The pieces are finally starting to come together for our Glow installation, "Soft Underbelly". We've been working on this for 6 months now... only one more day left. We made a last minute decision to paint all of the hairs with UV glow in the dark paint and I think it was well worth the effort.
I've been hard at work lately working on our installation for Glow 2010 in Santa Monica this coming Saturday. It's been an intense past week weeks and I haven't had the time to update this blog with our progress. This morning Joshua Howell and Aaron Zeligs were quoted in an Los Angeles Times article about Glow. Here is the link: Glow 2010
Also please check out our new website for more project images, plus some other projects we've got in office. Popup Design
If you are in LA this weekend, come by and check out the event! I'm sure it will be a bit crazy, but there are some cool projects.
The PopUp website has been offline for several months, since closing down the food business aspect last year. PopUp was intended as a design based company since the beginning, but I just never found the time to get it up and running. Well, the wait is over... we have new partners, a new business plan and we hope to go public with everything very soon! In the meantime, I have put up a new PopUp website, which will feature our collective design work, a blog and some research projects.
UPPOPSPOPUP
From the official GLOW website:
I love having semi-free weekends. I finally got my little home recording studio up and running today. A while back I found an older Tascam USB mixer that I tried to get working with my new computer. Problem was, it wasn't designed to work with Windows 7, so it would never show up and caused my machine to crash. After a little Google searching, it turns out that under "preferences" you can specify for the device to run in Windows Vista SP2 mode (it defaults to XP) and this provided the work around for Windows 7. Eventually, I think I'll need to invest in a proper recording program like Cakewalk, but in the meantime I have Audacity (free!!!) and it seems pretty simple to use.
I did actually have chicken for dinner tonight, and it was delicious.
I received an email today from the City of Santa Monica informing me that my design was selected for part of GLOW 2010, being held on Santa Monica pier/beach. I co-designed the proposal along with my good friend Aaron who I knew from grad school and we're both quite honored and excited to be one of the selected teams. One of the exciting things about working in the public art realm is that it provides the opportunity to create experiential spaces without many of practical restrictions of architecture. If you are unfamiliar with GLOW, it is an all night festival held on the beach and consisting of dozens of interactive lighting based installations. Aaron and I were able to come up with a scheme that choreographed an experience for the visitor, without having to worry about long term durability, weatherproofing, seismic forces, etc. As an architect, I am interested in defining space, but the art arena seems to be an ideal testing ground for ideas. This installation will fall somewhere between an object (ie. sculpture) and an enclosure.
More musings to follow. Today is the first step in a long process. I will be sure to post updates along the way and show images/video of our process.
There is something very sacrilegious about this next project. A while back I picked up a 1967 Polaroid Land Camera on eBay with the intent to convert it to use 4x5 sheet film. The conversion looked fairly easy, but in order to develop the film, I would have had to carry around a portable developing tank. This seemed like a real hassle, so I decided to just put the camera on my shelf as a conversation piece.
After gathering dust for months, I struck upon the idea tonight to remove the lens from the camera and turn it into a lamp. A quick Google search for "Polaroid Camera Lamp" yielded no relevant results and I decided that I might have come up with a completely unheard of creation, or at least something that hadn't been tried since before the invention of the internet. My theory is, if you can't find it by page 3 of Google, than it doesn't exist.
The following images are a photo documentation of my little Frankenstein operation, courtesy of my camera phone (still haven't got around to replacing my stolen camera). I'm really digging the result, but something felt very wrong about destroying a 43 year old relic. I still need to remove the outer lens from the faceplate, which will also help keep the light bulb in place more snugly. It was looking like I would have to conduct a bit of surgery with my Dremel in order to get that lens out, so I am going to finish up tomorrow.
I saw this wonderfully eclectic loft in NY while browsing through one of my favorite design blogs, The Jailbreak. I love their collection of retro, borderline nerdy stuff juxtaposed against the very hip, wood and exposed brick space. The neon tube television sign is my favorite piece. Some of the comic books and kids toys get to be a bit too much for my taste, but in general I'm digging this D-I-Y project. The red tiles in the kitchen work well with the subtle light pink and green to create a sort of country home kitchen meets 1950's suburbia feel.
Modernism is so boring, I love seeing people showing some personality in their design!
I'm actually about 95% done with this little loft interior build out that I have been creating for myself. Problem is, I left my camera on the bar at the Standard while I was paying my tab and it disappeared. I put the camera down and walked all the way to the elevator before remembering that I had forgot my camera. Was probably only gone 2 minutes at the most and it was gone. So... something else to add to my need-to-buy list.
In the meantime, I took a few photos of the progress with my camera phone. Using the loft bed design really opened up the floor plan. There are a few things that I still need to finish up. I need to hook up the pulley system to that I can raise and lower the bed. With the bed raised to the ceiling, I'll have about 7'-6 underneath so that will really make the whole apartment feel much more spacious. I also want to put some curtains up in front of the shelving under the bed. Shelves tend to get cluttered quite quickly and I always feel more at ease in a clean and well organized work area. More posts to follow.
The following images are some close ups from our competition boards.
Obviously my New Years resolution to write posts on a regular basis didn't last too long. To make up for this, I will do a quick recap of the last two months, followed by a flurry of posts which will add up to the correct amount of posts, had I been blogging diligently.
My office, Studioreverse, partnered up with United Lab in Los Angeles to participate in the Gadeokdo Gateway City competition in South Korea. We had been talking for months about doing a competition together and were waiting until the right opportunity came along. The project was located on an island just off the coast of Busan. The city is building a massive bridge which will connect the city center of Busan with Gadeokdo island and a string of islands surrounding the coast. The competition asked for us to make a new gateway city, with an emphasis on sustainability, and including a new airport as part of the plan.
Our proposal was to make this island a case study of intelligent and sustainable city planning. The plan centered around a "super hub" located in the north of the island. This hub had an underground network of roads and parking, keeping the surface streets from from cars entirely. A network of canals and some streets provided a mass transit network of water taxi and electric buses. We also made the decision to locate the ticketing, baggage check, waiting areas and support offices of the airport in the heart of the city. Once checked in, passengers could venture out from the airport and see the city - grab a bite to eat, watch a show, go to the park etc. When it was time for the flight, passengers would take a dedicated tram to the airport island, locate a few kilometers away.
Unfortunately our proposal was not selected as a finalist. We still are generally pleased with how the project turned out and will try to develop this further. I will publish close ups of the boards in a post to follow.
This is some of the code I am working on for the MFA project that I mentioned in the last post. Right now I simply have four photocells, each controlling an LED. Next week I plan to get one of these so that I can replace the lights with a triggered sound. This might require significant reworking of the code... we'll see.
First the video, then the code:
/*
Created 11 Dec 2009
By J Howell
modified 14 Dec 2009
*/
int ledPinA = 10; // LED connected to digital pin 10
int ledPinB = 11; // LED connected to digital pin 11
int ledPinC = 6; // LED connected to digital pin 11
int ledPinD = 5; // LED connected to digital pin 11
int val0; // define variable for photoresistor 0
int val1; // define variable for photoresistor 1
int val2; // define variable for photoresistor 1
int val3; // define variable for photoresistor 1
int ledBrightness; //
void setup()
{
Serial.begin(9600); // sets the serial port to 9600
}
void loop()
{
val0 = analogRead(0); // read analog input pin 0
val1 = analogRead(1); // read analog input pin 1
val2 = analogRead(2); // read analog input pin 2
val3 = analogRead(3); // read analog input pin 3
if( val0 < 400){
// fade in from min to max in increments of 1 points:
for(int fadeValue0 = 0 ; fadeValue0 <= 255; fadeValue0 +=1) {
// sets the value (range from 0 to 255):
analogWrite(ledPinA, -(fadeValue0));
}
}
else{
digitalWrite(ledPinA, LOW);
delay(10);
}
if( val1 < 400){
// fade in from min to max in increments of 1 points:
for(int fadeValue0 = 0 ; fadeValue0 <= 255; fadeValue0 +=1) {
// sets the value (range from 0 to 255):
analogWrite(ledPinB, -(fadeValue0));
}
}
else{
digitalWrite(ledPinB, LOW);
delay(10);
}
if( val2 < 400){
// fade in from min to max in increments of 1 points:
for(int fadeValue1 = 0 ; fadeValue1 <= 255; fadeValue1 +=1) {
// sets the value (range from 0 to 255):
analogWrite(ledPinC, -(fadeValue1));
}
}
else{
digitalWrite(ledPinC, LOW);
delay(10);
}
if( val3 < 400){
// fade in from min to max in increments of 1 points:
for(int fadeValue0 = 0 ; fadeValue0 <= 255; fadeValue0 +=1) {
// sets the value (range from 0 to 255):
analogWrite(ledPinD, -(fadeValue0));
}
}
else{
digitalWrite(ledPinD, LOW);
}
}
I have been extremely negligent about publishing posts. Its nearing the end of 2009 and I'll go ahead and make my first new years resolution right now: I am going to try to update this blog at least twice per month.
There is actually quite a lot going on for me right now. I recently completed two sculpture projects for Cliff Garten Studio, the first a bench/sculpture at the new Sacramento Valley High School Library and the other is a collection of small columns in front of the Academy of Art University in North Hollywood. Both pieces use a simple array of stainless steel rods bent into the same profile and welded together at connection points. It is a very simple design which work well for these low budget projects, but I am pretty pleased with how they look when lit up at night. The Sacramento photos were taken by my friend Linda Dang.
I am also working with my friend Liz Terschurr on the design and electronics for the set of a dance performance this coming February at UCLA. The stage will be crisscrossed with visible laser beams that control sound effects. The dancers are choreographed to interrupt the beams at key moments and create a real-time background score for the performance. Essentially this is a larger version of this laser harp but the beams will actually cross parts of the stage rather than being confined to a small area. I will post some videos and the code I am working on shortly. As always comments and suggestions are appreciated since I am a bit rough in my knowledge of writing code.
Cliff Garten Studio in Venice CA has recently unveiled The Avenue of Light in Fort Worth, TX.
The Avenue of Light, anchors the Lancaster Avenue Corridor Redevelopment Project and is nearly half a mile long. Lancaster Avenue was severed from Fort Worth’s downtown in the 1950s with the construction of the elevated I-30 freeway, but in recent years the freeway was relocated and the area has begun to be redeveloped into a pedestrian friendly community with a renewed appreciation for the history of the site. CGS won a national invitational competition administered by Fort Worth Public Art to secure the commission. The challenge of the project was to use the median design and sculptures as the entry and civic spine of the new Lancaster District. It treats the median's landscape and sculptures as one integrated work of art.
The project was also recently featured under the "Avant Garde" section on Kanye West's blog.
This past summer I started a side office with several former UCLA classmates. Currently we're working on several renovations and additions here in Los Angeles, but I have also been toying around with designing a tea set that we'll try to get manufactured.
The cups are inspired by traditional Asian tea boxes, but blends the boxy cups with more figurative baroque geometry. Each cup uses supple spline curves for ergonomics while maintaining selective creased edges to define the form. When all four cups and saucers are placed together, they become periodic, creating a larger symmetrical composition. In section, each cup thickens towards the base and where ones fingers would rest, so as to provide insulation against the hot liquid. The cup thins out by the rim.
The first pass was an attempt at making a western style set with rounded cups with handles. I felt like the set was looking too figurative and wanted something simpler. The boxy cups provide a good background to more complex patterning.
Currently we're working on designing the tea pot, and looking into some graphic options to apply to each cup. I'd like for the tea pot to somehow complete the set, perhaps sitting on top of the cups or nesting on a side.
The entire set, composed into a square
Individual Cups
Plans and Elevations
A first pass at patterning using the scriptographer plug-in for Illustrator. The pattern is an array of rotating and scaled hearts which wrap the cup. Ideally, the pattern is something which has commercial appeal, but also can be appreciated for technique and aesthetic effect.
