I'll write a full blog entry when I return, but for now, wow. This truely is one of the biggest festivals in the art world. It's amazing how many people are here and how much art is on display, and I've met so many amazing artists!

To the left is an image of myself and bio artist Eduardo Kac (GFB Bunny alba, genesis, and many other well known works) who is also showing at the festival and was awarded a golden nica this year.

REMINDER! Genpets and flesh shoe at Ars Electronica 2009 in just 11 days!!!

 (AND ME!) Linz Austria...

I just started following Ars_electronica on twitter and it's gotten me really excited for the festival. Here's a posting from WIRED magazine... http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2009/08/ars-electronica-human-nature/

The show is going to be amazing to see, here's another link showcasing just a few of the works that will be there http://blog.ponoko.com/2009/08/22/ars-electronica-festival/

I don't want to downplay the honor of getting to show my work there, but honestly, I'm just bouncing up and down to go see all the other work. It really will be inspiring and I'm curious as to who I'll ultimately meet and talk with.

I was pretty stressed repairing and packing work and dealing with paperwork, but that was all done on Friday when Jochen saved my butt, so now I can actually just focus on going and seeing amazing artwork and projects. WOOO!

I can't wait to go and talk shop with a  slew of artists, scientsists, tinkerers. I won't be able to stop talking for 8 days ;)

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.

-------------

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.

Can't say I really want to discuss openly what it is I'm working on, but lately I've had a fire lit under me again and I've been building non stop in my downtime.

I forgot how much I enjoy designing and printing circuit boards. It's pretty fun to brag and say "ya I print circuit boards in my living room. you should come see my etching setup".

Here's a few photos from design, etching in ferric chloride, drilling, sanding down edges, and completed. 18 small boards, took about a week, but that's in reality probably about 12 hours.

PETA apparently gets a lot of emails about Genpets as they're fast to respond, but I don't think they even bothered to read about it. funny.The entire project deals with animal rights, but they don't get it. doesn't surprise me.... 

"This is a hoax, you’ll be glad to know. In very poor taste.    – Martin, PETA".

Apparently stirring up debate and making people think is poor taste. Throwing red paint at people wearing fur is not though.... right. PETA, the glowing example.

never been a fan of PETA.

I grew up with a commodore 128. the fancy pants of the commodore line. I never had a 64, but my friend Nadine grabbed me an old 64 back in January for my birthday.

I've since gotten back into commodore and have been reading into how to program for them... which is CLEARLY the most optimal use of my time.

Anyways, I grabbed an old SX-64 portable commodore 64 off ebay. I need to post pictures of the restoration process as... it's crazy. there's layers of mud inside the machine and it still runs perfectly. amazing little 1mhz machine.

I've been experimenting a lot with hardware/software integration at work during downtime and one of my first experiments past simply pushing data was this!

My tweetbox! it sits in the corner of my cubicle so I can see the lastest twitter update of anyone in my feed.

PHP parses all the data from my account, and then feeds that to a Flash snippet I wrote, Flash then talks to a local server running on my laptop which handles talking over the usb port to a small microcontroller hooked up to the LCD. *phew! catch all that?

well it works...

a small red LED comes on when a tweet is new.

Rather random video...

http://www.ocad.ca/programs/art/intm.htm

Not sure how long that video will be up for but seeing as I didn't have a copy I grabbed the FLV file right away!

 The College I graduated from (OCAD) has that video of me on the page for the program I was in. I guess as an example of what you can do in the program. That interview was taken during graduation when I'd just won the program medal.

Back in my skinny black hair emo-ish days before a real job, hair cut and a gym membership... 

I've been back at sculpting again lately. I've had a break the last 2 years and it's been great, but it was time to get back into things other than programming.

I've been focusing mainly on programming and the web for the past year, but there's some new sculpture techniques I've been toying with.

One of those techniques involves sculpting an object on the computer (which I do all the time using 3ds max) and then using software to unfold that object from a 3d form, to a set of flat 2d printable pieces. This mesh can then be rebuilt as a full 3d form in the real world.

If that doesn't make sense check out the low quality blackberry pics I have of a halo helmet (which a lot of people seem to be making these days) I did as a test.

yes it's only paper, but then the final stage is to brush or spray on resin to harden it and then fiberglass it.

 this is SO much more efficient than sculpting in clay, then doing a mold, then fiberglass. this gets the basic full form out right away and skips the middle man. Clay could still easily be applied to the surface though.