This year the students in Digital Design at the University of Colorado created an amazing film for an event at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. A full dome film is a truly unique experience, it is not at all like IMAX, but is a totally immersive environment. Your entire field of vision and even things behind you are rendered, making an out of body experience truly possible.

The students worked on this film over the course of a semester, not just on the film itself but on promoting it as well. The event was a huge success, standing room only and their film turned out incredible. Hope to see it in other dome venues soon.

I've posted a link to a documentation of the project that the students create here.

Above are some stills from their movie: Greenit

All in all it was a really fun experience, a bit of work but well worth it to hear the reaction of the audience.

My short (very short) animation will be screened opening night at the 47th Ann Arbor Film Festival on March 24 in Ann Arbor Michigan. I'm looking forward to heading up for the festival, it looks like some amazing films and animations.

Cool idea on Lowtech Magazine, a way to transport that is low cost, quiet and environmentally friendly.

Interesting article about Facebook in the NY Times. What do you do when you have too many Facebook friends? I thought it was interesting too because the BK ad was the thing that instigated the story, so not only did BK get time on Facebook they also get a feature in the NY TImes that becomes one of the most emailed articles. A double-whopper for sure!

An annual report that has to be baked to be read.

Big week this week, not only getting back to school but I had my film "drop" in the SIFF, best of all I get to use these cool laurels!

And, Jane Franklin Dance will perform Indistinct Boundaries this Saturday at the Burke Theater at the Navy Memorial Heritage Center in DC.

This coming Saturday, Jan. 10 I will be premiering a new piece that I've been working on this fall with Jane Franklin Dance. We rehearsed the piece last Friday with the final animation and sound and I was really pleased with how it has turned out. The dancers and choreography is amazing when layered with video, I think it has a really nice feeling. Our goal with this piece is to blur the boundaries of the stage and the projection through layered imagery and the use of negative space.

The music is something I've been working on for a good amount of time and am very happy with how it sounds. The sound is highly processed, somewhat rhythmic and involves the use of low-frequency oscillators to drive panning, rhythm and white noise. This will be performed one night only, at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington DC.

Google now has ancient Rome as a destination on Google Earth. Really interesting idea and it immediately brought to mind a story I heard about the movie Gladiator. The landscape was done in C4D and was initially a faithful reproduction of ancient Rome, much like Google Earth's version. But, even though the directors asked for that, when they saw the "reality" it wasn't good enough. So the artists had to make the buildings taller, the hills larger and basically fabricate a "real" image of Rome that was more real than the real thing...

Confused yet? It brings up the interesting paradox about what our current day memory or Rome will be. Will it be based off Gladiator or based off Google Earth?

Just got some pictures of my entries that are on exhibit at the Art Center Tokyo as part of the Lemnos Design Clock competition. I was trying to subvert the viewers sense of space by depicting depth on a flat object.

Check out P.R. at next week's Chicago's Underground Film Festival, it will be screened on Saturday, Nov.1, 2008 at 5PM in the Viaduct Theater 3111 N Western Ave. Chicago, IL.

Looks like a great festival!

Well yesterday I took my mom to the airport for a very unusual trip. She has always been an adventurous sort, but I think even for her this trip will be something special. She's heading off to Ethiopia to visit the remote Suri tribe as part of the Ethiopia Reads project to bring books to the people of Ethiopia.

She has promised to blog about this when she can on her blog A Heart Full of Happy. The people she will meet do not have a written form of their language and the hope is to help them to develop this in order to protect themselves from the inevitable development that is heading their way. The Surma people have an incredibly rich cultural heritage of body ornamentation, decoration and culture.

I'm really inspired by mom and the fact that she is so willing to take on any new adventure. I've outfitted her with lots of advice, a digital camera and a really nice digital recorder for taking professional quality recordings while she is there. She seems to take to these new devices with ease, it's very cool. Can't wait to see what she comes back with and hear the stories she's going to tell.

Next month a clock design I submitted will be exhibited at the Artcomplex Center of Tokyo. It's all part of a Design competition sponsored by Lemnos. The winning design will be manufactured and licensed as part of their product line. I'm very excited to be exhibiting in such a nice gallery space and hope to be able to check it out in person sometime.

As part of a class I'm teaching this fall I asked my students to find examples of pro bono work in the design field and write up a "case study" of one the projects. I have to say, it was really one of the most inspiring assignments that I've given and I really enjoyed finding out what design firms around the world are doing. Its just an amazing testament to our creative field to see so many studios devoting a part of their practice to pro bono work. Donated works range from artwork for a cause to a donation of a years worth of design work in the case of Firebelly design.

A big thank you to everyone who took the time to talk to my students, it is much appreciated!

I'd like to post what they came up with, as I think anyone interested in design would find these profiles quite interesting:

Voices for Children/CASA

Arts-Street.org

Tribeca Film Festival

The Hurricane Poster Project

Firebelly Design/ Illinois Safe School Alliance

Earth Policy Institute

Design for Democracy

Denver Parade of Homes

Citizen Pictures - Annual NDAC show

girls ROCK and PETA2

San Francisco Film Night in the Park

Beauty in Times Square

Pro Bono Info

Scratch Design

Boys and Girls Club

I really like the way this was designed. Using 3D geometry as a starting point Kas Oosterhuis created a building from a computer built model. Usually, it's the other way around, a CAD program is used to figure out how to use industrially supplied geometric pieces to construct a building. This puts a lot of limits on the kinds of shapes that can be made.

With ONL's design, the 3D model was used to guide the construction process. No two panels are the same, but are easily made using laser controlled machinery. Nice!

I'm hoping to start a 3D rapid prototype sculpture that is a similar concept, the computer creates the object through gravity and dynamic simulation, becoming a co-creator.

One of the most interesting aspects of sustainable developments to me is the complexity of the equations involved. My recent post about sailing ships implies that the wind may be the answer to all of our energy problems, but that's not always the case. Take for example the Energy Ball. If only everyone would install a windmill on their house we could ween ourselves off of oil, right?

Well read on, you have to take into account the placement and energy produced compared with the price to make the windmill to get the full picture. In this case, windmills could be harming the environment!

I have lately been very interesting in combining archaic technologies with new ones, this story is about the return of tall sailing ships to the oceans as a commercial shipping alternative. Originally developed as a "green" way to transport, these sailing ships have become commercially viable with the high price of diesel. The company is shipping wine now, and the cost is only 5% more than standard shipping. When their new high-tech sailboats are constructed, they believe it will be less expensive.

Another interesting story is about the amateur builder of some of the best early submarines in Barcelona. Narcís Monturiol i Estarrol wooden submarine built these as a utopian vision of providing a safer way to dive for coral. Many of his innovations were not replicated until the modern era of nuclear submarines, such as an engine whose by-product is oxygen.

How about a game that reforms the landscape as you play?

An animation that I did for Steven Antosca's such a pure force is included as part of the 86 Collective digital art project that is on view at The Lab at Belmar from June 18th to July 20th.

RUCKUS, REPEAT, RUCKUS: Visual Noise is a video art exhibition that explores the spectacular and dynamic dimensions of the digital art medium. Meaning to suggest an urban environment, the metaphor of noise is an aesthetic experience that is neither contemplative nor decorative, but continually draws attention. Works will be more abstract than narrative and more sensory-based than conceptual with compelling visual and audio effects and imagery.

Located at 404 S. Upham Street in Lakewood, RUCKUS, REPEAT, RUCKUS will be open to the public from June 18th – July 20th. The hours of operation are Tuesday – Saturday 12-6pm; Sunday 12-5pm; Closed Monday.

P.R. will be screened as part of the Globians Shorts Reel for the Globian Documentary Film Festival in Potsdam and Berlin. Globians is an annual international documentary film festival focusing on world cultures, urban issues, world religions, cultural identities, gender issues, sub-cultures and many other timely topics.

The Globians Shorts Reel will be presented on Saturday August 16th, 2008 at the festival house Old City Hall in Potsdam and on Saturday September 7th during the Berlin festival rerun at Babylon:Mitte. The Babylon:Mitte is Berlin's preeminent art-house facility with a long tradition since the silent era of movies.

If you missed PR at last weeks 15th New York Underground Film Festival, don't despair. Two films will be screened later this month in New York as part of the Brooklyn Arts Council's 42nd Film Festival. My film P.R. will be screened on May 1st, 2008 at the Long Island University Kumble Theater as part of the A Contemplation of Violence program. And my film drop will be screened on May 8th, 2008 at the Long Island University Spike Lee Screening Room as part of the The Power of Art program.

If you are in NYC, hope you can make it!

Also, this week Drop is showing at the Atlanta Film Festival which looks like a great event, I wish I could be there!

I will be staging Temporal Interference once again at a dance festival - Performatica in Pueblas, Mexico this week - April 3, 7-10 PM.

On the way back from Mexico Jane Franklin Dance has agreed to a performance here in Denver as well.

The Denver performance will be a free concert at the King Center, University of Colorado Denver on April 5, 7:30 PM, 2008 (download the press release with King Center performance details.

Looking forward to it and hope to see everyone there!

Finally! Went to my first Dorkbot since moving to Denver, it was great! Saw a local developer from Cycling74, Darwin Grosse, gave brief intro to Max/MSP/Jitter. Looks like Cycling74 will release the much anticipated Max 5 sometime in April, can't wait for that. John English showed his highly efficient electric bike and a great set by Ate Bitten, a guy using 8-bit sound and video, really cool stuff.

Nice to see such a good crowd, it reminded me of DC's very active Dorkbot chapter. Looking forward to meeting more noise musicians, programmers and people doing strange things with electricity.

I am very happy to report that an animation I did "P.R." has been accepted into the Black Maria Film Festival. This is a great festival, they feature very good cutting edge work and have long been a champion of independent film. The film won a second juried prize- I like how they summarized my work on their site:

"This biting work is a conceptual deconstruction of an ill-considered pronouncement by a noted televangelist. The artist “metamorphizes” one icon into another as he turns media-driven culture against itself. P.R. is a compact, yet effective protest against right-wing reactionary thinking."

What a great commentary! What I liked about the piece is that I felt like I didn't have to really do anything at all, I just let the subject speak for himself and it all just fell into place.

This Monday, Feb. 25th the Black Maria will be right down the street in Boulder, CO, I may have to skip out of class early to go see it on the big screen.

This year I have also had another animated film "drop" accepted into both the Byron Bay Film Festival in Australia and the 30th annual Big Muddy in Carbondale, IL. I'm really happy to see this work getting out there in such fantastic venues. I feel I've been quite fortunate and it's really motivating me to finish up some other animations I've been working on.

I had not heard of this system before, but it's a clever visualization solution to show the public the quality and conditions of their environment in an easy to read format. A colored glow indicates what the Ph balance is of NYC's water at any given time. Cool!

Paula Scher has designed a new logo for the NYC Ballet company that is very clean and classic. Great design!