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Advertisements ![]() | ![]() Ilya programmed an ambitious indie pop-rock festival at Wonderland last weekend called Exit 44 (referring to the exit on the BQE one takes when driving to Wonderland). It was a runaway success, and introduced me to some wonderful new groups in a crowded genre I generally don't have the time or patience to sift through. Here are some highlights!East Hundred: download "Slow Burning Crimes" (MP3) or watch the video Project Jenny, Project Jan: nothing for download, but check out their great videos Hank and Cupcakes: their studio work at this point doesn't reflect even one iota of the magic they bring to the stage, unfortunately Tiger City: download "Are You Sensation" (MP3) ![]() Auto-Tune the News makes me so happy. It's just consistently exceptional. Michael Gregory takes clips of TV news talking heads, runs them through an auto-tune program to filter them into synthetic sing-song, and assembles them with original green screen footage into a fast-paced, stream-of-conscious style hip-hop medley. The series is smart, swift, clever, absurd, and meticulously crafted. I can't wait for the next installment. Start with episode #1 (below) and then continue with episodes #2, #3, and #4. ![]() Did you know I hold a world record? Now you do!From The Universal Record Database website: Jason Eppink and Matt Green threw a pineapple back and forth 67 times in one minute while singing Camptown Races, a new world record. They stood exactly ten feet apart while achieving the feat. Matt and I are working on our next world record involving flying fruit and vamped folk songs. In the meantime, witness history being made all over again by watching the video! ![]() A couple weeks ago I followed my friends I Am and Posterchild around with a video camera as they participated in the amazingly successful New York Street Advertising Takeover. The ambitious project, orchestrated by Jordan Seiler of Public Ad Campaign, whitewashed more than 120 illegal billboards and replaced them with artworks by dozens of artists. I made a time lapse video of nine art installations by I Am and Posterchild (with one by Teeth)! (Also on Dailymotion, Vimeo, blip.tv, and Flickr.) ![]() A few weeks ago, I noticed an uptick in the number of random French women attempting to befriend me on Facebook, along with an increase in non-referred traffic to my website. This could only mean one thing: the documentary I was followed around for in February had been completed and was airing on French television. Indeed, here's my clip on blip.tv. (Or here if you like giant Quicktime files.) The hour-length documentary is called Global Resistance, and they devote a generous amount of time to Pixelator! If you watch the clip, you'll see me emerge from my secret bookshelf door. I have yet to document that myself! I'm honored to find myself in the same documentary as The Art of Bleeding, Alexandre Orion (reverse graffiti), and Ji Lee (Abstractor and Bubble Project). Also I was on a radio talk show called "Bulldog and the Rude Awakening Show" a month or so ago to talk about Take a Seat, and it went really well until I brought up Pixelator. You've got to remember: radio people really love their advertising. Less press-related but totally just as sweet, Ryan put up a bunch of crosswalk instruction sign remixes in New Haven, CT a la Total Crisis Panic Button that are totally awesome! I really love this one because it involves high fiving: ![]() ![]() Getting to Newark International Airport from NYC on public transit is mind-numbingly complicated and unnecessarily expensive. Most plebeians take the subway to Penn Station, then hop on NJ Transit and transfer to the Air Train. This ends up costing a total of $15 and a couple hours. You can get to Boston with that kind of money! But I found a secret! The 107 Local bus from Port Authority Bus Terminal! It's $4.40, and usually faster, even in rush hour. It's totally sneaky too: you're dropped off across the street from a long-term parking lot, so you have to find an open gate, hop inside, and snag a free shuttle to your terminal. Saving $10.60 never felt so good. Thanks, Ask Metafilter! ![]() Here are a few terms that have only recently entered my vocabulary but describe concepts with which I was immediately familiar. Hurray for precision in language! FOMO: An acronym for "fear of missing out", FOMO describes my existential crises when I walk into libraries and my intense panic when browsing through the dozens of events lists to which I subscribe. FOMO is pre-regret. It's ante-disappointment. It's never quite being content. It's going to a party and not having any fun because all you can think about are all the parties you could be at that are probably so much more awesome. Individuals prone to FOMO often spend time in FOMO-management, in which they calmly and rationally remind themselves of their finite nature. One can have varying levels of FOMO. A little FOMO is healthy and motivating. Unchecked FOMO can be crippling. For me, FOMO reaches deeply into my time-management, creativity, and relationships. I'm told FOMO wanes with age. I really, really hope so. (c/o Lizzie) completism: If you search for "completism" on the web, most returns relate to collecting music, but it can also refer to, for example, an effort to read all writings by a particular author, to watch all films on a particular "Top 100..." list, or to take a dump in all fifty of the United States. Completism appears to most normal people a tad obsessive. The idea of walking over all the bridges that touch Manhattan is interesting, normal people think, but why exert effort actually going through with the whole the idea? What is gained? To a completist, this line of reasoning is frustrating, even absurd. Why do people climb mountains? Because they exist. Completism is also about finishing what one has started, about concluding perfectly. It's about closure and structure and clearly defined boundaries of "done" and "not done". I posit that individuals with backgrounds in engineering, science, and math are more prone to completism than writers, artists, and designers. full-ass or full-assed: To do something "half-ass" or "half-assed" is to rush through it, or to do it poorly and without attention to detail. Doing something full-assed, on the other hand, is to exert every effort, however impractical, to complete the task perfectly. "Full-assed" is clearly similar to "completism", but while the latter describes the concept or practice, the former serves better to describe specific instances. (c/o Matt) hangry: This is a portmanteau of "hunger" and "angry". You know how you can get irritable when you haven't eaten for a while? That's "hanger". You are "hangry". (c/o Lizzie) ![]() I guess I've been thinking a lot about social media and social network sites, and balancing my growing distaste for the behaviors surrounding them, their potential misuse/abuse, and their fleeting nature (coupled with my desire to only invest my finite time and energy in things that last, relatively), with the sites' utopic possibilities, and more practically, their usefulness for relationship-maintenance as well as self-promotion (which I'm also coming to terms with, separately). So this paragraph from Do You Own Facebook? Or Does Facebook Own You?, yet another article about Facebook in this week's New York Magazine, struck a chord: Maybe it’s claustrophobic to know this much about other people. Maybe we like the way the way we’ve been able to live over the past 50 years, the freedom to move where we want, date who we like, and insert ourselves into any number of social cliques, before we cast aside those who bore us and never look back. Independence is a gift, even if it’s lonely sometimes, and solving childhood mysteries may make people happier, but it doesn’t necessarily turn them into the people they dream of being. So we keep perpetuating the cycle of birthing and abandoning new online communities, drawing close and then pulling away, on a perpetual search for the perfect balance of unity and autonomy on the web.I don't want to leave without pronouncing some sort of less-than-satisfied judgment on the article, or without offering my own analysis, because that would imply endorsement of the piece and create an appearance that I didn't spend much time in critical thought about the writing or its subject. But I don't want to appear dismissive, like I was obligated to take a swipe at the article from some absurd need to posture about my own obviously expert knowledge about These Things. So I'll leave it at the meta-comment! (via Debra) ![]() Yes, yes, and yes! I've been meaning to rant on URL shorteners since their recent Twitter-fueled comeback, but Joshua Schachter's piece (via Kottke) succinctly says everything I wanted and more. Next up, a full rant on Twitter (not the service, which is certainly not uninteresting, but the behavior it's spurred and the attitude that surrounds it). Unless I find one to link to first. But it probably won't use my favorite new portmanteau: narcissystem. ![]() ![]() Last weekend, I had the distinct pleasure of taking part in Improv Everywhere's latest mission, Best Funeral Ever. Similar to past missions Best Gig Ever and Best Game Ever, several dozen agents descended onto the scene of a random funeral to make it tons better. What an awesome way to say goodbye to a loved one, right? You saw how the freeze craze swept the globe after Frozen Grand Central. I can't wait to see what others do with Best Funeral Ever! EDIT: If you haven't figured it out already, this was an April Fools' joke and we didn't actually crash a real funeral. Here's the real story. The comments are just hilarious, but the best part is that a local NYC news channel reported the prank as real! ![]() Jen and I collaborated with Charlie Todd and Improv Everywhere to throw an art gallery opening on a subway platform last fall, and we all finally got around to putting it up on the internet! Charlie's write-up has nice photos and detailed explanations; my write-up has curator mumbo jumbo and a bunch of prior art! Check them out!All of us took great effort to make the opening participatory, not just to create a spectacle. The evening featured a cellist, a bartender serving sparkling cider, a coat check, printed hand-outs, and a guest book. I think everyone who encountered the opening had a good time! I was especially interested in how we convinced ourselves and those around us to play the game and to believe, for a couple hours, that these everyday objects were actually art. Jen did a fantastic job of setting the tone with the wall text, but everyone who attended the opening was complicit and added tremendously to the collective fiction. Together we were inventing new meanings and alternate histories, all of which could have been entirely plausible explanations for the objects we were examining. This may seem like a silly exercise, but I think it can be pretty useful! It puts you in a position to re-examine the mundane, imagine others' intentions, and create new contexts for the objects and ideas you encounter every day. Usually we would just call that "acting", but in this case, so much of the pretending is internal that maybe it's not exactly theater? I'm sure there's an argument for both sides. Regardless, I found the gallery opening to be an exhilarating, tremendously creative experience, and the hundreds of people who passed through, even if they didn't join, at least encountered a fun, unexpected, disorienting moment. Jose remarked to me as he was leaving, "this is a slippery slope." And he's right! There's something a bit dangerous, actually, about this game. A little distance is enlightening and engaging; a lot of distance is detaching or disorienting. I'm reminded not only of bad conceptual art, but of corporate speech and military euphemisms. The Museum of Jurassic Technology straddles the line perfectly, a straight-up existential thrill-ride. (One little tidbit from all the research I did: wall text's beginnings were in legislation, to spare the public from paying for expensive catalogues at national museums! Fascinating!) ![]() I feel so free! I just deleted all my Facebook friends! My "friends" expected me to keep abreast of, participate in, and and respond to things they did inside the walled garden, I think, even though I explicitly expressed in my profile that, for very clear ideological reasons, I don't. I thought I was pretty clear on that? (It's hard to navigate these waters sometimes. How do I do what I think is right and not sound like a complete holier-than-thou tool when explaining why?) So to accommodate those expectations better, I "deleted" all my friends! Now they can't send me messages or "write" on my "wall"! There were also absurd questions from people I haven't spoken to in years, like, "Hey how are you?" Dear lazy person: if you're really curious, I've written about my life in public for the last five years. Feel free to catch up and then we can have a further conversation on a specific topic of your choosing. Maybe I expect too much? Probably. After much consideration, I did not completely delete my account. Only now my profile image looks like this: ![]() I should be clear: I still love you. Can we get tea some time? ![]() Last week I lead decor execution for Kostume Kult's Bioluminescence fundraiser! It was a boat party!Specifically, I made some el-wire jellyfish! I also got to plunder Material For The Arts for all the cloth and notions we turned into seaweed and coral! I have 501(c)(3) envy like never before. You guys, 501(c)(3) is worth its weight in gold around here. ![]() This winter I've been thinking about ways to crowdsource sidewalk snow removal. I was inspired by the Johnny Applesandal, a sandal with "phytoremediating" plant seeds built into the sole, which are slowly deposited as the sandal wears away. I walk 1.3 miles to work every day in the morning, and in my experience, half of the landlords in Astoria don't salt or shovel the snow off their sidewalk after a snow storm. As a result, frequent traffic and daytime warmth pack the snow into dangerous ice. (I took a spill this winter, and I am a sprightly, active young man!) Legally the onus to clear the sidewalk is on the landlord, but really, shouldn't the people who use the sidewalk be responsible for it? I think there may be a distributed, casual way to solve this problem. A lot of kinetic energy goes into compressing the snow under each step that could instead be harnessed to move or melt it. Below are a few sketches. They all have flaws, but hopefully they will inspire better ideas. My design requirements were that the solution be casual (nobody wants to spend more energy on their morning commute), comfortable, affordable (rich people don't walk), and sustainable. Salt Shaker Shoe: A shoe with a hollow sole for storing deicing salt, and holes on the bottom for gradual distribution.
![]() Salt Shaker Backpack Attachment: A clip-on backpack attachment that stores salt and sprinkles it on each step.
Salt purchase and distribution seems like the biggest issue with these first two designs, which is not a technological problem at all and could be solved municipally. Imagine bins of salt on each street corner free for public use, whether for a landlord's sidewalk or for your own salt distribution device. Bellows Shoe: A shoe that uses the force of each step to blow snow out of the way. When the shoe is lifted, air is sucked in; when the shoe makes contact with ground under the weight of walker, air is quickly forced out.
Heated Shoe: A shoe with a rechargeable battery and a heater built into the sole, which melts snow upon contact (and keeps your foot warm in the process).
![]() ![]() Introducing the Light Ripple! I spent pretty much the entire month of January on a crash course in basic physical computing and electrical engineering, thanks to the generosity of my friends Patrick, dr.light, and Kevin. The result is the Light Ripple, which was commissioned for and debuted at the Newmindspace fundraiser last month. The Light Ripple is really a simple concept (one button, when pressed, initiates a sequence of concentric rings of electric blue light that starts at eye level and spreads onto the ceiling) but I'm terribly pleased with how it turned out and how well it's being received. By the end of this month, the Light Ripple will have been exhibited, in whole or in part, at three events! Check out the Light Ripple project page for video and artistic mumbo jumbo about interaction models and social currency. (The video is also on YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimeo, and blip.tv if that's your cup of tea.) If I have been silent on this here blog, it is because I've completed several other projects that I still need to write up! More soon! ![]() ![]() Improv Everywhere recently posted a new mission called High Five Escalator, which I was honored to be a part of. The idea was to communicate something positive in a series of signs along the super long escalators at the 53rd St. E/V station during the morning commute. We brainstormed a lot of ideas (including rhyming couplets a la Burma Shave) but in the end settled on straight up high fivin'! It was super excellent times, especially for Rob who gave about 2000 high fives in 45 minutes. Epic! I made the signs! (Do you recognize that font? It's Futura Bold!) The (fantastic) video, tons of photos, and scores of germophobic comments are all available on the Improv Everywhere High Five Escalator write-up. ![]() ![]() A few months ago I was one of ten artists asked by the fine folks at Fame Game to submit a proposal for their new project Trust Art, "a stock market for cultural renewal". Essentially, investors raise capital for a project and recoup their investments after an artifact from that project is auctioned off. Remember that 555-hour long database documentary I proposed a few years ago? Yeah, I submitted that. Seth and Jose are out at TED this week and are unveiling the project today! Maybe you would like to check out the full site and also more info on The Documentary Starring Everyone in the Entire World! ![]() ![]() Pro Pants returned again this year to prank Improv Everywhere's annual No Pants! Subway Ride, this time with more hand outs. We had questionnaires, not one but two pamphlets, and free pants! Thanks to everyone who came out to brave the snowstorm and spread the good news about pants! Within 24 hours, roughly 100% of the pantsless riders we encountered had accepted pants into their lives! Read all about it on the Pro Pants! 2K9 project page. ![]() I never finished my report on Burning Man 2007 last year. Much of what I wrote was critical, and I never really rounded out the criticism with what I found so wonderful about it, so a lot of friends were surprised when I said I was returning. I wanted to write up my experiences before the year finished. So here are my long overdue, hastily-assembled notes from Burning Man 2008. Maybe this will explain it all a little better.
I know this is kind of obsessive, but I think the rest of the narrative is best told linearly through an itinerary, which reflects the events to the best of my memory. Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
![]() Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
![]() ![]() Life is good! Since my victorious return from Europe, here's what I've been up to! A brief overview, with pictures, because you don't have time to read the details, and I don't have time to write them: ![]() Open House New York! I got to peak inside the High Bridge Tower and tour the World's Fairgrounds with William. Why is OHNY only one weekend a year? WHY? Honkfest in Boston! An awesome weekend of punk rock marching bands, culminating in a parade to kick off Boston's, uh, "Oktoberfest." Jenna took me to the Institute of Contemporary Art to see the Tara Donovan show. Donovan just received a MacArthur genius grant, and rightfully so. I really really love her work. Hey I'm Walkin' Here #18 on Staten Island. I only caught the second half, but we encountered an abandoned freeway overpass and an unattended dock with an oil tanker. Bike Kill! My favorite event of the fall, but I ducked out early because the nasty weather made it even messier than usual. Decompression. The NYC Burning Man decompression party has recently been in hard-to-reach locations (this time at Floyd Bennett Field) and thus only draws the most committed revelers. It was one excellent evening. Halloween was an epic weekend starting with a less-than-successful renegade parade from the Meat Packing District to The Danger warehouse location in Bushwick. The riffraff left and the music got good at 2am, the cops disbanded everything at 4am, we retreated to the House of Yes until sunrise, and made a final stop at the Marcy Hotel where I met my doppelganger, returning home in full costume at 10am. And then I did it all over again the next night at the Rhythm Society all-night dance celebration, in the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. Success, my friends. Pure success. Doctor Atomic @ Metropolitan Opera. The design was beautiful, and I liked John Adams' score. But I'm still coming to terms with the form of opera. It's just so...inefficient. Hey I'm Walkin' Here! #20 on Staten Island. Scaling rocks, docks, and a lighthouse in the cold rain. Also, the first and last Take a Seat drop in Staten Island. "Underground" at Eyebeam. An art party that didn't suck. Who knew? Apparently I was the hipster posterchild of the evening, judging by all the photos. Shrek The Musical. I finally saw my first Broadway musical, thanks to dr. light, who did video work for the production and scored me a comp ticket. There were some great moments, but a lot of it was mediocre. Better than the movie, but I didn't like the movie. A couple weeks later I got a backstage tour. Sweet! Cloud Cult @ The Bowery. I'm not one to attend concerts, but Cloud Cult is one of my new favorite bands, and I'd heard good things about their live shows, and a co-worker's girlfriend is their publicist, so I got in for free. The live painting was actually rather moving, and the show was pretty good! New York Times Special Edition. Steve asked me to help man a distribution point, and I was so all over that. Salute to Ben Stiller. The museum's annual fundraiser featured Jack Black, Robert De Niro, Diddy, Will Arnett, and more, all upstaged by Triumph the Comic Insult Dog. A flavor-tripping party, in honor of the day of my birth, two months belated. Such a fantastic evening! Fifty great friends from all walks of life made it out to Astoria for an evening filled with screwed up taste buds, fantastic conversation, and revelry. A huge thanks to Debra for making it happen. Jenna and I spent Thanksgiving together in NYC and upstate NY with Debra and sister and crew. It was excellent to get away from the city, even for only a couple days. Blip Fest! Saw my favorite chiptune artists and heard some new ones at a great new venue (The Bell House). Just watch the videos. Organic Motion. Played with a demo of an awesome new markerless motion-capture technology.![]() Santacon and Unsilent Night. Donning the Mistletoe Hat v2.0 (with much success), I caught up with the mob at 4pm (Santacon starts at 10am) in time to catch the Staten Island Ferry back and forth, helped direct the crowd to Santos Party House, took a break to take in Unsilent Night, then finished the night at Rubulad. Hey I'm Walkin' Here (Winter) Solstice Walk. Fourteen of us started at sunset in Sunset Park. Fifteen hours and twenty-nine miles later, we were watching the sun rise at the East River. Oh, and we live MoPhoVlogged the whole thing. |
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