Big Bunny!
A terrific video series for people that love children (but not in the way you think… and not that way either!)
Archive for the ‘Art’ Category.
I swear, I miss more art at Burning Man than I see
Holding Flame was at Burning Man 2009 and I missed it.
wow. Built by Poetic Kinetics.
Oo OO! Look!
They built those giant flowers too!
check out their photo gallery on their site. They’re amazing, ten times so in person!
Maker Faire 2009
I shoved together all the video footage I took at Maker Faire 2009 and… well, here you go. Enjoy!
local version:
Illumination Village Honors
After having my bike stolen at Burning Man, I bemoaned to my friends that I now lived in Walk-in camping with no easy way to get there. A 10 minute bike ride is pleasant, a 35 minute walk is not. My friends welcomed me into Illumination Village at 4:50 and Esplanade :-). It took a few hours to move but was well worth it!
One of the nights where fire was reigning supreme, (maybe Monday night?) I had a very nice talk with Dex. He talked to me about his plans for this incredible fire poofing vehicle. We spoke about it and exchanged ideas with glee. The thing that most impressed me was that he was showing off these amazing poofers on the back of his truck and we were talking, appropriately so, as equals. That’s really cool.
Later in the week I spoke with Nate Smith, creator of Fire Vortex and 2BLEVE, among other things. We spoke about my plan for making my upcoming Fire Fog and he offered some really good suggestions. He even told me about his novel design for a mechanism that dissolves propane into liquid fuel! It’s part of the design that makes 2 BLEVE work so well. I might use part of that design for Fire Fog :-)
Nate Smith! I talked shop with Nate Smith! That’s super cool.
(local copy of the Fire Vortex video)
We Are All Connected
Via Maura… from Symphony of Science
local version:
Tom Kennedy and Haideen Anderson’s Art on Cracked.com
Tom Kennedy would certainly have laughed heartily at the winning entry of this Craption contest with Tom and Haideen Anderson’s Dr. Strange McCain Bus.
To view my local copy, you should right-click on the image below and view it in another window, or download it or something. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.
Read more about Tom Kennedy and Haideen Anderson’s vehicle art on TomKennedyArt.com
Robert Cameron’s Large Scale Photography at the Metreon
Last night Charlotte and I went to the Metreon to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I really really enjoyed the movie but more on that in another post.
The Metreon is a curious place. As we walked through it last night we alternately got the feeling the place was struggling, up-and-coming, deserted, and the weird sense that we were in the Zocalo in Babylon 5. On an upper level, in place of I don’t remember what, is a live theater showing Point Break Live, a quirky theatrical production. Downstairs where the Sony Store used to be is an art gallery showing the works of Robert Cameron. There was one guy at the entrance and a sign requesting a $5 donation. We had time before the movie and thought it was quirky enough so we went in. We asked, “You don’t mind if we go in without paying, do you? We promise we won’t get too much enjoyment out of the art.” He consented and we roamed the space. Yes, his art is taking up the entire 4,000 square feet of where the Sony Store used to be, wow. The person in front said how Mr Cameron was 98 years old and in poor health. We wandered around.
The art is engrossing reality. A 4’x4′ print of the side of a mountain cliff, after gazing for a while, you can finally make out 3 tiny climbers scaling the vertical cliff. A beautiful and odd looking marina shot from above with vivid colors; the artist statement points out that 3 nuclear submarines, the most powerful weapons man has ever created are shown floating in the docks. A joyous 4’x4′ image of the Transamerica Building shot from almost directly above is sitting on the floor of the gallery, making you feel like you are flying above it.
There are many more images of San Francisco, large nature scenes and others. It’s really a very good show.
I send my best regards to Robert Cameron.
On our way out, we told the person at the front that we had exceeded our happiness quotient for a free show and we both chipped in $5.
The show will be at the Metreon til March 2010.
Fire Fog trials
Schuyler and I went down to the Box Shop Thursday night to experiment with the Fire Fog effect I’ve been trying to drum up. We certainly made fire!
Yes, that’s Schuyler with a Hudson sprayer filled with 87 octane unleaded gas. Don’t try this at home! Aww, do what you want, it’s your home!
Unleaded gas, kerosene, Coleman fuel (white gas), and Smirnoff apple flavored vodka were all underperformers :-(. The unleaded shows these pretty sparkles as if there were iron filing in them. Kerosene burns a little slower, Coleman fuel a touch slower still, and the vodka put the fire out more than it lit it.
In general, spraying makes “a big flame” which is pretty and fun to play with but not what I am shooting for. We couldn’t get it to reliably make the effect I was looking for. What I’m shooting for:
A 6′ tall, 10′ wide, 10′ long volume is filled with a flammable aerosol. A spark at one end of the volume lights the aerosol on fire. The spectator is able to watch the flame front slowly rip cross the volume. After it cools, another aerosol release and another spark from a different direction lights it up again.
Just once during the night I got what looked close to what I’m aiming for. There was absolutely no wind, I had sprayed a mist more or less in a column over the barrel, the fire caught and ate from the bottom of the mist to the top and over to the left a little :-)
Next tests will involve:
- paying attention to how heat rises and ignites aerosol above the currently burning volume (maybe make a vertical ignition tube?)
- testing in a completely wind free environment. The very light breezes blew the fine mist around a lot… and if the droplet size was even smaller, it would blow around even more. Maybe work indoors or in a container or…?
- smaller droplet sizes with higher pressure? The Hudson sprayer is probably pushing 5-20 psi.
- try a fogger. I dunno, foggers heat their “fog juice” pretty hot. We don’t want an enflamed fogger.
- try an ultrasonic fogger (not enough volume of fuel released?)
- consider using a gas instead of a liquid for the effect. Of course, then it won’t be Fire FOG though.
Charlie showed us this propane in a bottle trick that was pure magic. Stick the head of a propane torch in a clear bottle, the larger the better, he says a 5 gallon carboy is perfect. Turn the gas on to fill the bottle. Then light it. A blue flame rips through the air in absolutely beautiful and delicate ways. We tried with an empty hard liquor bottle and it was zowie! So Michael brought out a 5′ x 3″ pyrex tube from his pyrophone. Filling the tube and lighting it was tremendous fun! When on, it would resonate the tube and make music. Or if you put a lot of gas in and then light it, the blue flame would leap through the tube in fascinating ways!
Note To Self: Make Fire Fog
From a discussion I had Saturday night… I talked about how I’m not passionate about many things in my life but right now I’m passionate about making my Fire Fog art piece. So do it!
Accordian Rave
Saturday night I went to an accordian rave. Nuff said.
But to say more, it was at the The Accordion Apocalypse Repair Shop store in Bayview at 2626 Jennings St. Denise had invited me. I met up with Prados and Erik. Happily, while we were there we had the idea to call SFSlim who was at the pub in Gerlach. He put Jesse on the phone and we were all able to confirm that the playa had not in fact killed him. I told Jesse “We love you very much and if you ever do that again, you’re grounded for life”.
More about the music: There’d be like 5 performers, unamplified, with about 150 attendees jumping, moshing and carousing. It was raucous!
Here’s an audio snippet of the event with terrible sound quality in .aiff format.