May 24th
3:58 PM
3:58 PM
Guess who? 3D Scan of a 1972 mickey mouse, with a reduced polygon count for further algorithmic processing.
May 23rd
4:22 PM
4:22 PM
Early commercial exploitation of CCTV technology; the sign reads: “Do you want to increase efficiency in your office? This can be simply and cheaply undertaken by Pye closed-circuit television.”
Photograph taken by Charles E Fraser. My investigations lead me to believe this was taken in 1951 at the Festival of Britain. Photo recently found by myself at a car-boot sale in London.
May 17th
12:07 AM
12:07 AM
Technology makes us human, Neil MacGregor revisited.
One of my favourite books is A history of the World in 100 objects by Neil MacGregor. I’m also a fan of the British Museum where MacGregor has the small role of Museum Director. One quote really stands out for me and keeps me thinking and rethinking our relationship with technology:
“From the point where our ancestors started making tools, people have been unable to survive without the things they make; in this sense, it is making things that makes us human.”
A history of the World in 100 Objects. p.13
May 11th
1:16 AM
1:16 AM
a message from doingadahmer
Happybot and Sadbot don't block words from foreign languages? This may slow down the progress they can make?
The bots are set to only pick up twitter accounts set to English, however some people tweet in multiple languages so they may learn words that are not English.
10:43 AM
@happyB0T, @sadB0T
10:43 AM
happy not sad, sad not happy
I’ve set up two twitter bots that follow identical algorithms but will probably evolve to be very different. Both @happyB0T and @sadB0T are learning Markov text generators. Their vocabulary starts from zero but they gradually expand it by searching for tweets and adding them to their own growing dictionary of words and phrases. They then use a Markov chain algorithm to construct new sentences and tweet them.
The difference between the two is that happyB0T only searches for tweets that include :) (happy faces), and sadB0T sadly only collects tweets that include :( (sad faces).
More specifically in code and twitter api search terms…
searchQuery = “:) -:(“; //happy, not sad
searchQuery = “:( -:)”; //sad, not happy
The bots also serve as fragmented mirrors to our cultural and linguistic tendencies. Only time can tell how these two will progress.
A project done in Processing with Twitter4J and RITA libraries, by Matthew Plummer-Fernandez.
Note: the ‘0’ in happyB0T and sadB0T is actually a zero 0. (For twitter naming purposes)
May 4th
8:52 AM
8:52 AM
"we should develop a much more terrifying new abstract materialism, a kind of mathematical universe where there is nothing, there are just formulas, technical forms and so on, the difficulty is to find poetry, spirituality in this dimension."
— Slavoj Zizek in Examined Life, 2008.
May 2nd
11:12 AM
11:12 AM
Tangled in New Aesthetic
Warm gratitude to Aaron Geiger for publishing this interview on his journal butifandthat.com
and a special thank you to James Bridle for publishing Sound / Chair on his popular tumblr
and a brief note on @NArtBot for now: NArt Bot is a twitter bot that monitors the online discussion surrounding the New Aesthetic. It also participates in the discussion by reading the NA essays that have been published and generating new sentences out of it using a Markov algorithm. An update I’m about to implement today will help NArtBot learn from its interactions. From now onwards any Retweets of what it has said will ‘teach’ it to know that that choice of words had a positive outcome, and would feedback into the Markov algorithm. I don’t know what the outcome of this will be, we’ll have to wait and see!
April 20th
4:58 PM
4:58 PM
In the lead… Thomas Heatherwick pioneered 3D scan art with the impressive Bleigiessen. 2005.
April 14th
9:07 PM
9:07 PM
Sound/Chair at Piscina Argelati, Milan, Designersblock show 2008.
April 13th
6:18 PM
6:18 PM
The New Aesthetic, a response.
The New Aesthetic concerns itself with “an eruption of the digital into the physical.” That eruption was inevitable. It’s been going on for a generation.
Bruce Sterling, Wired, April 2012
“Whatever you do, don’t become a designer, computers have taken our jobs.”
My dad and all his colleagues at a commercial artist studio in East London circa 1988.
April 11th
4:19 PM
4:19 PM
GeneratorX 3.0 from code to atoms, an iMal workshop led by Marius Watz where I developed the tSet();
The tCup(); is now available on thingiverse http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:19719
March 23rd
12:10 AM
12:10 AM
5 most epic 3D scans…so far
Recently I’ve noticed not many people know about 3D scanning, let alone some of the more incredible breakthroughs that should be regarded as milestone projects in years to come. So to help inspire and educate everyone I’ll be doing a series of blog posts starting with this one. My choice for the 5 most epic 3D scans to date are:
