(www.mdcn.ca)
Had fun at the first part of my internship for the Mobile Digital Commons Network project. We were in Montreal at Concordia’s Hexagram lab for the past 4.5 days doing some pretty intense writing, brainstorming, and then some actual visualization prototyping. Beyond simply spewing out ideas I found myself doing a lot of After Effects work and a tad bit of 3d studio max. There wasn’t enough time for me to get into producing any actual physical objects, but I didn’t mind doing video work, as I haven’t done it too much for the last little while.

The MDCN project we’re developing is basically a game played out with the assistance (or use) of cell phones. 8 players meet on Mount Royal in Montreal and interact with the game and solve tasks using their phones. We’re working off newer models so that we can take advantage of GPS tracking and monitoring of players, as well as bluetooth communication between phones, and between Bluetooth enabled gear (accessories we build). Such as an animatronic teddy bear that becomes activated only at a certain part of the map, and then triggers a video to play on the phone.
The short is that Arthur English who is buried on the mountain (famous Canadian who hung over 400 people) is trying to escape, so players have to complete a set of tasks or ‘locks’ to stop him. English is one of three storylines being developed for the project.

Intern: MDCN (Mobile Digital Commons Network) Montreal + Toronto. A project working on developing interactive immersive live action games for cellphones. MDCN is a joint project between OCAD and Concordia University amongst others.

The only prize/scholarship I wanted to win, and I did, so how excited was I?! Very. Very, very excited to have the studio space I need to do bigger sculpture. (a $9000 studio, all to myself, who wouldn’t smile? I’m honoured the judges felt my piece worthy of winning).

I now have a personal 500sq ft studio in the heart of Toronto’s art scene at 401 Richmond, just a hop skip away from where I live. I’ll be finishing up the two small pieces I’m doing now, and then when I get the studio july 1st, I’ll be starting some large works.

Thank you OCAD, donors, and 401. Adam’s gonna make some crazy shit now. I won some other scholarships as well (listed under the CV) and those will go towards material cost. Mmmmm silicon skin. I’m going to make Genpets look like child’s play.

A lot paper work to get Genpets off to Switzerland. The fact they’re electronic added extra paperwork and tricky wording for customs, but so far I managed.

First time I wrote up the commercial invoice I worded it a little rough:

Art sculpture. Foam latex rubber encased in plastic.
Rca type wires, tubing
200watt power supply.

Sounded like a bomb rather than art, but they give you so little space, but I managed to word it better in the end.

Airway bill, commercial invoices, transport order for Swiss customs, etc, now I know how, it wasn’t the volume or length or paperwork, it was the tricky wording they use. “unit of measure” had me on the phone to learn I had to write “each” versus pair…. I was thinking inches but then I was all logical, and we all know there’s no place for logic in the year 2006.

Point is though, now I know how to do it, and everything from this point on will be a lot easier. Though I can see why for many producing the artwork becomes a minor part of their career as an artist. Also did up a fancy little instruction manual for how to setup Genpets as I won’t be there to do it myself. If you wanna give it a gander go to Genpets.com and download the new catalogue.

Yup, so I got the graduating Medal for my department at OCAD this year (Integrated media)

Stuff, shin dig, people…

Denise from the faculty of art office was absolutely wicked, she was there to be like, it’s fine don’t worry, everythings good. I don’t like shin digs, I’m not a small talk person, and so I especially got nervous for the Bravo TV interview thing but she made everything good. Thanks Denise!

Oh and also David Macintosh invited me to participate in a discussion on the mobile digital commons network in Montreal for 4 days. Free trp is good, having people value what goes on inside my head, even better.

Genepts at grad show
Amazing how people always assume the plastic and display etc are all manufactured or something, the idea that I actually created everything from scratch causes disbelief. Though I guess it's a compliment to the quality of the work.
I don’t like to stand and talk, I answered the occasional question but mostly just hung over the railing above to watch and listen from time to time like a ghost.