Brand new website (Update your bookmarks / rss readers)

Hello and hi there folks.

If you view my site at it's true url (http://www.anderwparnell.com), you’ve probably already noticed a drastic change to the look of the site. It was old, and in desperate need of an overhaul, so I did just that.

But if you're seeing this entry, you're most likely looking at my old blog, either at blogger, or through an rss reader.

The new urls are http://www.andrewparnell.com/blog for the blog. and feed://andrewparnell.com/feed/ for the rss feed.

For years I’ve been powering the blog side of things with a blogger account, and my portfolio was a handwritten xml database. Because of this the blog was well maintained, but the portfolio, which was the splash page to the site, became neglected pretty quickly.

There were also a lot of things about the way the portfolio was handled under the old site that I didn’t like, including that I didn’t provide a good way to link directly to individual entries, nor did I provide a good indicator of new content. Not that that was an issue, since I almost never updated it.

All these things have been addressed in the new site. I’ve ditched the lighbox portfolio gallery that was so popular when I built the old site, and opted for individual pages for each entry.

The newest portfolio entry is now being publicized on the header of the home page and blog, and the latest blog post is visible on the front page.

I’ve also switched from being blogger driven to WordPress. I never had a single complaint with blogger, but the way I was getting my data was more than a bit kludgy, pulling the blog content from an RSS feed, and reformatting it to fit my needs.

Moving to WordPress I’m giving up my worry free data backup, but I think it will be well worth it.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say on this topic. If you have any thoughts / feedback, I’d love to hear them.

Inspiration China - Opening Tonight.

Inspiration China (Part of China Design Now Portland) opens tonight at 5 PM.

I went by yesterday and loaded Pectomoveo up with ink, and witnessed it put down its first set of lines, and I am absolutely in love with what it's doing. I'm so pleased and excited.

I'll see you there!

New work, old work, and the October shows containing them.

Last month was just jam packed with work for me, prepping both old and new work for two shows I had opening this month.


The show I made new work for this month is Inspiration China, part of China Design Now.

Responding to a 1000+ year old comb, I built a single axis CNC comb titled Pectomoveo, which mimics the gestural history of the comb by recording the movement as ink traces on paper.



The piece is laser cut out of wood, and operated by Arduino.



UO's Allied Arts & Architecture's blog has some nice photos and a good article on the exhibit, which opens this Thursday, October 8th, 5-7pm, at The White Box, 24 NW First Avenue, Portland, OR.

This is going to be a great show, with a lot of great people in it, like my Maybe We Can cohorts Zach Rose*, Shawna X. Huang and Mackenzie Schubert.



The other show I have this month is part of the Dorkbot PDX group show at ON Gallery where I'm displaying Cardiolumen, which was my BFA Thesis Piece.

Cardiolumen @ Maybe We Can from Andrew Parnell on Vimeo.

Using a heart rate monitor, an arduino, a servo motor, some gears and a dimmer switch, I am able to present the user's heart rate back to him, creating a meditative loop.



Jason has some great pictures of the show up on his site. I tried to get some myself, but it was just too crowded. (Not that I'm complaining.)

*You can also see Zach Rose, and his heart beat, in the video of Cardiolumen @ Maybe We Can. That's right, cross promotion within one post.

Data and the Physical World

Hey folks,

Sorry to have gone radio silent for the entire month of September. I've got this folder of images I wanted to post about in September, but now that we're in October, I guess we'll just skip it. (If you follow me on twitter you got the highlights anyway.)

Back in June I got invited to speak at Dorkbot 0x03. It was...not the smoothest talk I've ever been part of, in part because I really rushed through it. But it was a great experience.

Anyway, I recently found out Jared posted the video of my talk, so I figured I might as well share it.

Andrew S. Parnell - Data and the Physical World from Jared Boone on Vimeo.

Enjoy.

Oh Maywa Denki

Seriously, lets just leave it at Maywa Denki, I <3 You.

Body Collective

I'm super loving this work from Second Story for Portland Art Museum's Marking Portland: The Art of Tattoo exhibit.



Titled Body Collective, the piece lets visitors super impose art from the collection onto their own bodies, and then stores that image to be viewed by future visitors to the exhibit. It's super fun, and super beautiful.

...I like the word super today.



Go look at the rest of the documentation on Second Story's site. I think the videos do it the most justice.

The exhibit is running at the Portland Art Museum until September 7th. I'm going to check it out. If you're in/around Portland, you should too.

Thanks Nina for the alert.

The Maze Solving Algorithm

Maze Solving Algorithm from Andrew Parnell on Vimeo.

The Maze Solving Algorithm is a bit more geographically limited than RPS, mostly because you need to be in a walled city (or can otherwise define some bounds that act as a maze wall.) Still, if you CAN use it, the results are wonderful.

In Siena I went from Porta Tufi to Porta Ramano which Google tells me should take about 21 minutes walking, but using the algorithm took closer to an hour. Let me tell you: it was a well spent hour. (Though, I couldn't help but feel frustrated when I realized 30 minutes in that I'd effectively moved one block.)

RPS

After dinner last night I went through and gave RPS a proper trial. It worked BEAUTIFULLY! I'm actually a bit let down that I didn't start doing this earlier in the trip, because I saw areas of town I'd never seen before, and it was amazing.

A little modification to the rules stated last time for doing RPS with a standard ipod. Loading only 3 images (one of each arrow) will actually just repeat in the same random order every time. So instead of loading 3, load 10-15 copies of each image. This seems to work.

Algorithm

I'm in Siena, a medieval walled city. This place is exactly like the kind of mazes you find on children's placements at diners all over the US. (Maybe internationally too... I haven't ordered a kids meal here...) With this fact in mind it made sense to me to try and "solve" Siena using maze solving algorithms.

Maze Solving Algorithm

Now, I'm finding that when I say the word algorithm, people around me seem to just tune out. So let me clarify really quick. By algorithm I don't mean a large convoluted series of equations. I mean a very simple, specific, and strict set of rules. With Siena those rules are as follows:

1) Choose two gates, one to start at and one to finish at.
2) Choose a hand, left or right.
3) Keep that hand on a wall at all times. [Note: you don't actually have to walk touching a wall...that would be silly...but your path must be determined by the ability to do so. IE, if you choose your right hand, every time you can make a right turn, you must.]
4) Treat all gates that are not your final destination as though they are closed, with a wall bridging them.

Because you are starting and ending along city wall, you are guaranteed to get to your destination. It won't be the most direct route, but that's kind of the point.

Along the same lines, but with a less clear destination, is my second method - RPS.


RPS - Random Positioning System

RPS does not guarantee that you will get anywhere, and it is almost guaranteed that you will become lost within the city. After I get back to the states RPS will become an actual ipod touch / iphone app, available for download and applicable to any city. For the time being though I'm accomplishing the same effect with a regular ipod and the following rules.

1) Load an ipod with 3 images, a left arrow, a right arrow, and a forward arrow. Put them in a playlist. Enable shuffle.
2) As you walk, at every interesection, restart the playlist. This will select a new image at random.
3) Follow the arrows.
[NOTE: This WILL get you lost. Pay attention to the route it takes you on so you can back track if necessary.]

Historic Background
Like most things, the basic ideas behind these methods of navigation are not entirely new. And it seems fitting that in the process of prepping for this piece I stumbled across Psychogeography (by stumbled I mean I wound up in its territory and was alerted of this fact by my professor Colin Ives)

In 1955 by Guy Debord defined Psychogeography as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals." Guy Debord and the Situationalists used a map of London to explore the German countryside, using a restricted system to approach a nearlly unrestricted geography.

Using a map of Siena clearly wouldn't introduce any new experience to exploring the city, so instead I'm applying rules of mechanical exploration to a human system.

Tortillas...

Does any one else think it's odd that since I've been in Italy only one of the three (well, four now) posts I've made has had anything to do with Italy?

Yeah, me neither. Here's a post about tortillas.



I started making my own tortillas a few months ago, while I was in that "lets empty the fridge" stage of getting ready to move. When I'd mention this to people people would look at me like I was a mad man. Apparently I'm not alone in that respect. [No Recipes] just posted an article about making tortillas, and it's great.

My own method involves less prep time...but maybe I should chill that dough. *shrug* I'm impatient, what can I say.

Anyway, go read the article and learn to make your own tortillas. Why's everyone act like this is hard?

Continue Time

Sander Mulder, the studio that brought you Woofers (you know...those speakers installed in the necks of cast dog bodies...) just made 21 (20 for release, one artists proof) of the most amazing clock I've seen in a while. Continue Time is a 3 handed clock with exposed gears where the 3 hands each pivot on the tip of the previous unit. This is seriously beautiful.





....droooooool.

[via Make]

Oh Brad...

Brad Pitt did an article for this month's Wired. Sooo good.



[Via NOTCOT.org]

Green Platform

Hey Kids! (This is going to be rushed...and for that I am sorry.)

I'm in Siena, Italy doing a study abroad for the month of July. It's been pretty much amazing, in spite of my speaking ~15 words of the language. (...I started at 4...so... 15 is an improvement? Ci?)

Anyway, I don't really have internet access here. Not when I'm at my apartment anyway. But when I was in Florance Friday night, our hostel had wifi. Which was amazing, because it just so happened that We Make Money Not Art had posted this. We're talking serious stars aligning here.

So of course, I (along with two of the other artists I'm here with) went! It was this cool combo between art exhibit and science fair, which resulted in a really amazing experience.

Here's a sampling of images for you. The first 3 are my own images, the last two though are taken from the Green Platform website because I apparently was too enthralled by the piece to photo it well. All images are linked to the artist's page on the Green Platform site.


Nicola Toffolini

Nicola Toffolini just made it to my list of artists I think are super cool™ because of this piece, Volumi mutevoli a regime di crescita disturbato, which puts so many degrees of seperation between plant grown and natural sunlight its just breathtaking. (Three degrees are in the photo, realistically there are probably even more levels. But in the gallery it's spotlights powering solar panels powering red and blue grow lights.)


Dave Hullfish Bailey

There's something almost whimsical about Dave Hullfish Bailey's combination of text on planks and 360 degree photos of the library in Slab City, California.


Christiane Löhr

These structures are only ~3 inches tall, and made of grass stalks. I'll say no more.



Nikola Uzunovski

Nikola Uzunovski: congratulations, you've also made it onto the list of artists I think are super cool™. Artificial suns in the arctic circle? Beautiful. But the way you present it in the gallery? Even better. ...is there any way I can get a copy of that video?



So yeah... best 4 euro I've spent on this trip thus far. Click the links on those photos. I'm really not doing any of these pieces justice.

CIAO!

The Man Without A Shadow

Will you look at that? It's amazing! Life sized, 3D, LED person sculpture by Makoto Tojiki. Suffice it to say I'm impressed.

Can't sleep. Watching amazing cartoons.

[via Cartoon Brew]

More EyeTV related scripting.

Ok, so I spend way too much time with my laptop in my...well, my lap.

I've become a bit dissatisfied with the remote control that comes with EyeTV. But it has some strange lag at times, and things like changing the aspect ratio is under a web of menus.

So, I figured out how to do a litany of things via applescript, which I run through an ssh connection.

Now, for your enjoyment, here's some scripts (as called in SSH, if you're going to copy them into an applescript script, take out the osascript -e ' and the trailing ')

Full Screen:
osascript -e 'tell application "EyeTV" to enter full screen'
osascript -e 'tell application "EyeTV" to exit full screen'

Channel Changing:
Since I've still got the DTV box sitting between the EyeTV and my cable, the remote control is a way better way to change the channel, since this basically doubles the applescript lag.
osascript -e 'tell application "EyeTV" to channel_change channel number 60'
osascript -e 'tell application "EyeTV" to channel_up'
osascript -e 'tell application "EyeTV" to channel_down'

Play/Pause:
osascript -e 'tell application "EyeTV" to pause'
osascript -e 'tell application "EyeTV" to play'

Aspect Ratio:
Even via applescript changing the Aspect Ratio isn't straight forward. There isn't a direct command for it, so what I've been doing is instead telling the computer to pretend it just got the short cut key for the various aspect ratios.
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to keystroke "1" using {command down, option down}'
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to keystroke "2" using {command down, option down}'
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to keystroke "3" using {command down, option down}'

ZephIR & EyeTV

Comcast recently switched the majority of their analog cable over to digital, forcing me to get a little digital converter box to sit between the cable and my EyeTV. It also killed my ability to change channel thru EyeTV (I have the first gen of the 250+, which doesn't have built in QCAM) so I bought a ZephIR.

It works pretty well, but when quickly flipping through channels, it just doesn't keep up. Often I'd land on a channel (say 42) but since I'd been using just the up/down buttons, it would stop somewhere between (like 55).

So I wrote a little perl script to fix the problem.

In order for it to work you have to make sure that the components are named DIFFERENTLY in EyeTV and ZephIR. (Severing the connection between them.)

Here's the code:

#!/usr/bin/perl

# Declare the subroutines
sub trim($);
sub currentChannel();
sub blast($);
sub blastUp();
sub blastDown();

# Declare channel variable
my $curChan;

$curChan = currentChannel();

while(1) {
my $chanNow = currentChannel();
if(!($curChan == $chanNow))
{
$diff = $chanNow-$curChan;
if($diff==1) { blastUp(); }
elsif($diff==-1) { blastDown(); }
else {
blast($chanNow);
}
$curChan = $chanNow;
}
}

sub trim($)
{
my $string = shift;
$string =~ s/^\s+//;
$string =~ s/\s+$//;
return $string;
}

sub currentChannel()
{
$result = `osascript -e 'tell application "EyeTV" to get current channel'`;
return trim($result);
}

sub blast($)
{
my $in = shift;
my $command = "tell application \"ZephIR\" \n";
foreach (split(//, $in)) {
$command .= "fire zephir command \"$_\" of component \"ComcastDTA_\"\n";
}
$command .= "fire zephir command \"enter\" of component \"ComcastDTA_\"\n";
$command .= "end tell\n";
system("osascript -e '$command'");
}

sub blastUp()
{
system("osascript -e 'tell application \"ZephIR\" to fire zephir command \"Channel_Up\" of component \"ComcastDTA_\"'");
}

sub blastDown()
{
system("osascript -e 'tell application \"ZephIR\" to fire zephir command \"Channel_Down\" of component \"ComcastDTA_\"'");
}

REMINDER! (Or maybe it's an announcement)

I'll be speaking at Dorkbot 0x03 along with Michael Bunsen and Dan Gilsdorf tonight at 7pm.

The talk will be at AboutUs 107 SE Washington St, Suite 520. here in Portland.

It's open to the public, so you should stop by!

See you there.

[More info]

Authenticity Visual Responses

So far I've only posted 1/6 of the visual responses for Zara's class. Initially it was because I was debating whether or not I wanted to post them on my blog, then it was just because I was just not doing them. I'm still not sure I want these on the blog, but since I'm doing them all at once, what the hell!


Authentic Brand



Adafruit Industries is the epitome of an authentic brand to me. Why? I'm not sure. But I feel a strong emotional connection to it as a brand, and really feel like the values it embodies are ones that should be upheld within the DIY community.

Authentic Portland Architecture


What could be more authentic to Portland than its iconic bridges?

Authentic Experience



Ok, so this book is actually pretty sub par, and by no means is it an experience, but it had this really cool excerpt about authentic experiences, so I thought I'd include that.

"We choose a package deal with Authentic ExperiencesTM.
According to the brochure, there are five kinds of Experience: Urban, Rural, Semirural, Ethnic, and Ethnic with Danger. Standard Endangerment is Mild or Implied, but those in the know understand they may inquire discreetly about Actual Hazard - e.g., I've heard there might be something more? wispered into the ear of a client services representative (along with a slip of paper, folded and pressed into the palm, on which has been written a four- or even low five-figure sum) - for which damage waiver/general release forms will have to be signed and notarized..."

"'When does the Authenticity start?' my wife says. 'I want to have some Experiences.'"

Authentic Artist



I really can't think of anyone who embodies the idea of an authentic artist. Really, I think anyone who is putting work out there with artistic intent fits. (And no, I don't think they have to handle all stages of production to qualify.)

Authentic Designed Product



Is it wrong to mark my own product as an "authentic designed product?" I mean, come on, Shawna thinks it authentic, and I'm not about to disagree with her!

Location...

Just so you know... I'm in the meeting Meeting Pavilion spot 514.

See you at Maker Faire!

Premiering tomorrow at Maker Faire: a totally different project!

I went to setup Tangólumen at Maker Faire today and after 5.5 hours of setup (well, 5 if you discount that 30 minutes of that was me getting lunch) it... didn't work.

Either I screwed something up in the setup or something broke in shipping (or both... or option C [to be named later]) but whatever the cause, I didn't bring the tools with me I need to really debug it, nor did I really have ample time (or the heart) to rip it back up and fix it.

However, instead of prepping to spend a weekend saying "Well... this is what it should be doing" I went to the hardware store and picked up enough parts to hack together with the laser cut pieces I brought to control Tangólumen's lighting rig to create a brand new piece. And it's 300% more awesome.

...and I'm not going to tell you what it is until after tomorrow opens.

Creating a NIB-free Cocoa Touch application in XCode

Do you program Cocoa Touch apps? Do you hate that all of the project templates expect you to be using interface builder? Me too! Here's how to get rid off all IB dependencies in your app!


Why would you want to do this?
Because programatically creating interfaces is considerably easier to deal with. (In my opinion anyway.)

How do you do it?
I'm glad you asked. It's a little bit of a hassle, BUT it's worth it.

So here we go.

1) Create a new project in XCode using the "Window Based Application" template (Title it whatever the heck you want. For the sake of this tutorial I'm calling it "NoNib")

2) Looking at all the contents of your new app you should see:
CoreGraphics.framework
Foundation.framework
Info.plist
main.m
MainWindow.xib
NoNib.app
NoNib_Prefix.pch
NoNibAppDelegate.h
NoNibAppDelegate.m
UIKit.framework

Go ahead and delete MainWindow.xib (the NIB) and send it to the trash. You don't need it.

3) Open Info.plist
Select the line with key "Main nib file base name" and delete it

4) Open main.m
Find the line "int retVal = UIApplicationMain(argc, argv, nil, nil);" and replace the second line with the name of your AppDelegate as a string (example "int retVal = UIApplicationMain(argc, argv, nil, @"NoNibAppDelegate");")

5) Open your AppDelegate.h file and remove the line "@property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UIWindow *window;"

6) Open your AppDelegate.m file
Remove the line "@synthesize window;"
Then, within - (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application before the line that says "[window makeKeyAndVisible];" add this line "window = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds]];"

7) Build and Go
If it doesn't build without error, you most likely missed something in the above steps. Otherwise it should launch in the simulator as a completely empty app with a black background. CONGRATULATIONS! You can now start building Views and View Controllers without any of those icky interface builder remnants dragging you down.

gEarings

Well since they've been delivered, it is now officially safe for me to post about these. For mothers day I made my mom a pair of gEarings, (stud earings that double as a functioning planetary gear when in their case)







I also put the design and instructions on Thingiverse where they have since been featured.

A couple really nice things in my mind: the entire thing is laser cut (including the dowels) There is very little glue (backs of the earrings only) and the earrings were thinned down using the laser on etch.

I am pleased.

Shared on Thingiverse

I decided to share the how to of the device in the last post with the world via Thingiverse.

Check it out.

Cordislumen (Tentative Name) progress

Wow... last little while has been piss poor blogging performance for me, hasn't it? I apologize, many things have been happening in my professional life, the majority of which I do not feel comfortable sharing online.

Anyway, onto the cool stuff.

Cordislumen (Tentative Name) progress part 1 from Andrew Parnell on Vimeo.

I just finished building one of the ... I believe three ... components of my next piece. (Tentatively known as Cordislumen, hence forth not referred to by name). In function it's like the system of pulleys in my last piece. But practically speaking...it works so much nicer. In part this is because I'm not having to deal with co-opting a piece of building infrastructure (though, I did really like that element of Tangólumen) and also because I learned a lot from Tango's design, and was able to better design this one.

This portion of the project contains an outlet, a dimmer switch, and a servo (and for now: a dirty rubber band). The servo operates the dimmer, which in turn controls the amount of current going through one of the outlet's two sockets. (The other one delivers consistent power to the micro-controller / servo via a wall wart.) This is a really nice way to control an outlet...because in all truth, full source voltage is scary, scary stuff.

Some more photos...right here:

Authenticity Sticker

Fluid Sculpture. Sooo cool.

Fluid Sculpture from Charlie Bucket on Vimeo.

Tweenbots

Since I first saw them on Saturday, Tweenbots seem to be making a serious buzz. This isn't a surprise really, I mean who can resist a cute cardboard robot that navigates urban landscapes through human intervention?

This is exactly the type of project I want to create. It rehuminizes this inhuman technology. There's something really sweet about it.

<3

[Tweenbots] [via NOTCOT]

Cutting Butter

My cool tool fetish aside: yes.

Got a package this morning.

My Mom is awesome.

"Dude look at that dictionary. It's HUGE! There's a bunch of words in there." - Lindsay

What is Authenticity?

It is a snap shot of time and author (/creator/designer/user where appropriate). Authenticity is irreplicable, more over, any attempts to recreate what was once authentic would fail, merely becoming mimics of something else.



The laundry room in my house is a perfect example of something I see as authentic. It's quite likely the house's only room that remains identical to when it was first built: a composition of ugly wall paper, wood panelling, green machines, and vinyl linoleum.

It would also be impossible to recreate now while maintaining authenticity. For starters: the stylistic choices in the room just are not choices that would be made today.

So what is authenticity? A decision you'll probably regret a decade or three down the line.