Yesterday I ordered a CNC Machine. VERY exciting.

For those that don't know what that is, it's a computer controlled xyz (3d) cutting head. So I can design something in the computer, a 3d object such as a car, and the machine will then cut it out of a block of something. Say wood, plastic, plaster, aluminum, etc.

I've wanted one for awhile, and the new work I've wanted to do has pretty much 100% depended on me having one..

Well, soon I will.

Which means, new work soon.

Work that should make my previous stuff look like child's play. To say I'm excited would be an understatement.

For the commdore+xbox project I don't want to have to push 5 on/off switches. understandably...

1. the xbox needs power

2. the wifi adapter needs power

3. the speakers need power

4. the commodore 5" CRT monitor needs power.

I built a small voltage regulator and relay setup that controls the on/off functionality of the wifi,speakers, and commodore monitor. it uses an external 12volt supply 3amps, has a 7806 to generate the 6v supply for the wifi adapter, and it's all controlled by a relay, that is in series hooked into the 5v supply of the xbox hard drive.

so when the xbox turns on it's hard drive, the relay then supplies power from the secondary power source to everything else.

hence, one button turns on everything, instantly. it's beautiful.

I use XBMC installed on an old xbox hooked up to my projector to play back movies and music. It's great, XBMC is free and far superior to apple tv and a great use for a cheap old original xbox.

I've been using it for the last 5 years and have loved it, but I decided I wanted to have a second unit in my bedroom. I had a spare xbox lying around pieced together from spare parts from repairs I did to other peoples xbox's, so it made sense to use it.

But how? I could mount an LCD on my bedroom wall, have cables running all over the place, but really, that'd be kind of .. typical. I don't watch enough media in my bedroom to warrant it taking over the space. I just want something there for watching an episode of Dexter or Office before I fall asleep. something more of a conversation piece than practical.

Enter the Commodore SXBOX-64 project.

Stage 1 (complete)

I found the motherboard schematics online and wired the xbox video out to hook into the 1982 commodores 5 inch CRT screen. it works perfectly! stage 1 was getting it running. wifi, software, and wiring. I'm also not cutting any wires, I'm building custom connectors for the internal connections so I don't destroy this rather vintage peice of hardware.

Stage 2 (what I'm doing now).

Build a new power supply for the CRT monitor (12v) that also spits out 6v for the wifi adapter and then add a relay so it's controlled via thexbox. I only want one power button. So when the xbox turns on, it should turn everything else on as well.

Stage 3

Replace commodore internals with xbox motherboard (but keep 1982 crt monitor. In order to do this I need to re-remove all the parts (I had to dismantle it already to clean it) pack them for safe keeping (so I can one day put it back to the original state if I want) cut the middle metal connector carefully, build a new power supply and then pack it all back up.

Stage 4

Keyboard hack. the commodore keyboard should control the xbox.

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This definitely isn't as easy as simply drilling 4 holes andmounting an lcd, and the commodore cost more than a base line lcdwould.... but this is about having some fun and making somethingincredibly geeky.

Progress. Working with a screen now. Twittering without a computer.

A few weeks back I decided to try out the Arduino platform for working with micrcontrollers. I've been using pic's for the last few years (mostly the 16f628a) but I just haven't been impressed with the software or the community. Arduino is fully open source, and so the hardware and software are both free to use and edit. There's nothing like this in the world of PIC microcontrollers.

if I had to describe PIC's I'd say it's like walking into a room and everyone inside the room stops talking the second you walk in and they all start giving you sideways looks.

Whereas with arduino the second you walk into the room everyone jumps and cheers and shakes your hand and throws piles of code at you. Here here! Look what I've made! You should make it to! here's how!

It's a completely different way of working and I'm loving it.

ANYWAYS, yesterday I managed to get an arduino connected to the internet AND sending a twitter to my account, and I have to say, it was pretty easy. where something like that with a PIC had me pulling my hair, it took me all of an hour on the arduino.

I have at least 20 projects on paper I've wanted to have Ethernet for and now I finally do.

My tools are almost where I want them for my next series. Just a few more purchases.....

LED's to date have been pretty good, we use them everywhere, laptops, flashlights, washer and dryer, you name it. they're the tiny little glowing lights that last for years and consume very little electricity.

but they've never been very bright. oh sure, a flashlight with a few white LEDs can light up the branch in front of you while camping, but it's no light bulb right?

Until now that is. geeks, start your finger tapping for the release of the next Ostar!

I came across this via devicepedia (link) and I'm pretty sure it's one step in changing ALOT of things in our lives, so bear with me here.

Imagine the power goes off, but instead of yelling at little Timmy to go find the candles, you simply take the battery out of your cellphone, plug it into the wall, and all the lights in your living room come back on.

Crazy and impossible you say? (or possibly shut up Adam, that's not exciting...).

Here's a quote "a 50 Watt A 60-watt light bulb emits 730 lm, while a 50-watt halogen lamp has an output of approximately 900 lm"

The Ostar emits 1000lm, and we all know led's aren't exactly power hungry and while the Ostar does draw more current than a normal led, it's still a huge step, the idea of powering up all the light in your house with nothing more than a laptop battery that you charge once per month perhaps is amazing.

From an eco standpoint these are great for power savings when retrofitted to ac, but also on a waste side. think about it, how much waste do you suppose are in those special power saving tree hugger bulbs a lot of people use these days? ya sure, they use less power and last longer, but the material WASTE of one of those things (the thicker glass, plastic, etc parts) is worse than just using 20 bulbs. seriously, take a look at the material used in both next time you go to buy one. even the packaging, your standard bulb is usually in cardboard, and those eco (we say it's eco and you're dumb enough to listen) things are in plastic + cardboard.

the Ostar though genuinely makes me happy, it uses little electricity, and it's tiny, thus almost no waste. it's a win win and I can't wait to retrofit my apartment in about a year when they're released.

So here I am checking the mail, and what do I find?
A package from Barcelona of course. I got really curious and excitedly opened it and found a box and a note from my friend Joan, who I went to school with in Finland. He had sent me 2 old Nokia phones. With a note saying, “See, I still read your journal”. Which put a big smile on my face.

Thank you my friend!!! I’ll be using the parts and the screens for robots and artwork right away! I’ve desperately wanted Nokia screens for an artwork I have in mind, but haven’t been able to get a hold of any until now.

The music video shoot with the animatronic hearts went great. I was there just to make sure nothing went wrong, and surprisingly, nothing did. They survived being thrown, dropped, everything.

Summary.
Jeff got me to do 3 oversized (elephant size?) hearts for him and he needed them to:
1) Pump blood out of them
2) Be fully self contained. No tubes, no wires coming out.

How I made them.
The core component of the units is a 12volt DC pump. A magically strong pump that uses very little energy for what it is. Thus I was able to power it through 8 x AA batteries. Nice for filming as that way if the batteries happened to run out (it was a winter shoot) we could just go buy more at a corner store.

Then I just rigged up some tubing, and a powerade bottle in each heart. The pump was insanely high powered and could go through a bottle of water or blood in under 20 seconds, so I limited it a bit with thinner tubes, and stoppers near the tips to control the spray and drip action.

How it looked.

They looked pretty good but not perfect at first. I'm a perfectionist and the oversize made them seem not totally believable, but those were my constraints.
THEN we got BLOOD on them. It was night and day, they came alive. I’m not one to toot my own horn, but damn, they looked like fresh cow hearts, bloody and dripping, you could have almost fooled me.

And we fooled a lot of people, there were ladies that screamed as we were filming, (we were in public places) and EVERYONE slowed, got wide eyed, and stared. Which surprised me. In Toronto people never look, ESPECIALLY if you have cameras, but they sure did today.
Can’t complain and Jeff (director) was overly pleased, thus I am too.

** Thank you Crystal Pallister for painting them. We all know how Mr. partly colour-blind shys away from colour.

I’ll try to get some early video stills, but it’ll prob be a month or so.

Originally it was going to have full control by a microchip, and I had designed and built the 2 circuits, but the night before I ripped them out and switched to a simple push button trigger. It made more sense to give the actors complete control over the mechanism so that the hearts could bleed on cue at the directors discretion.

Overall, we only had to refill the blood sacks twice, and the batteries lasted for a full week of testing + 1 day shoot in the cold. I designed it around AA’s so that we could replace them if they ran out at any corner store, but it wasn’t needed at all.

Early still footage (Notice the spray)

One of the first things they taught us in the media program in Finland was to question the word "interactive". What is interactive? From an interface perspective, are websites interactive? Are they really? Is TV interactive? What is so different about clicking through pages on websites and changing a channel on a TV? TV is static content, changing the channel is not interaction, not a dynamic form of it anyways.

Where am I going with this? Why think of all this now?

I've been thinking a lot about 'interactive art installation' lately. I've had a few lightning strikes in me ol' noggin that make me hope I might just be able to make my next piece a little more dynamic. Something that reacts. No button pushing.
Genpets was just a sculpture, a moving sculpture, but it had no soul, no AI…

Ahh nevermind. These are just the random musings of a crazy artist. Though I am getting rather excited about my next series...

The opening went great and thank you for coming out for all those that did! I touched you in special ways as I promised. I could not be more happy, it was what… at least 300 people? Great people, great turnout, and beer. I don’t do the shindig thing well though. I just make things. So I spent a lot of time outside getting air, but I hear people loved the work or something. (And NO, I don’t think my unwillingness to sip drinks and chat it up will make me non-art worthy. I prefer to talk about programming, electronics, SFX stuff, sculpture, not the post modern human condition. I talk about those sorts of issues visually, hence being an artist, not a writer. The gallery is great, but I can push my art further than a white wall box. The gallery just doesn't seem to be about art anymore, it's about ego's, and I'm here to make things, not dress up and pretend to be important. I don't need a car, or a gallery to do that.)