Rebuilding...
Igoe On Arduino · Thursday June 3, 2010
Tonight’s ITP Camp session was Hello Arduino: A Physical Computing Studio, taught by Tom Igoe. Tom introduced the Arduino microcontroller as a platform for Physical Computing. He showed several different types of Arduino boards as well as many different sensors. Tom discussed the general properties of an electronic circuit. He also Illustrated digital and analog input and output using the Arduino IDE and language. And he wrapped up by briefly covering serial communication.
The Arduino didn’t exist when I took Physical Computing at ITP in 2001. I used the BX24 to create my RC Hot Rod. And when I worked on Lumens in 2008 with Ven Voisey and Sean Riely, using the Arduino, we leaned heavily on the brains of Tom, John Schimmel, and Larry Alice. I learned strictly what I needed to know to accomplish the task. As a result there were a lot of holes in my knowledge. So it was great to get this official introduction from one of the greats in the field.
Thanks to Jody Culkin for the photo above!
» Matt
Multi-Touch On The Cheap · Thursday June 3, 2010
Last night’s ITP Camp sessions where Design Something That Solves A Problem by Dustyn Roberts and Sensors and Interface Board–Easy! by Stephen Lewis.
Ms. Roberts presented several techniques for problem-solving, brainstorming, and idea evaluation.
Mr. Lewis showed how easy it is to work with the Hagstrom Electronics KEAD6 Board. The KEAD6 is essentially a no to little programming required alternative to the Arduino. It features 6 input channels, which can be attached to various switches, potentiometers, or sensors, and individually configured through the use of a setup utility. The board will then send keystrokes or joystick commands to the attached computer. The setup requires Windows, but the board will then work with a Mac or PC. It looks like an great system for testing new sensors, prototyping, building simple projects, and teaching children about electronics.
Lewis then showed us how to construct a multi-touch surface in Processing for under $100 using a clear box, a sheet of plexiglass, a mirror, and a webcam. Pretty badass!
» Matt
ITP Camp Begins · Tuesday June 1, 2010
ITP Camp began tonight, and the first session I attended was Design Frontiers in Biology and Materiality by Amanda Parkes. Ms. Parkes is a PhD candidate in the Tangible Media Group at MIT’s Media Lab. She is a designer interested in the relationship of gesture, form, materiality, and computation in the context of hybrid physical-digital objects with a research focus on developing intuitive and investigative learning and design tools. The session provided a fascinating introduction to biological systems as a frontier for artistic expression. I’m really looking forward to many of the upcoming sessions.
» Matt
Adjunct(ing) at BMCC · Thursday January 28, 2010
I’m really excited to be teaching again at Borough of Manhattan Community College this semester. I taught ActionScript 2.0 and 2D Animation in Flash and After Effects at BMCC back in 2005. This spring I’m teaching ActionScript 3.0 and HTML/CSS/JavaScript. My classes are MMP230: Interaction Design with Multimedia Programming and MMP200: Multimedia Design. Thanks to Jody Culkin and Cynthia Karasek for finding me an adjunct spot within the Media Arts & Technology Department.
» Matt
ITP Winter Show 2009 · Saturday January 2, 2010
I attended the ITP Winter Show 2009 a couple weeks ago and finally got around to editing a video of all that I encountered. Congratulations to the students, faculty and staff on another great show.
The ITP Show is “a festival of interactive sight, sound and technology from the student artists and innovators at ITP”. ITP is “a two-year graduate program located in the Tisch School of the Arts whose mission is to explore the imaginative use of communications technologies — how they might augment, improve, and bring delight and art into people’s lives. Perhaps the best way to describe us is as a Center for the Recently Possible.”
» Matt
FatBits LLC · Friday January 1, 2010
Happy New Year! After 10 years working as an independent contractor I’ve taken the steps necessary to form a Limited Liability Company, FatBits LLC, for my business activities. The process was pretty straightforward. In New York, where my business is located, most of the steps can be accomplished online. Every state is slightly different. For instance, most states don’t have the costly publication requirement that New York has. I’ve outlined the basic steps for New York below:
Step 1: Review the information at the NYS Division of Corporations website.
Step 2: Search the Corporation & Business Entity Database for your business name to make sure it isn’t already in use.
Step 3: Submit an Articles of Organization form with payment by mail to: Department of State, Division of Corporations, One Commerce Plaza, 99 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12231, by fax to: 518-474-1418 or electronically at the NYS Online Permit Assistance and Licensing website. This costs about $200.
Step 4: Request an Employer ID number, or EIN, from the IRS website. Use this instead of your Social Security number going forward.
Step 5: Once you’ve received your Filing Receipt from the Department of State, contact your county clerk about fulfilling your publication requirement. If your principle office is in Manhattan the phone number is: 646-386-5955 ×65957. Say hi to Esther.
Step 6: Fulfill your publication requirement by contacting the newspapers given to you by your county clerk. The New York Law Journal will be one of them. They have an online form, or you can call them at: 866-305-3058. The other paper will be randomly assigned to you. Prepare to spend about $1,100.
Step 7: Once you’ve received an Affidavit of Publication from the newspapers file a Certificate of Publication form with the NYS Division of Corporations.
Step 8: Optionally file any related trademarks with the Unites States Patent and Trademark Office website.
You’re in business!
Please Note: The above steps don’t constitute professional legal advice. Please seek the help of a lawyer if you have any questions about the process outlined above.
» Matt
Consulting for NYSE Euronext · Wednesday November 11, 2009
For the past few months I’ve been consulting for NYSE Euronext. I’ve primarily been performing user acceptance testing on the future financial portal that will be nyx.com. Working with the team in Comweb has been a total pleasure. I wish them all the best of luck going forward.
» Matt
Announcing networked · Saturday August 1, 2009
I’m really thrilled to announce today networked a (networked_book) about (networked_art). The website, designed and developed by me for / with Turbulence, invites users to participate in commentary, translation, and the writing / re-writing of essays about networked art. The site was built using WordPress, CommentPress, and BuddyPress as a platform.
networked proposes that a history or critique of interactive and / or participatory art must itself be interactive and / or participatory; that the technologies used to create a work suggest new forms a “book” might take.
In 2008, Turbulence and its project partners — newmediaFIX, Telic Arts Exchange, and Freewaves – issued an international, open call for chapter proposals. We invited contributions that critically and creatively rethink how networked art is categorized, analyzed, legitimized — and by whom — as norms of authority, trust, authenticity, and legitimacy evolve.
The international committee consisted of: Steve Dietz (Northern Lights, MN), Martha Gabriel (net artist, Brazil), Geert Lovink (Institute for Network Cultures, The Netherlands), Nick Montfort (Massachusetts Institute for Technology, MA), Anne Bray (LA Freewaves, LA), Sean Dockray (Telic Arts Exchange, LA), Jo-Anne Green (NRPA, MA), Eduardo Navas (newmediaFIX), Helen Thorington (NRPA, NY)
networked was made possible with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts (United States).
» Matt
Teaching Residency at BArT · Monday June 15, 2009
Marianne and I just finished up another teaching residency, this time at Berkshire Arts & Technology Charter Public School in Adams, Massachusetts. The program was supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council and involved instructors Erica Tawes, JP Henkel, and Michael Arquilla as well as artists / writers David Lachman, Anika Nailah, Marianne R. Petit, and myself.
There is also a multi-media exhibition of the students’ work at Greylock Arts titled BArT: Created, Collected, Communicated for the next two weeks. Included art works make use of digital and traditional media and explore the nature of personal memory, collective story telling, artifacts, and location.
» Matt
Explore the Sea Around You · Thursday June 4, 2009
Sea Around You is a new website developed by me for science writer Deborah Cramer that makes use of geolocation to show how the sea and sea life affects you, no matter where you live.
» Matt
ITP Spring Show 2009 · Monday May 11, 2009
I attended the ITP Spring Show 2009 yesterday, and have to admit I was blown away. This was the best ITP show that I’ve been to. I shot and edited the video above so that others could experience it for themselves.
The ITP Show is “a festival of interactive sight, sound and technology from the student artists and innovators at ITP”. ITP is “a two-year graduate program located in the Tisch School of the Arts whose mission is to explore the imaginative use of communications technologies — how they might augment, improve, and bring delight and art into people’s lives. Perhaps the best way to describe us is as a Center for the Recently Possible.”
» Matt
Sty & Wal-Scape at Storefront Artist Project · Monday May 4, 2009
Two of my art works, Sty and Wal-Scape were recently included in a group show at Storefront Artist Project in Pittsfied, MA. Above, check out a video of Sty, and below a more general video of the opening reception.
The exhibit also includes the art of Larry Alice, Steve Levin, Lisa Nilsson, Douglas Paisley, Marianne R. Petit, and Rich Remsberg. Another Island is up through May 24, 2009. It was a great pleasure to be included in the exhibit with such great friends!
» Matt
Ethnographic Video Editing for Practica Group · Friday March 20, 2009
Lets face it, all freelancers have favorite clients and not so favorite clients. Practica Group falls well within the favorite client category. Patti Sunderland at Practica has become like a sister to me. Over the last few years we’ve shared many joys and heartaches as we have worked together to edit ethnographic research videos for Practica’s varied clients. One recent video segment is now featured on Practica’s Pictures and Videos page. Follow Millie in “A Passion for Food” Parts 1 and 2 as she takes us through her day in a video diary about eating habits good and bad.
» Matt
The All New Berkshire ArtStart · Sunday March 15, 2009
I’ve recently been working with Jessica Conzo and Jonathan Secor at the Berkshire Cultural Resource Center to rebuild their directory of artists, opportunities and resources known as Berkshire ArtStart.
The previous incarnation had been built using Joomla. In addition to many bugs and quirks, it had a difficult interface that discouraged adoption. For the rebuild, I used NewAdams.es, a website focused on Adams and North Adams, Massachusetts based on the WordPress MU platform. I developed NewAdams.es in 2008 precisely because I wanted to have a place to easily deploy locally relevant websites.
The overhaul resulted in a simplified interface which has vastly increased the usability of the ArtStart site. And where the previous ArtStart made use of proprietary tools, I thought it was important for the new version to allow users to make the most of other websites and platforms they may already be using. There is now RSS, Flickr, Youtube, and Google Calendar integration on user profiles.
This is just the beginning of the all new Berkshire ArtStart.
» Matt
Teaching Residency with Kidspace @ MASS Moca · Friday November 7, 2008
Marianne and I, through Greylock Arts and with Kidspace @ MASS Moca, will be working for the next few months with the fourth graders at three schools in North Adams, Massachusetts. With Kidspace interns, Jo and Kristen, we’ve been teaching the students at Sullivan, Greylock, and Brayton Elementary Schools an art and technology curriculum that has them creating collages, exploring exquisite corpse, drawing comics, and making animations.
» Matt
Lumens in The Boston Globe · Wednesday August 20, 2008
Lumens was reviewed today in the Boston Globe by critic Cate McQuaid. She said:
“Lumens suggests we’re all connected, and that’s a reassuring notion, even expressed in the light of energy-burning incandescent bulbs.”
Read the entire review here: http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/food/articles/2008/08/20/capturing_the_overlooked/
» Matt
Lumens Video · Monday August 11, 2008
I just finished a video illustrating Lumens in action shot with my new Xacti 1010. Hope you enjoy it.
» Matt
Announcing Lumens · Thursday July 10, 2008
Lumens, an interactive light installation by artists Ven Voisey, Sean Riley, and myself, opened today at Greylock Arts in Adams, MA MCLA Gallery 51 in North Adams, MA as well as online at Turbulence today. Lumens will be at Greylock Arts and MCLA Gallery 51 through October 31st, 2008. And available online indefinitely at: http://turbulence.org/works/newadams/lumens/
A project of Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting the Adamses, Lumens is an installation of lamps networked across three spaces: Greylock Arts, MCLA Gallery 51, and Turbulence.org. Scores of personal lamps that usually inhabit and illuminate the interiors of homes and shops have been borrowed from the residents of Adams and North Adams, Massachusetts, filling two gallery spaces: Greylock Arts in Adams and MCLA Gallery 51 Annex in North Adams. In addition, their images and stories are represented on turbulence.org, which also serves to connect the two locations telematically.
Clusters of lamps have been outfitted with proximity sensors and arduino microcontrollers. Lamps illuminate in response to a visitor’s presence and simultaneously illuminate lamps in the counterpart spaces. Thus, an individual in Adams can communicate his/her presence to an individual in North Adams, and vice versa. Additionally, as visitors investigate the history of a particular lamp online it will also illuminate in the physical gallery space.
Lumens (re)connects North Adams and Adams — originally a single community — through an exploration of location, influence, history, and the present.
Special thanks to Larry Alice, Michael Chapman, Jo-Anne Green, Abbi Hermosa, Tom Igoe, Marianne R. Petit, John Schimmel, Jonathan Secor, Helen Thorington and the generous people of Adams and North Adams.
Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting the Adamses is a collaboration of Greylock Arts, MCLA Gallery51, and Turbulence. Lumens has been made possible through the generous support of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. with funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the LEF Foundation, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
» Matt
Conservation International: Interactive Map · Monday July 7, 2008
I just finished working on an exciting new project for Conservation International. It’s an Interactive Map that shows articles, photos and video of conservation work that CI is doing around the world. The map is a completely custom Adobe Flash application developed in object oriented Actionscript 2 by me while consulting for Atmosphere BBDO. It was really great working with the fine folks at Atmo.
» Matt
Wal-Scape at Greylock Arts · Tuesday May 20, 2008
Wal-Scape, an installation of products purchased at Wal-Mart is part of the group exhibit Being There: A Geocoded Landscape at Greylock Arts in Adams, Massachusetts through June 28, 2008.
Consisting of fake flowers and plants, toys, cardboard boxes, plastic bags, a television, and other products purchased from a local Wal-Mart, Wal-Scape attempts to restore the landscape that has been removed with the materials now found at that location. Further mining my interest in these massive retail spaces, Wal-Scape calls into question our value of manufactured goods over nature.
Being There: A Geocoded Landscape explores our surrounding landscape through art and technology. Geocoding is a process where geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) are identified for a particular item or location. Works of art included in this exhibit have been geocoded and mapped, allowing viewers to visit the approximate location where the original work was created in or inspired by.
» Matt
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