Recent Work
Tube Amp
09/05/2010 — robotics · sound installation · Work
For last April’s 2-Headed Beast festival at CalArts, I pulled together an ambient sound installation using some simple robotics and some shall we say artisanal woodworking. Until I get around to editing the HD footage, here’s the lo-fi video doc from my point & shoot.
Water is pumped through the tubing against the metal resonators, where contact mics catch the sound for amplification through the amp; meanwhile, a motor randomly and gingerly plucks two guitar strings, also amplified.
The Web’s Wide Orbit
09/05/2010 — publishing · Horizonize
Last week I wrote an op-ed for Triple Canopy’s annotations about Chris Anderson’s debated Wired article “The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet.”
e-flux Journal Layout Generator
04/06/2010 — dynamic layout · Work
Starting this week, the output from the Layout Generator I built for the e-flux Journal is out in the wild. (You can browse through some articles and click “Download PDF” to see them.) This has been an exciting foray into generative work for me.
The Layout Generator is an automated system to turn blog-like, long-scrolling-column HTML into rich, print-ready PDFs with more a varied visual depth and flow. The actual forms of the layouts—where images appear, how they interact with the running flow of text, etc.—are determined by a combination of some simple heuristics along with markup cues which enable non-designers to create compelling layouts. Here’s a short example article which demonstrates just a few of the typographic and layout possibilities.
Deep Browsing & Spatial Narrative
01/18/2010 — interaction design · publishing · Work
This prototype arose from a desire to spatially visualize web browsing history, i.e. the reader’s personal narrative through a vast and variegated information-space. “Deep browsing” to me refers to the semi-targeted but easily distractible reading habits of most search-and-click web reading/research experiences. Modern browsers try to furnish some kind of ‘breadcrumb trail’ using a combination of windows, tabs, and bookmarks (plus some novel features like Safari’s ‘Snapback’), but you still need to hold a considerable abstract model in your head to retrace your steps.
It seems like browsers could afford a much richer visual experience. I looked to a proven technology from antiquity for a metaphor: the codex book. The book, like the scroll before it, works because you trace a linear path through information, with the past/read information on one side, and the future/unread information on the other.
Music Loom
01/10/2010 — gaming · music performance · Work
Music Loom was designed as a parlor game for musicians but functions just as well as a framework for improvisation. It involves the (synesthetic) interpretation of visual motifs (‘texture cards’) into musical ones, which are then recursively imitated. The instructions provide a practical overview:
