I had the idea for this object two years ago when I first learned about the dronestre.am website by artist Josh Begley. I've iterated on various versions but this is the one that feels complete. Welcome Drone uses the internet of things methodology to bring the reality of secret drone strikes into the home and into casual conversation. Once an hour, a photon microcontroller checks to see if there are updates on the dronestre.am site. If there are, the unit glows for 8 hours continuously. Because there's nothing about the piece which indicates its meaning, it blends into the home like any other wall hanging artwork or decor. When it does unexpectedly light up it may serve as a reminder or conversation starter about the secret strikes that are taking place on a regular basis in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
New Piece: SMS Cross stitch
I started a year ago and I finally finished it. A mash-up of wireless technology and craft aesthetics, this piece turns a text message into an instant display of digitally-sewn wisdom. It all runs from an openFrameworks sketch on the Raspberry Pi. Incoming SMSs are handled by the FONA module. See a demo here.
New Piece: "Remnant" - Digital Fab Lamp
This lamp was inspired by all the tree and bush stumps I see cut back but never fully excavated. The base is designed in Rhino and walnut cut on the CNC router. The circuit board, which uses an Arduino Pro Mini and an 24 RGB LED NeoPixel ring, was cut on the Othermill. The 3mm thick shade is designed in Rhino and printed through Shapeways. See a video of the lamp functioning.
Great looking and sounding amplified speakers from this semester's Analog and Digital class
These are just a few of the amazing amplifiers created this semester in the Lick-Wilmerding Analog and Digital class. If only the students would let me take a few home. They REALLY sound good.
Designs Available through Open Editions!
Want to wrap your gifts with Bay Area socio-political concerns and data visualization? Check out these designs now for sale through Open-Editions in San Francisco.
Sit Please Graphic Novel Event! Saturday Sept 19th 6pm in Oakland
On September 19th at 6 pm I will be sharing stories from my recent graphic novel: Sit Please @ the beautiful Vati Yoga Shala: 3032 Arizona Street, Oakland, CA. There will also be a short interactive drawing activity. http://www.extrasleepy.com/sitplease/
Number Fog Design Installation and Fashion Show!
Here are some images from the August 26th Gray Area Creative Code Fellowship exhibition:
This project was sponsored by Gray Area, Stamen Design, Britelite Immersive, Obscura Digital, and Presence Product Group.
Creative Code Fellowship Update: Week 9
This week's focus has been on the August 26th event. The following items are all in progress:
- One dress from the Mission Condo design is complete! (Thanks to the help of Mai Nguyen and her friend May).
- My long time friend Alice Clifford is making a dress from the Buses fabric to wear to the show.
- I have leads on a jacket and pants - from the $900 tent design - which I would wear to the show.
- I may have a lead on one or two men's button-up shirts. One would be from the Transport Unity design and one from the Wearable Tech design.
- I'm very excited to be working with CCA graduate student Timothy Ho. He's designed a complete outfit and has a model lined up for the show. He wants to create an outfit that highlights all the designs. One element of the outfit will use a patchwork design which is not an uncommon application of block-print fabrics. This is the patchwork configuration he will be working with:
- I am almost finished with the wood display rack (displayed in the previous post) and am working on a tag for each design that will give information on theme and and data.
- A website that has information about the designs is mostly compete.
What do I still have questions about?
I'm still unclear what the life of these fabrics should be moving forward. What kind of control, if any, should I maintain over their use and distribution? Should I open the designs up for anyone to purchase and do whatever they want? Or, should I try to partner with a local tailor to curate the items created? At this time, I'm leaning to the later but have not yet found the right person to work with.
Creative Code Fellowship: Week 8
I now have 8 printed designs with a 9th on the way! I'm backing off the design process for now.
This week has been about:
- Making connections to get things tailored
- Thinking about the installation for the Gray Area August 26th event
- Working on a website to inform interested parties about the ideas in each design
I have one dress in progress and a lead on a possible jacket / pants combo and men's button-up shirt. I'm also super excited that my friend Alice Clifford wants to make a dress and wear it to the event. I'm equally honored to be working the CCA fashion/textiles grad Timothy Ho. His designs are awesome and I'm dying to see what he'll do with some of the fabrics.
I created a design for a freestanding display that I'm thinking of building for the Gray Area event. I'll present it at the weekly review tomorrow and see what feedback I get:
I have an information website in progress. There's still a lot of work to do on it, but this is where it's living for now: http://numberfog.com/
Creative Code Fellowship Week 7: Almost ready for the Needle
I’ve been dialing in my Processing and openFrameworks pattern making tools. I’ve also been making some conceptual cuts in terms of how many themes I can use, mainly on the basis of which symbology is the strongest. These are designs that I will most likely print:
One of these is a maybe:
I have finished fabrics coming of these 4 designs (3 yards each):
I’m ready for the final phase, which is going under the needle to turn these fabrics into wearable items. I’m going to approach this using a few different resources (while still looking for more!). I’m still uncertain of the final display but I’m considering asking a number of people to wear the fabrics and maybe not actually having a designated exhibit location. This is, however, only the latest of a stream of changing ideas.
Creative Code Fellowship Week 6: The Printing has Begun!
After receiving my second set of test prints, I was able to identify some issues with my software and perform some fixes (mainly that I had an almost invisible border - exported around each image - that was showing exactly where the repeat was happening!) I’ve now printed on three different fabric types (Linen-cotton canvas, Organic cotton sateen, and Organic cotton knit), and have determined that the organic cotton sateen, for its color vibrancy and feel, will be the most appropriate fabrics for my first official prints.
> Progress on tools:
While waiting for the test prints to arrive, I worked out a number of new parametric layout options, this is the latest version of my Processing design tool:
In an attempt to harvest more computing power for increasingly heavy image and data manipulation, I started building a second software tool in openFrameworks. At this point, it's still rudimentary but it has an operational GUI, loads images + data, and exports PDFs.
I’ve expanded my data options as well as my symbology. Some of the newest images (which I may or may not use), include: San Francisco mayor Edward Lee, a Quadcopter, and Internet of Things Palm Tree.
> Finished designs:
> NOW CONSIDERing:
- I want to make the imagery look more “block-print-like.” Only a few of the images have the look I want; I need to keep working the others.
- I'm thinking about more varied ways to represent and compare data sets.
- I still don’t know what I’m going to do with the fabrics. Here are the top ideas:
- Work with local tailors to make 2 fairly standard men’s outfits (or at least shirts) and 2 dresses. Then display these items on mannequins or on live people. Potentially against a wallpapered backdrop (I did do a wallpaper test). There might also be a table with a cloth made of yet another design? I love the idea of mixing a variety of crazy clashing designs.
- Display the fabrics on their own.
- Work with a CCA fashion grad student (assuming he still wants to) and see what we come up with together which will inevitably be on the wilder side.
> Just EXPERIMENTing:
Creative Code Fellowship Week 5: New Symbology
This week I focused on expanding the symbology collection available for the fabric designs. I expanded and refined the Mission vending / Web development mash-up series to include: Javascript burrito, D3 flower arrangement, CSS tamale, and HTML ice cream cart.
I expanded the competing transportation series, which now includes: Muni/Vanhool buses, App car service/taxi, and self-driving car / California high-speed rail.
I received my first fabric sample, with which I am happy, the only exception being color vibrancy. I believe this has to do with the porous nature of the organic cotton knit.
I've submitted three more designs which I am printing in larger quantity to see how the designs scale and tile. I am also trying two different fabrics and the lower design as wallpaper.
Creative Code Fellowship Week 4: More complexity, more data
Most of my progress this week involved adding more complexity to the fabric pattern generation tool. There's still a significant gap between the harsh edges of the vector graphics and the organic look of the actual block print fabrics. I added some background textures, like a generative batik pattern that I think helps bridge this gap. I also added the ability to better visualize the data by printing the first 20 or so data points, as well as the title of the .csv file, at the bottom of the application window. I've added some rental and home value data to the mix.
I've contacted Recology to try to get some data on e-waste collection which I would like to incorporate into my design about wearable technology. This short video from TechCrunch reinforced my worries about the short life these technologies. I'm really looking to incorporate more data sources this coming week.
I also have some new imagery that attempts to mash up web development logos with Mission vending (burritos, ice cream cart, flowers).
I also added the ability to combine multiple graphics:
My first sample fat quarter from Spoonflower comes tomorrow!
Creative Code Fellowship Week 3: meetings, frameworks, and A Fat Quarter
This was an exciting week for the Bay dataFabrics project. I've further focused my concepts and fabric themes. My current summary and public presentation is here. I had a productive meeting with CCA fashion/textiles graduate student Timothy Ho. We discussed a possible collaboration if I can stick to my fabric production timeline. I also had a lovely meeting with Allison Arieff of the amazing organization SPUR. Allison gave me some useful feedback and agreed that housing, transportation and labor are all top socio-political topics to discuss through the dataFabrics. I'm looking over a number of SPUR publications now and will likely ask specific departments for some data sets in a week or so.
I've sent my first sample design to Spoonflower as a test. I'm getting a fat quarter of organic cotton knit with the clipper card design (below).
The processing framework is coming along and has many new features and as well as an expanded symbology. Notably new: The Fitbit/Apple watch fist bump and the $900 a month AIRBNB tent. Here are a few samples:
Creative Code Fellowship Week 2: Labor
For my first fabric design, I've chosen to build symbology and pull data related to Bay Area labor and income. I've focused my research on what I call "app-labor" but is more often referred to as the gig-economy. This is an economy based around on-demand hourly labor that is accesses through phone, tablet, or web applications. Most of the articles and debate seems to be around "odd-jobs" companies like Taskrabbit / Gigwalk / Zaarly and driving specific services like Uber / Lyft. I've been researching what people find attractive about these business models as well as what makes them the subject of intense debate.
The idealist view:
“TaskRabbit aims to help people take back their lives, be their own boss, help people out, make some money and just feel good again.” (from Taskrabbit site)
The cynical view:
This "revolutionary" work built out of Silicon Valley convenience is not really about technological innovation – it's just the next step in a decades-old trend of fragmenting jobs, isolating workers and driving down wages. source
Progress on my SYMBOLOGY:
I'm working on my symbology for this design. I want to create a symbology for both the Taskrabbit "odd-jobs" model as well as on for the Uber driver on demand model. Below: My progress on the former.
Note: The layout was inspired by this design. Thinking about: Connections and Disconnections, time vs. income, benefits (and lack of)
What about the data?
It could be most interesting to find data on some of the things that are "at risk" with this kind of work: Job Security, Benefits, Healthcare, Cost of Living, Labor Unions, hourly wages.
Right now I'm mainly looking at Bureau of Labor Statistics Data: Income, Occupational Data
Some of my questions:
- Is there other more explicitly-connected data I could be looking at?
- I'm having some technical issues connecting with the BLS.gov api. Could use some technical assistance.
- Is there a way I can use a service like Taskrabbit to collect data? It that too weird?
- How do these services affect the current part-time migrant labor community?
Image Tiling Framework:
Based on feedback, I spent some time on Friday working on some basic shape and color parametric manipulation tools in Processing. The goal is to be able to iterate quickly and output high-quality PDFs. See it in action here. Output examples below:
Creative Code Fellowship Week 1: Planning!
Yesterday I started the Creative Code Fellowship Program. I can already see what an amazing framework of support Gray Area and Stamen have put together for the fellowship participants.
What's THE main idea?
Create fabrics, with the look of Dutch Wax Block Prints (popular in West Africa), that use symbology to communicate the prevalence, contrasts, and/or frictions of rapid change as it affects parallel lives in the Bay Area. The background textures of the fabrics will be generativity constructed using data related to the chosen pattern topic. WORKING TITLE: BAY DATA FABRICS
original proposal and block print examples
more block print examples
The timeline for my project is really short! It's especially short if I want to get fabrics printed and clothing tailored by the August 26th presentation date. I really want use an analog printing process but research is showing that I may have to go with a digital printing process just to stay on schedule.
Here's a rough timeline to start:
June 11th - July 16th:
- Determine themes
- Find data
- Drawing, Create patterns (4-5)
- PAOM and Spoonflower tests
- Seek tailor
July 16th - July 30th:
- Fabric printing
- Start QR/Web element
July 31st - August 20th:
- Clothing tailored
- QR/Web element
I've already considered and researched some printing options:
Printing lead times:
- Spoonflower: 7-9 days + shipping (leaning to using this service)
- PAOM: 2-4 weeks for production.
- Zoo Ink (screenprint): up to 4 weeks, already taking orders for July
- Print myself….? CNC Wood Blocks.
What are my data fabric themes? I hope to choose 4 to 5
What kinds of background patterns will I use to encode the data? See the sketchbook
Questions
- Should I print the fabric by analog process or digital? (Leaning digital due to time constraints) Production ideas?
- Should I have the clothing custom tailored? Where?
(Leaning to yes. Still need to decide on patterns and tailor) - How many different patterns and topics should I pursue?
(leaning to 4, maybe 5) - Data sources?
- Which themes are the strongest? which should I start with? (leaning to yes)
- What does the fabric identification system look like? http://www.qr-code-generator.com/
- Should some designs could be completely abstract (but still based on data)?
- Should patterns be parametric with many variations?
- How can I bring something new to the “changes in San Francisco” dialogue?
- Long term: What happens with the fabric and/or clothing? Sale to benefit local organization?
Other Thoughts:
- Work fabrics and data like paintings and drawing. Layering, depth of color and texture.
- How to make the images look like they were block printed?
- Limited palette
Eye candy all day @GrayAreaorg classes with @scanlime and @mary_franck
Very + extremely honored to be part of the Gray Area 2015 Creative Code Fellowship!
Zan Armstrong Talks Data Visualization @lwhs
How do you engage high school students on a Monday afternoon? ask @zanstrong to come talk about data visualization! Read more about Zan here: http://blog.zanarmstrong.com/about/
So glad to have met Zan @sfpc!