Monday, December 7, 2009

Closing with a Thanks

Thank you is two simple words. Whether sincere or spurious, a thanks requires a connection between at least two people. This connection forges the two words "thank" and "you" into a loaded message. Our trio of terror chose to depict both the genuine unhindered thanks, as well as the forced/false thank you, and manifest it into something tangible.
A mountain of cables, arduinos, breadboards, speakers, and thirty feet of vinyl came together to create something far beyond the original spark born out of Diane's head. Our crackpot team consisted of the one, the only breadboard and luminary expert Diane Gard, the audio extraordinaire and mellow fellow all around: Chris Ralston, and the artsy fartsy side was handled by yours truly. The beauty of this crew, other than the fact that we spent over 30 plus hours in the past three days to bring this beast of an installation together, is the fact the we could cohere and compliment each others weak points to make the project the best it could be. And it is something to behold in person.
The three pillars actually speak to each other via the programming handiwork of Jedi master Jon Park. Just as the trio shared ideas amongst ourselves, the pillars knew how to speak and listen via light intensity. Thankfully I was concerned with the artistic side, and my method of showing such a connection manifested from thirty feet of gray vinyl.
I wanted the images to show what each group members speciality was. Since this project started within Diane's dome what better way to depict an idea than a big slab of gray matter. She is the brains behind this operation and through her Chris and I have a direction to answer for. She connects to Chris's world through AV cables; that is his language of choice, and Diane knows this. A giant ear seemed to fit the audio man Chris too well to pass up, and even though we had to scrap the audio, he still worked so hard to make it happen. His ideas transfered to me through his own language: soundwaves. The concentrated audio work transfers to my eye, and then it is up to me to make a design out of it. I send my ideas back to the brain head hancho just to make sure they line up properly and usually we see eye to eye/brainchild.
This project was made to thank the efforts of my group members, who went above and beyond anything expected. This project is to inspire others to make crazy things out of materials and mediums foreign to them (arduino/breadboards, circuitry). This project was made to show that three people plus a guru can make something extraordinary out of two simple words.

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