Tuesday, February 28, 2006

pictures

Here are my TV project pictures ~Album~


~mark
Second TV project post

The project with marie is really cool- the idea seems to be coming together. i have started collecting random electronic devices to take apart and yesterday i went around my dorm asking people if they had broken electronic devices. I got a broken plasma lamp (which i tried to make it work, but did some research and discovered that plasma lamps are vacuum sealed in glass and filled with argon or some other stable gas (like a light bulb!) ). that stuff doesn't matter but goes to show my obsession with understanding how things work (.com). I ended up taking out two switches from the plasma lamp to use in the TV project.
We have decided to use the switches from the TV itself and hook all these up together. we discussed using one battery source and having one on/off power switch but we are most likely not doing that now just because we need too many batteries and it would be alot more confusing wiring, so we wired them all separately- though we may still have one on/off switch for everything. it just might be only for show, but thats okay.
pictures will come soon- its not that i'm not taking them- its just that i hold them out until i can put them all in one kodak album and link it all together, otherwise i have to put them in their own albums.
I did some research on the Rutgers site and found out that the physics and chemistry dept have their own electronics shop. I emailed the head engineer and he said he would be cool with me coming and picking up a toggle switch for free. Marie and I went there twice today and the door was locked, but I am working on it still- I emailed both the man i was in contact with and the man who works in the office usually, hoping to find a time when I can get over there.
I am going to post this and work on an album and post the link in a separate post.
~mark

Saturday, February 25, 2006

a change of direction

so the project has taken a total change- but, going with the theme of my original idea- i'm just a product of crazy coincedences and i figure i might as well flow with them and see where they take me. this one took me to working with Marie. we realized that we were both working with electricity and had similar ideas so I decided to apply something that I was working on as a side project to her original idea. my original idea will shift into the backburner, only to come back another day, though.
her project idea ties in with ALOT of my own ideas about technology. her ideas are these (this is a huge summery, check out her page for the whole deal): to make a TV in which the viewer makes their own entertainment. she was using a paperclip or steel wire dancer figure and two electromagnets on either side of the dancer so that the viewer can (via a switch) the turn the magents on and off at their will. she also is planning a spotlight over the dancer. the idea has to do with self-dependence, making your own shit, taking into your own hands. Also the idea that we made the TV and know how to work it and fix it.
This lends well into my own idea about technology- which has led me, in the past few months, to figure out how things work. the idea is just that its ridicuolous how much people use in their lives and dont understand. wake up using an alarm clock, bathroom (plumbing), electricity, cars, computers, traffic lights- the list is insanely long. reaching into how foods are made, how products are made, etc. its leading to a society that is so far from any raw materials and is totally codependent. while on one side it makes the society progress quicker and develop, it also loses alot. think of the way societies formed- people lived in houses they built, ate food they hunted/cooked/farmed, used only the products they made- there is something attractive about living in a society that you made. i figure that the way we live is too far from that- but there is noreason why we can't make attempts to understand- this led to my current obsession with www.howstuffworks.com - its great.
this idea lends to the TV- something that SO many people enjoy, use, obsess with, etc- but probably something like a few hundred people in the whole united states actually understand how all the parts work- and so we will be making a TV that we understand. it wont be as complex or, ill behonest, exciting as a real TV- but i made it, i understand it, i can fix it- there will be a pride in it that most people dont have in anything. I amnot by any means a marxist, but marx wrote about worker alienation and one of the important problems with the way society was progressing was that no one owned their own work- in assembly lines people only do a part of the final and no one owns the final project- except for the big bosses and CEOs who don't even know how the product works (thats a good irony and come full circle).
so my part of the project will come from a side project of mine which has developed alot in the past week- it has to do with taking apart little kids musical toys and manipulating the sound, its called circuit bending. the first thing i took apart and starting playing with was a toy guitar, which i found- and started playing with it before i knew what circuit bending was and someone taught me. anyway- that guitar toy will be used a remote control to make music for the dancer. I also might try to make lights in additional colors- in addition to the spotlight.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Update on the random shit project~

So since the last post my project has changed considerably. I have dropped the phsycial objects from last semester but kept the concept that I got from them. The concept that I started to develop had to do with a few things, specifically that we are/I am a total product of chance and randomness. The idea that thefinal project would have been the result of a thousand unrelated coincedences and products of chance. for example that little gold ear-ring type thing was something my friend Emma grandma's had sent her, emma didnt know why, she did sent it to her and emma was going to throw it out because she had nothing to do with it- and I happened to have walked in to her room when it was sitting there. Now if it were possible, I liked the idea of trying to see if could trace it back- maybe it had significance or maybe her grandma found it on the floor. It brings to my mind something like a movie- where a random object is followed through a set of total coincedences to end up (think that movie about the graduation party after high school... Can't Hardly Wait- with that letter that the kid writes for the girl- he gives up, throws it out, it goes through a bunch of random things and it gets tot he girl).
Following that idea, I want to show how things are connected that way. I have a lot of different ideas for the specifical application of this concept in the final project.
1. Interconnectedness just in my life (i dont like this one as much, i dont like making projects too personal.
2. I was at a party on friday night and I had my camera, it was really crowded with alot of really interested people- and i thought aout the idea of taking pictures of ALOT of people ehre and then tracking them down and getting their stories and finding out how they found out- im sure it would be interesting to find how all these random things ended in a party where people all ended up together.
3. General connectedness- using the types of objects i had in the first post- and just branching out from there.
4. I have a current side obsession with Galileo and it would be cool to start with his life and the random coincedences that led him to make all of his amazing discoveries (he wanted to join the monestary when he was younger, his dad wouldn't let hiim- forced him to go to medical school, but he disobeyed his dad and studied math instead and through meeting people, etc, etc, he got a big job in a certain university and eventually made these discoveries- but imagine if his dad had let him become religious clergy instead- we could be 100 years behind where we are now. its interesting stuff- so i could should one leven of connectedness in his life to what lead to him making his discoveries and all the things they had lead to today.

The physical organization of the project is going to have to do with electricity. This came from Christmas lights that I’ve been playing with (that Susan threw out last time- if she hadn’t found broken lights and thrown them out, then I wouldn’t have found them, started playing with them, and my project would be totally different.. see?). So the connection between the objects will be wires, with electric currents running through them.
At one point I had the idea of the project being all on one common surface (not literally, but picture one box- the objects on top)- the objects seemingly random but each having a light involved in it- and one plug coming out of the box, plugging into the wall. The idea being that these objects MUST be connected because there is one current going in and out of the box, so there is a connection between them all, even if we don’t see it.

That’s all for now. More words and pictures later.
~mark

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Random shit project!

I started collecting my found objects with an idea- it was to go from room to room in my dorm asking for a small random object that they won't need back. I got a few things, hopefully I'll find more.
An idea started to form about them in my head.
Instead of loading the pictures onto here, im going to make an album on kodakgallery and here is the link: >>>Random Shit Album<<<

There it is. More later.
~mark

Friday, February 10, 2006

final pictures-

here are pictures of thefinal project though the pictures due the final product no justice- because the whole peice is an experience, not just a visual perception- if you'd like to see it, it will be at the demarest art show on feb 19th, inthe the basement of demarest hall.

>the first is a picture of the installation from the outside- but there were no good wayst o take pictures because everybody's peices were right ontop of each other. so ignore the brown peice on the right and the newspaper peice on the left.



>this is last part. sorry, i sort of gave away the ending. anyway- its much cooler in person.

~mark

Thursday, February 09, 2006

the self

the final project is different than the original but there are visible similarities. it changed alot as it was made, but that was part of it. No final picutres- i'll post them all when i take them as a final done project during the critique. the project is a journey in the creation of self. it begins with a few quotes to introduce the journy- the first being a quote fromalice in wonderland, which proves as a warning to those who don't go on this journy. the next dr. seuss who says that the journey goes where you want it to. and the rest discuss the self and different parts of the journey. the last big quote is douglas adams and its about ending the journey. then there are questions that people use to form their selves- questions where the answer is different for each person. and the ending.. is a surprise, its one good quote to end it all from the master of knowing shit- Socrates. enjoy!
~mark

Monday, February 06, 2006

third "maze" post-

So the project has changed a bunch since the last post. physically its the same- the walls and ceiling are complete (i dont have pictures yet) but i finally have a concept and its different from the idea of a maze. it came about when looking for quotes, i found a bunch of good ones about searching for yourself (i really like quotes). It also changed based on the fact that my project is not a maze anymore- its more of a long winding path toward something inside. the something inside isn't totally figured out yet but i have more of an idea now.
i got alot more quotes and they are on the subject of forming a self or creating who you are, and as of now i think i will be printing them out in big (white letters on black) and posting them along the walls of the maze to read as you walk. there willbe a mixture of quotes of famous people on that subject and a bunch of questions that you ask yourself when forming a self.
the center will be the self i think. it is a dark small area, you can't even tell its there from outside. the inside will have, i think, blue lights and one good quote. i think it will be "Know Thyself" -socrates.

I'm also pretty sure there will be music playing as part of the experience. i have old computer speakers that i can hook up to a CD player, which i play a burned CD on. im still choosing music but thinking alot about the blue man group, the album being 'audio'. it you havent heard it, you should- its great. hopefully the speakers will be loud enough. im nervous about leaving the speakers and CD player there. iguess i can take the CD player with me and leave the speakers there... i dont know. i dont want them stolen. whatever.

also i was posed with the option that i could put this installation in the dorm's art show, my dorm is demarest and they have a show in the basement in two weeks. but i can't nail in to the walls so i have to figure out still. alright thats enough for now- no inspirational pictures, sorry. i have been keeping an eye out but havent seen anything.
-mark