The physical world called more strongly (day 86)

I naively thought I could keep up with my daily writing practice during the week leading up to the Interactive Futures  conference.  I thought to myself 'I'll have lots to talk about'.  Indeed I had lots to talk about but I had more to physically do.  The physical world simply called more strongly than my digital world.

So here I am a week later wondering how on earth I'll write about all that happened.  I'm afraid it will fade fast as the days progress.  Because those types of whirlwind experiences always do fade fast. 

I'll just make a list of the feelings and outcomes that stand out right now on a Sunday evening after 11 hours of deserved blissful sleep.

• Excellent art work and performances at the E-Mixer/opening reception at the Surrey Art Gallery.  Was an absolute treat to see Ryoji Ikeda's Data.tron.
• Paula Levine's 3D print got done.  Amazingly enough the superposition of The Wall on San Francisco was processed in time, printed, and prepped for display.  It is currently on display in the Concourse gallery for another day.  Thanks to Thomas Groppi for processing the mesh data, and Sean Arden for taking care of the print.
• Leila and I gave a pretty good talk, considering my total lack of preparation.  I was sad I didn't have more tests to show but the one test I did manage to render out was interesting enough to spur some discussion.  I rather liked the ambience in the venue which was dark except for the podium.  It felt like a radio experience where I was broadcasting out to an unknown audience.  It also felt like a comfortable living room kind of experience.  Leila and I tag-teamed about the story of Tulip Theory and how the lung project came about and how it is currently progressing.   Many people came to us afterward and expressed interest.
• Meeting Munro Ferguson was such a treat. His work has been an inspiration to me for a long time.  He gave an excellent keynote talk with lots of animation and video clips.  His screening was absolutely delightful and a real highlight for the conference.
• Perry Hoberman gave a retrospective on his stereo work which was both awesome in scope and depth.  The whole talk was light and humourus.  In some ways I would compare his body of work with Norman McLaren in that it has a certain lightness of being that is contagious.  Though Perry has a touch of cynicism that brings everything to a sardonic point.  I was particularly touched by the scale of some of his work.  The feeling of intimacy as you looked in on the sculptural worlds he created.   It made me rethink what the scale of the lungs should be relative to the media landscape they are surrounded by.
• Perry Hoberman and Julia Hayward also gave an amazing performance on Saturday night with singing, acoustic Guitar, synthesizer, and stereo visuals.  Really too bad that wasn't recorded for the Interactive Futures archives (though they have documentation).
• Really enjoyed Marten Berkman's screening.  Very quiet beautiful landscapes interspersed with manufactured and industrial landscapes.  The stereo effect really enhanced the experience.
• Julie Andreyev and Simon Overstall's Animal Lover performance.  I was skeptical about a performance based on a dog vocals but it was absolutely amazing and evocative.  You could feel the joy of her dogs as they ran and experienced the world.  It stands as an animal appreciation work as much as a great digital art performance.
• Sid Fel's P-Cubee was interesting.  A display in the form a cube that simulates internal space.  More on that in an upcoming post.
• Open Ended Group's demo of Field was very inspiring in the quality of line and stroke they achieve in software, and using motion capture data.  I hope to join in on one of their workshops as some point.
• George LeGrady's retrospective on his data visualization work was great.  I especially like the Pockets of Memories work.  A lot of his work is documented on the Langlois Foundation archives (including an interactive CD rom).
• Henry Daniel and his team of dancers,musicians,and digital media programmers created an amazing co-located dance performance (located in the lab and the concourse gallery).
• JoAnn Kuchera Morin spoke of the Allosphere in such a way that we all become believers.  We got to see Hydrogen orbitals in stereo (how cool is that?)
• Catherine Richards gave an excellent talk on Sensory illusions including a flicker animation at the end which was totally trippy.
• Paula Levine spoke of places becoming conflated as we go more global. 
  

There is so much more to say but I'll leave it at that for now.  I'll try to write more in the following days.  But I'm sure life will start again and other things will take over.

A song for this post.

Act now and... (day 55)

Have you ever been so busy that new opportunities seemed more like problems?   Especially ones that come with some kind of expiry date?  Like act now or forever lose out to another that will take advantage of this opportunity because they're not so busy?   I feel this way about a lot of things these days but I figure one of the better skills in life is learning how to properly finish things.   Anyone can start things.  So I must finish some of the projects I've started before taking on new ones.  I know this.  But there is a lagging feeling that perhaps I should 'reserve my seat' at the table of the other opportunities.  Just start it and then sort of sit on it for a while.   It may be disingenuous.  In any case, it's a good problem.

Meanwhile, the projects go on.  The Interactive Futures conference is less than a month away and the lineup of events looks great, if a little full.  I'm very grateful for the help we've had.  Such amazing students helping out.   The lung project is crawling along but definitely still moving.  The lungs look good and I've been able to import them into Touch Designer with some tweaking of the model.   Next up is the bump map texture, and texture coordinates.  After that I'll try to make a chorus and see how many we can get in there before the frame rate drops too much.  Then I'll mess around with the video and see if some good effects can be created in and out of the lungs (then alternate this step with the last one).  This will take us the Interactive Futures easily...and perhaps I'm being overly optimistic about that.  Time moves on.

A song for this post.
(as an additional musical note...I heard Cris Derksen perform tonight at the Western Front and I thought she was fabulous.  Here is one piece that she performed).