Wow!!!… Watch this video and be astonished, memorized, and creeped out all at the same time. I thought it was CG then realized it was freaking real!! What an awesome experience this must of been watching these master puppeteers work their magic in this festival! I wished I was in London when this event (The Sultans Elephant by Royal de Luxe) happened, but it’s not too late as the show will continue on to Calais (September 28-October 1) and in Le Havre (October 26-29,2006) I’ll admit, my first craving for puppeteers was while watching Being John Malkovich and now this amazing creation! I’m sure everyone felt like a kid again in some mysterious way. I want one! More pics after the jump!
More pics on Flickr here.
The video of the Giant Girl!
The Amazing Elephant!

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If your in the Boston area this weekend and craving some awesome acoustic music, hit up Club Passim In Harvard Square for their 4 day “Cutting Edge of the Campfire Weekend” filled with an eclectic range of live music ranging from folk, country, classical, a bit of rock, and bluegrass. If you like acoustic music, you’ll love it here! It’s also located in Veggie Planet hence serving up an awesome meal while chilling to some good tunes.

Pictured above is Rustic Belle. They served up an incredibly unique and new sound to music by mixing up a rustic set of tin cans, drums, guitars, baby toys, an accordion, a zither, and other various wonders. Their sound and performance was a mix of gypsidic, pirate like, jazz-spunk, with a parisian french chocolate type of twist played by a very chill and happy crew of characters..yea, very different! Here are some highlights from the two Campfire events I’ve been to:

Campfire May 06 highlights, based on live shows:
Laura Distasi, Christina Orbe, Tripping Lily, Milton, Ilyaimy, Laura Cortese, Rachel Mccartney, Jason Myles Goss, Morwenna Lasko& Jay Pun,Tim Gearan, Gretel, Lily Holbrook, Don DiLego, Sydney Wayser, Melody Garoot, Frank Marotta, Jr.

Campfire Sept 06 highlights:(minus some repeats above)
Rose Polenzani, Brian Webb, Justin Rosolino, Rusty Belle, Amy Campbell, Jenny Owen Youngs, Trisha O’Keefe, Matt Duke, Jesse Dee, Miss Tess, Rolla, Tom Bianchi, Mark Radcliffe, Blue Moose & The Unbuttoned Zippers, Ralston, Anne Heaton, Mieka Pauley, Jaded Mandolin, Ellery, Hoots and Hellmouth, Notorious, Abbie MacQuarrie & Amanda Cavanaugh

Ever since I bought a digital camera I wanted to take a picture of myself everyday for a long period. Well, that long period lasted maybe a week before I broke my routine. If your wondering what the results would have been like, check out Ahree Lees documentation of herself everyday for the last 3 years here!!!(or the full video here) It’s pretty amazing seeing time pass by. There’s this other guy that took a picture of himself each morning for a year, and this Google employee with a photolog of every single meal he had at Google for about a year. Be interesting if you could get a ClickDensity map of some sort over those images…perhaps what parts have changed, where zits appeared and vanished, what you ate, etc. Perhaps something like MouseMiles, to track the distance you mouse travels daily.
update: a guy does it for 6 years here!

I’ll be in the UK for the week, but I’ll be back rockin more posts when I return. If your in that area, please let me know. (Bath, Malmesbury, London, perhaps Bristol)

Here are some mini links to make up for the week:
- Cute people jewelry!(Jade Gedeon)
- Platial: explore and map your world while using the new Sony GPS gadget!
- Animated hand drawn lights!
- Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design!
- Atlas Gloves Demo: DIY minority report interface for $8!
- The classic “Powers of Ten” video on youtube.
- For fun: Treadmill Dancing at it’s best!!!

This was my last exhausting day walking around Siggraph2006.

Pictured above is a textile piece by Joanna Berzowska.

“The KraKow weaving is an electronic, color-changing Jacquard weaving that integrates conductive yarns, thermochromatic inks, and custom control electronics. The weaving illustrates a scene from Joannas childhood in Poland. Over time, the ink overprinted on the figures in the weaving changes color from black to transparent. Like our memories of them, the people in the textile disappear over time. As populations are displaced, the traces of their presence in place and time are similarly erased.

More pics and projects after the jump. (more…)

Day 2 at Siggraph2006 was another round of animations, techy art, some weird music, and a return to the emerging arts gallery. The exhibits hall also opened up, but, it was just a mini version of CES.

Pictured above is EON Realities Touchlight system, which was very much like Jef Hans Multi-Touch screen, but different technologies and some applications. The cool portion was the ability to transfer any image onto the screen simply by pressing the image up against the screen for about 8 seconds. Zooming in, rotating, moving, and other actions were pretty intuitive, though glitchy. The resolution was not the greatest, but the system had a magical air like feeling.
More projects and pics after the jump.

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Some more pictures and notes on another brief visit to the Siggraph galleries. More after the jump.

Pictured above, is an art piece with temperature controlled plates that changed temperatures based on what was projected. (Snow=cold, fire=hot) (more…)

Seems like Sony is masterminding yet another colorful commerical after their famous bouncing balls commerical, but this time, their using colored paint balls, and TONS of it:

70,000 litres of paint
358 single bottle bombs
33 sextuple air cluster bombs
22 Triple hung cluster bombs
268 mortars
33 Triple Mortars
22 Double mortars
358 meters of weld
330 meters of steel pipe
57 km of copper wire

Sounds like fun:
Sony Bravia Advert
Flickr pics 

update: an interview with David Patton on the making of the video, on PSFK’s IF here. (thanks jeff)

I love it when things in the digital world are brought back into the physical world. There’s the Scroller Scarf, The Mario Brothers Coin Boxes, The Bubble Project quotes, Unnecessary Censorship Shirts, character costumes, the Sims floating diamond, tons of others, and now perhaps my favorite, the Cursor Kite!!! Fly this bad boy over your cityscape and navigate your virtual physical world. It would be cool if you could actually click or drag objects much like that one cursor commercial some years ago, but I’m sure you can easily crash this huge kite into standbys only to knock them over. Perhaps latch on to the tip a fake body and drag them throughout the sky!
Anyhow, I love it when the digital meets the physical world…keep them ideas rollin out!! buh yeah!

First there were those t-shirts, hats, golf balls, and other objects that you could embed your name into and give as great gifts. Then came the ipods with the etched personalizations. Then came the “create it yourself” trend in making your own designs and looks in products. Video games also allowed people to map their own faces onto basketball players, though they looked like contorted lego heads. Now comes a rather interesting twist to the world of MP3′s with the experimental trial run with artist Jessica Simpson’s “Your Name, Your Song”. You pay $1.99 and get your very own personalized version of Jessicas smash hit single “A public Affair” featuring you!(and the other thousand people that have your name)

Is it worth the extra price, I’m not sure, but for some fan fanatics, I’m sure it’s a dream. You can hear a sample of the customized song on yahoos webpage which uses the name “Yahoo” which makes for a rather interesting song since “yahoo” also somewhat means, bozo. These new MP3′s are also unrestricted, meaning, anyone can copy them once purchased.(I guess someone can buy all 1000 names and sell them for 50 cents now) Anyhow, the day that you walk into a movie theater, pay an extra 50$ to get a body scan and have James Bond replaced by none other than yourself might be a fun experience.

This somewhat reminds me about the post I made about the paradox of choice. Soon when you want to buy a song, you’ll also be asked in what tempo, which remix, which words, which language, which quality, and which pitch. This is very much comparable to how you use to be able to just buy a pair of jeans, though now you are asked, what kind, what length, ripped, stained, washed, buttoned, zippered, etc. I’ll still debate the question if choice is good or bad, but as far as I know, choice is always going to increase.
via paidcontent

I love the internet. If ya need a good laugh, check out this drunk hamsters video here. Enjoy!

update: yet another stupendously funny hamster video on a wheel!

Pecha Kucha Nights is an event gathering young designers to meet, network, and quickly show their work in public spaces. The catch to the presentations is that each of the dozen+ presenters is allowed 20 slides and 20 seconds each, which is a recipe for a lively, enthusiastic, concise presentation. The idea for pecha kucha (which is Japanese for the sound of conversation) started in Japan in 2003 and has quickly formed groups in key cities around the world.
I love the idea of short presentations as it really forces people to get to the point, and personally, I love the spontaneity when presenters rush and sweat to say what they usually want to say in an hour into a few seconds.  Check out their site for locations and schedules or if you have something ya’d like to share with the world, sign up to present! Here’s a presentation from Guy Dickinson in Copenhagen during one of the recent events. (all typed in a bit over 20 seconds!!)