox

2010-02-11T15:00:00.000-06:00

I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm just going to go ahead and post it.

Next project: Text

2010-02-09T15:58:00.000-06:00

This is all I can think about. Jasper Johns. These are not photographs.

Post Crit.

2010-02-05T17:04:00.001-06:00

Crit went well. I feel like my piece was interesting. People seemed to like it - I only heard good things. I found myself wishing again that people would be more open about their criticisms. Most people in the class had nothing to say - did they think it was a hideous mess? was it not compelling? I wonder if I printed it bigger if I might have had more of a response; although there was definitely a crowd around my image during the break at one point because I was trying to get by and I couldn't (not a bad thing I suppose).

I dunno. There's not really much I would have done differently. I picked up Geffelers Supervisions on the way to crit. and afterwards I gave it a good look through. I realized the way he handles walls is very different that what I did. I angled the camera to get more-almost 6 feet of wall in some places. Geffeler it seems does not. When one looks in detail at his images one can see how little of the walls he actually captures. maybe 12 or 18 inches in some 2-3 feet in others, but either way it's much less than I did. Capturing less wall gives the impression to the view that he/she is higher up than when lots of wall is captured. Its like I was using a wider lens so I was only about 8 feet above my room, where if it had been done with Geffeler's wall style it would have looked more like 40 feet. Next time.

Changes

2010-02-03T20:31:00.001-06:00

Originally I had planned to print this like a diagram. The print needs to be big i decided. I've also taken out the labels that I put in initially. The work is too cluttered with them included. Here it is. Very tiny.

I've been amazed at how complex this project ended up being. Shooting while the camera is looking down from 5 feet in-front of you makes it hard to get perspective. Working with a 1.6 GB image is slow too. I didn't quite achieve my vision, but I'm certainly happy with it. All the seems are great. The changes in tone from all the light changes are beginning to draw me in.

I realized today that Geffeler uses a 35mm lens on a digital camera, so that's more like a 50mm lens for an SLR. I shot mine at 26mm, so I wonder if I would have had fewer problems fitting the perspectives together. I'm still debating whether I should stick a white box between the rooms where the closet is. I think I will. I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone else thinks of it. I can today see people thinking its a hideous beast.

See into the Future - Tara Kelton

2010-01-29T14:21:00.001-06:00

Time Travel from tara kelton on Vimeo.

2010-01-29T12:59:00.002-06:00

This comes from Tara Kelton. It's a computer program that takes satellite images from a specified zip code and spaces them according to wind speed and saturates them according to temperature.

Partial Success

2010-01-28T17:45:00.004-06:00

Click picture to enlarge

Do I make it big or little?

I de a for later

2010-01-27T19:11:00.002-06:00

These are from Lucas Blalock. I didn't realize people actually did this kind of thing with photoshop.

More Gefeller

2010-01-27T07:17:00.000-06:00

Harder than it looks?

2010-01-26T17:51:00.002-06:00

My first few shots don't really go together well. Although the one of the door is maybe more what I'm looking for. All the different perspectives I'm encountering with a lot of shots just do not fit together.

Example: Andreas Gefeller

2010-01-26T15:26:00.005-06:00

I'm hoping this project will come out looking something like this:

from: jmcolberg.com

Project Proposal

2010-01-26T15:16:00.004-06:00

The following may be described as cells:

-The earth

-Countries

-Cities

-Communities

-Households

-Multi-cellular organisms

-Unicellular organisms

All these things share in common that they are composed of organs: energy producing organs, translating organs, storage organs, protective organs, exchange organs; they all keep the cell alive; they are all part of the cell.

A cell is organic–that is, it contains organs–parts that fit harmoniously together as a whole

The places we all live are put together as organic cells.

I will depict the space in which I live as a cell, very much in the style of Andreas Gefeller. I will display my photographs as a grid with descriptive labels to show the various organs in my living space, using a new perspective to abstract the space.

Alternates:

2) Use one spotlight and multiple exposures to create new shadows to be displayed as diptychs. Using Photoshop the shadows could to toned, and the photographs layered to set up seeming interference patterns creating new tones where the shadows overlap.

3) Photograph bird beaks and their equivalents in human invention, displaying analogous structures of evolution and invention side by side

4) Investigate Hox genes in drosophila, specifically the gene causing bithorax. Apply some of the mutations seen in drosophila on humans using Photoshop manipulation to simulate the macromutations that led to homologous structures such as the hoof, wing, paw and hand.

Found a Cat

2009-07-12T17:09:00.002-05:00

I think she is our neighbors cat, but it's nice having a cat around sometimes.