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.

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.)

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:

Tangolumen Completed / Post Review Reflections

After living in my studio for the better part of a week, reviews finally came, and Tangólumen was up and doing things. It wasn't doing exactly what it was supposed to...but it was doing things, and that's something.


Tangólumen In Action from Andrew Parnell on Vimeo.

People seemed to enjoy it, and I got a lot of really useful feedback ranging from what to do next, tweaks to make, things to consider, possible redirection, and so forth. Now that I've gone back and adjusted the lights and programming so that it's actually to spec, I really need to start inviting people into the space and use data I gather from that to further development.

Prototype

Untitled from Andrew Parnell on Vimeo.

We Have Decided Not To Die

We have decided not to die | 2004 from Nick on Vimeo.

...wow. Did you watch that? I just watched that. Wow.

...ok, some of the cgi is a bit iffy, but the video in general, it's just great. I really like the use of mixed timelines. <3

Made For Each Other

Goodby , Silverstein & Partners has come out with a series of wonderful ads for Frito-Lays, just in time for Valentines day.





My favorite of these is definitely Fire Sprite, which features a cute little flame burning everyone it tries to get close to (we've all be in that relationship, right?) There does seem to be a bit of a non-sequitor between the animations and frito-lays chips and dip, but they're so cute and wonderful that I'll forgive it.

In addition to these wonderful ad-spots, they also rolled out an accompanying webpage: madeforeachother.com. It takes forever to load, but it's really fun to explore.



Goodby, Silverstein & Partners really has a wonderful use of texture as color that is evident in all their animations, as well as in the webpage.

And now, for your enjoyment: some of the couples you can pair up on madeforeachother.com



Just to show a few...

Start your day off right...

With an amazingly executed stop motion music video featuring the most compelling characters I've ever seen created from some of the most basic geometric shapes.


Mykonos from Grandchildren on Vimeo.

[via shape+colour]

Teen Lover's

The Virgins - Teen Lovers from inyourfaceTV on Vimeo.

Talk about a great music video. Director Ace Norton took a wonderful concept, and made it amazing. And those "stills" .... SO GREAT.

[via Shape+Colour]

God I love Pixilation

I think Jeremy(Shape+Colour) got it right when he said "his song makes me feel like I'm walking down the street at dusk the moment before the streetlights turn on."

[Via Shape+Colour]

Greg Laswell - How The Day Sounds

How The Day Sounds from Miky Wolf on Vimeo.

Simplistically sweet music video...with Elija Wood...

I just love it.

[Via NOTCOT]

This has been a long time coming

I Saw You

Hey Dustin, have you seen this book? Could be interesting to see how someone else approached a similar topic.

For those of you that don't know Dustin and his work, lately he's been doing a series of animations based on local missed connections ads. They're pretty sweet.


Thanks for All the Snuggletimes (work-in-progress)

California Love

Really diggin' this piece from french animation school Gobelins.



I love the cell-shaded, stylized 3d work, but more than that I love the little details that set the time period without ever explicitly stating them. The game boy, the flannel, and best of all the Los Angeles Raiders hat. The Raiders were in LA from '82-'94, the game boy was released in North America in '89, and flannel: total staple of the early '90s wardrobe. Excellent!

Female posturing makes me cringe a little... Those poor spines.

[Via NOTCOT]

I've noticed...

NPH + Singing always equals awesome.

Prop 8 the musical is no exception.

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, NPH and many more... by Jack Black

[Via WWdN: In Exile]

I wish I spoke french...

but even without understanding the words, I get the gist.

Le caf�lt;/a>
by pheneu_et_meleu

It's 1:20 in the morning, and I've been hypnotized...

Coolest clock ever. (Better with the music unmuted)

We should all be like Don Draper