My First Post: Rumi Painting

Hey Everyone!

So finally getting my first post in, and I'm going to cut straight to the chase! Just completed my first painting of the series of 5. This is a short description:

The first will convey a desire for spiritual unification. I will create a black-and-white acrylic painting of my palms covered in poetry by Rumi, using a poem about his desire to unite with God. Here my choice of style was inspired by artist Shirin Neshat, who used Persian poetry and photography to portray the struggle of women in the 1979 Iranian revolution (Look her up! She's awesome - she actually came to Stanford in June).

I made a few changes - instead of palms, I have my hands clasped to convey the idea of unification. In the design stage, my drawings had the hands covered in writing while during execution, I decided have no writing on the fingers. I didn't want the text to be overpowering, and I think it helped. Below is pretty much the final product - still needs a little tweeking, but that's basically it.

What do you guys think? Any suggestions for improvements?

Onwards to Piece 2!!

An update

Here are some photographs of the first portrait I'm working on. I've started with the embroidery and I'm going to add in scraps of cloth and more of the fabric pen later. I'm trying to incorporate common Indian textile patterns and the bright, almost extravagant, colors in movies and media. More soon!

My final prints so far!

I've spent a lot of my summer working in the good old photo lab! It's been a pleasure helping out the summer students, especially because so many of them are high schoolers and international students with an unusual level of enthusiasm and commitment. I took some snapshots of my final prints--hope you enjoy! Scans to follow when they're all finished...

Photo book thoughts part 1

July has passed and I am finally back home, in Lomé. I’ve visited tema, Accra, Aburi and Korkrobite (and am hoping to find the time and plan a quick visit to Benin’s cities and villages). I’ve had the time to enjoy the new sights, the people and the influence of football (soccer for the USA) in various aspects of people’s lives.

My project has taken a different turn. I was expecting to find a lot more evidence of the World Cup 2010 in physical forms of art such as sculptures, jewelry and paintings. But that was based on my experience living in Lomé in 2006. I underestimated the impact of modernization and globalization that has taken place here in Africa. Indeed, I soon found out that graphic art is much more present here in Africa. So I've been thinking about how to slightly change the direction of my project.

Stay tuned for Part 2 in a few days...

First post!

Hello blog!
I'm currently in Oxford, en route to India, where I am going to create portraits of my grandparents. My family is very spread out around the world, so I hope that through these pieces, I'll be able to capture the combination of alienation and familiarity that defines these relationships.
I was initially planning on creating these portraits on canvas, and I wanted to incorporate embroidery and ink to make them personal, domestic and real. After shopping for supplies, I fell in love with the idea of making the portraits directly on fabric and framing them in embroidery hoops. This idea feels very right, so I'm very excited to get started. Expect to hear back from me in about a week!
Surabhi

I'm still sketching, still experimenting… here are some examples I've put together on my computer.

It's been fun trying out all sorts of different elements. Different sketches line up differently... and so there'll be more coming soon. Here are examples of the figure sketch as well as a corner design. The corner design will probably be etched into the plane.

I've begun gathering random materials to fuse on to the glass, including some gold finishings, smaller scraps, etc.

As much as I value the "just go" attitude, I need to be thinking about how to make this project presentable. The actual glass panels I will purchase at a costco-foroartists this coming week.

Questions still running around my head (which I've found someone to ask-- himself a freelance artist and a newly minted founder of a design start-up, Paul Gleason is a great contact to have in Berlin):

• How fuse together the panels?
• Will I need to make a frame (wooden/acrylic?) for each individual panel?
• Can I just glue the edges?
• How heavy do I dare make it?

Musings on glass versus acrylic: this will have to come down to testing. I think both are viable options… I imagine the acrylic will be easier to etch, but render not-as-nice effects as on glass. But I might scavenge extra pieces lying around to test these.

Things I'm testing:

• Functionally:How the mix of media looks.
• Design-wise: How busy to make it--> keeping in mind I want to make it purposefully busy.

More Brainstorming

A couple more ideas that we discussed tonight relating to the mind control project:

1.) Grilled-cheese making machine. If you do a bad job concentrating, your grilled cheese sandwich will come out half-made, or worse, it will have the plastic still on the cheese slice!

2.) Rube Goldberg type music machine, in which certain brain activity activates part of the machine, bring cohesive tunes to otherwise chaotic noise.

Other ideas involved intricate light displays or audio effects. Next week we start prototyping mechanisms and soon we'll work with the developer's kit and learn how to measure the brain activity.

Ciao for now.

Brainstorming for the Brain Project

Since our mini-grant project for An Art Affair was so well received, we decided to carry on with an an even bigger interactive mind-control exhibit for Party on the Edge. Last time, we used an EEG set that could measure concentration level, which we basically used as one input. Now, we'll have a more sophisticated pair of headsets which can measure focus/concentration, meditation (which is characteristically composed of different waves than focusing), and blinking (myoelectric activity). We will also be using the developer's kit, so instead of just hacking into a toy, this time we'll have access to a lot of raw brain wave data...which has the potential for all sorts of interesting art!

Soon, we will have narrowed down on a concept. For now, here are some ideas we're throwing around:

- Mindcontrol fireworks. (Perhaps will use an LED display to mimic the pyrotechnics).

- Orbs with changing light intensities (focus), that levitate (meditation), and move in circles (blinking).

- Environmental vibrations based on brain wave patterns.

- Large platforms which move the participants: closer to each other, levitating, around each other.
- Old school TV with static which clears as the users focus (revealing a surprise).
An image from this site relates to the first two ideas (3D LED display): http://www.vimeo.com/1762821

Basically, we want to go for something engaging on a large scale. Here are some sketches of more ideas:

Lublin Project Gateway

http://lublinprojectgateway.blogspot.com

I was interested in the new Arizona Immigration Law, so I found some information on the topic that I'd like to share:

One from fox news (arguably pretty conservative):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLGtShVY0dg

and the article from the New York Times about the new law (pretty informative):
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/us/politics/24immig.html

Hopefully these give us a little background info on the topic!

Ariel Mazel-Gee

I guess the whole project has come to an end. A good ending. It was a lot of sleepless nights, scanning, sketching, inking, photoshoping, etc. But I'm happy the book turned out well. Here's the link to my artworks.

Enjoy!

ComicBookProject

1000 ships made out of manila folder

http://manilathousandships.wordpress.com


-C. Paula de los Angeles

Noise Machining

Over the weekend, we collected a lot of parts and did most of the physical building. Also hacked the Jedi Force Trainer toy. Last night, debugged the code and setup the noise machine. Here's an update from Greg:

Drivetrain

• Added a plastic spool to hold the string in place on the broom.
• The spool is held in place on the broom by bicycle grip tape.
• The string is wrapped around rubber bands on the spool and motor, for friction.
• It works!

Code

• We did some debugging and found that we were reading noisy signal between 0-300 (approx.) when the LED was off (into the analog input). When it was on, we were reading all 0's.
• We switched the polarity of the LED leads to the analog in so we could read a positive signal. Now we are reading the same when it is off (0-300 noisy) and about 410 when it is on.
• The threshold in the code is set at >= 405, which seems to be working.
• It seems to be too easy to concentrate at level 3, so we tried switching the leads, but I guess the voltage threshold would be different for LEDs 4 or 5... we don't know what those values are.
• We had some problems with the headset/base station, either getting stuck or losing signal, or just generally being wonky. Might need new batteries? Might need to try Akshay's?
  

Music elements

• We had some happy accidents with the way we arranged things... worked and looked great! We still need:
• Ways to affix/stand the pots on the table
• To fix the hanging objects to the dowels
• More objects hanging and on table, another dowel, possibly more table space?

And now, for the fun stuff, breaking news from Joel... videos of the prototype!

Ones that shows the kinetic glory in action :

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwiAbIq7w7E)

another that shows the EEG action:

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsY8rfbXpiY)

these are not the droids you are looking for...

Driving a Motor with Arduino

Last Thursday Jakob & I broke out the Arduino to see if we could drive a motor with it. The issue - we're running a high torque motor that draws around 40mA, and the Arduino can only handle 20mA. It's also a Duemilanove model, so the maximum power output is 5V--not enough for the motor if we wanted it to move with any speed, it was enough h0wever, to drive the gate of a MOSFET and separate the control board and motor circuit. Got some tips from my friend Matt, a mechtraonics TA, and borrowed a MOSFET and pull-down resistor to do the job. Initially used a 9V battery to drive the motor and turned it ON and OFF with a button switch (later to be replaced by the EEG input).

I used two digital pins, one as an output to drive the gate and another as an input from the button switch. Here is a photo of the setup, and it worked!
Only a few more things before we get mind control going...

The Purge

Finally, the quarter is drawing to a close and I am nearly done with regurgitating my half digested thoughts into some kind of communicable form. This is my first experience of the academic quarter system (we don't have such a thing in Australia) and so far I have decided that it is something akin to being a goose stuffed for academic pâté.

Which segues neatly into the work that I have produced for my art project. Entitled The Purge, the work consists of a toasting oven that spews out white foaming soap. Placed on a pedestal that has been clad in kitchen flooring vinyl and accompanied by a video of a the same burnt out toasting oven smoking against a lush backdrop of leaves, The Purge, is designed to reference the dometsic space of consumption and cleanliness and the aesthetic of 'the end' that is so central to American cultural mythology, particularly in this time of economic collapse.

The making of the installation involved getting on top of a host of things that I had never done before in a fairly short period of time. It was a crazy couple of weeks over the summer break leading up to the Devil-May-Care exhibition that opened on the 12th of January, where the work was premiered. One of the things that I found the hardest to figure out was a good system for restocking the soap (hidden in the pedestal) and how to get the consistency right so that it didn't just run everywhere. I ended up adding large amounts of laxative powder (a readily available source of polyethylene glycol) to make the soap foam, which I thought was appropriate given the subject and title of the show.

I am looking forward to have an opportunity to fix it up a little for the next run. Below are some images of the work installed in the Devil-May-Care exhibition.

update

Hey Blog,

Sorry to be out of action for a while. I've been working on a lot of things involving art/writing, and attempting to bridge the gap between the two in different ways. One way is through comics/graphic noveling, so I have a one-page strip here that's an autobiography of sorts. Each panel is a haiku.

I am working on a few larger things, one of which is also below. I am putting a lot of focus into my sketchbooks because that's where I feel I have been able to unify words and images most successfully and with the most interesting results. I have included some samples from my sketchbooks here.

Oglesby Progress 2/23

We (Jason, Jimmy and Kiran) have been spending the past month ramping up production on our of our exhibits, Twinkly Lights. Below are some pictures of us splicing and soldering wires, resistors, LEDs and magnet switches for the light array we're planning on building.

12 piece fashion collection

Here are just some pics of my collection so far:

Photos from Chile and California

While I was abroad in Chile, I was inspired by the diverse, beautiful landscapes in front of me and it made me wonder if Chile is unique in this regard, or if I have just come to overlook the natural beauty that is in front of me everyday. When you are abroad, you are taken out of your element and everything you do and everything you see is isolated in your mind as something extraordinary and unique. However, while I was in Chile, I kept being told that Chile and California are much more similar that I realize. So I decided to find out for myself. Since I have been back, I have been traveling around California and exploring the many landscapes that exist right here that up until now I never really took the time to absorb. Everyone has seen the Golden Gate Bridge, but how often do you sit there, look out on to the bay, close your eyes and feel the breeze hit your skin, open your eyes and see the monumental structure in front of you, and finally allow yourself to feel connected to this moment in some sort of way.

Especially at Stanford, we do not allow ourselves to take the time to stop, breathe, and open our eyes and just simply allow ourselves to be consumed by the beauty around us. This beauty comes in all forms, from deserts, to cities, to graffiti, to oceans, to mountain ranges and so forth. It is everywhere and it has been a life changing process, learning how to slow down in order to discover something magical.

Mirror Mirror

Our project entitled Mirror Mirror is going very well. We collected more than 20 monologues from the community about body image. We have cast more than 30 actors (some are double-cast) and have 6 directors rehearsing the monologues with our performers. Tickets have gone “on sale” although tickets are free and they can be reserved by e-mailing stanfordmirrormirror@gmail.com. We are already reserving lots of tickets so we are very excited. Performances are Friday February 26th 7pm and 9pm and Saturday February 27^th 7pm and 9pm at the Nitery Theatre. We also plan to perform in more than a dozen dorms the week leading up to the project, during National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, and we are currently scheduling performances with PHEs in dorms.

Right now the things we are working on are:

1. Getting financial co-sponsorships from campus organizations so that we have enough funding to print our posters.

2. Collecting information for the program

3. Designating our House Manager and Front of House Staff

4. Getting ready for our first all-cast rehearsal on February 20^th, with costumes

5. Publicizing the show

6. Selecting and contacting people to appear on our post-show discussion panels

We’re so grateful and excited to have an Arts Grant!!

Amanda

Salut,

I've been experimenting with many aspects of my

project in the last month or two in Paris. It's been fascinating tracking down the exact street corners and angles that Eugène Atget stood almost 100 years ago. I'm learning so much about Paris, let alone this photographer.

As I lack a digital camera and can't really find one where I'm staying, I will try to illustrate my progress with a few thoughts. I have completed one of my photo/painting/multimedia projects and experimented with a few others. I have decided to make frames for all of my pieces with "found objects" that I collect from each Parisian site - tickets, records, posters, or just ideas for colors and shapes and lines. I will most likely build the frames for each over spring break, as transporting rigid pieces is a problem.

To visualize one of my pieces: imagine a combination of the below two elements, with the pen and ink drawn directly into the photograph, and lots of other randomness occurring in the sky behind the tower of the church (St. Etienne du Mont).

I am hopeful about how creative my project is getting. I have never worked in anything but pure oil paint, and this is a challenging and refreshing change. Warm wishes from where I'm sitting, in a tiny café sipping a café crème in the heart of Montmartre!

Bisouxxx

Sasha

Painting Photographs

An update:

I've been photographing a storm and making large fiber-based prints. All is progressing smoothly, and my main challenge at the moment is to develop all the film I've shot. Luckily the days aren't too nice yet so I don't mind spending 4 hours at a time in the dark room. I'm working mostly with large images (so large in fact that most can't be fully scanned in on this scanner), and I've had the privilege of shooting with a view camera in addition to my 35mm, so some of the prints are deliciously detailed. Here's an example of a view-camera negative:


The process of adding color to black and white is really interesting because I'm finding that each time it's really difficult to break the simplicity of the b&w image, but the added layers of tones, accents, and textures are well worth it. Here are some examples of colored prints.



























Looking forward to making more!