The next BrainJams event, BrainJams New Orleans, takes place this Thursday, May 4th, scheduled to take place between the Jazz Fest events.
BrainJams New Orleans will focus on empowering the small business’ that are the backbone of any local economy with the knowledge they need to take advantage of Web 2.0 and social media tools for the purpose of operating their business’ more efficiently and communicating with their customers more effectively.
San Francisco photographer extraordinaire Thomas Hawk is in New Orleans right now for Jazz Fest and he’s been shooting some really amazing photos. It’s great to see a city in the process of healing through his lens.
I just met with Yuval Koren, CEO of Eye-Fi, a start-up that has created a SD card that can automatically upload images from your camera directly to the internet using a normal Wi-Fi network. Everything is self-contained on the card (SD right now, but they are working on Compact Flash version as well), including the wireless antenna. The idea is that the photos will be uploaded to a central server that then hooks into your favorite photo service, like Flickr, etc. Yuval showed me a realtime demo while we were meeting at Farley’s and it was quite impressive. Here are a few photos.
Robert Scoble met with Yuval earlier week. Here’s his initial write-up as well as a follow-up, where he goes into greater detail.
UPDATE: Eye-Fi has released their new wireless SD memory card.
Chicken John is trying to bring Thailand’s Kai Doom Doom puppet troupe to Burning Man this year. To help achieve this dream, he is having a fundraiser, “Puppets from Perverisa”, this Saturday, April 29th at Cafe du Nord in San Francisco.
More from Chicken:
Traditional Thai shadow puppetry is amazing. If you don’t know about it, your missing out. But they do not do traditional Thai shadow puppets. They do more marionette stuff, but it’s all totally experimental and ‘new’. They are young and full of ideas. My intention is to fly them out, do a few shows here in SF and maybe LA. Bring the whole brood to Burning Man and set up a small theatre for them to perform their puppetry for the good citizens of BRC. Send them home with a few dollars as well. Just like they did for us.
The first round of Valleyschwag has been shipped out. Valleyschwag is Rubyred Labs’ schwag-of-the-month club that I blogged about last month. Kevin Lim has a great review with photos. Brian Oberkirch also uploaded some photos of his haul, along with several other people.
The theme with this shipment was birds, squids and starbursty. A group we are quite proud to be included with. Laughing Squid dontated stickers and a Jim Blanchard post card to this initial burst of Valleyschwag.
Thinking of competing or volunteering for the Power Tool Drag Races on May 7th? Then come on down to the Power Tool Drag Races Build Day this Saturday, April 29th and work on your winning entry or help build the race track. Builders will be meeting starting at 12 noon at The Box Shop in San Francisco.
Here’s the announcement that Simone sent out:
Power Tool Build Day!!11!!1!!!
Saturday April 29th
Noon until we’re done
Free!!!!Got your Death Defying Belt Sander burning a hole in your garage?
Have a need for speed and nowhere to quench it?Come on down to the Box Shop for a
POWER TOOL DRAG RACING BUILD DAY!Yes kots and koshkas, it’s a whole day for your to burn out your blender motors, abuse your oxyacetylene, and learn the trade that has kept several people we know from sleeping under overpasses.
Yes folks, you too can
LEARN HOW TO PERFECT YOUR POWERTOOL DRAG RACER!
This SATURDAY AT THE BOX SHOP join the greatest minds in power tool thinking as they get together at The Box Shop to discuss power tool designs, build the Power Tool Drag Racing Track, and kill several thousand brain cells with all your favorite formaldehyde-laced brands of cheap beer.
Bring your racer!
Drink Beer!
Help build the track!
Drink Beer!
Test the durn thing out!
People who have registered but not paid can slip their entry fee into Charlie’s G-String on Saturday! Whee!
Drink beer!
Eat tasty charred food items!
It all starts around let’s say noonish on Saturday.
Bring stuff for the grill and offering for The Beer Gods, we’ll have the tools, the track makings, and all the power you can shake a three-headed fish at.
Questions? Call Charlie 415 359 5084
Venue:
The Box Shop
950 Hudson Street
San Francisco
415 642 SHOPThe Box Shop lies in the picturesque waterfront in Hunter’s Point, next to the PGE Station and India Basin playground. Watch the beautiful radioactive sunset as various carcingogens animate the air around you. Bring work gloves and sturdy shoes and make sure the kids all have their shots. Here’s a map.
UPDATE: Here are some photos.
“Popaganda”, Pedro Carvajal’s excellent documentary on New York’s notorious culture-jamming, billboard liberating, pop artist Ron English, will be screening this Saturday, April 29th at Artist’s Television Access in San Francisco, as part of Craig Baldwin’s long running Other Cinema series. Members of The Billboard Liberation Front, which is featured in the documentary, will be interviewed by Neighborhood Public Radio (NPR) at 4:30pm before the screening which starts at 8:30pm and there will be a Q & A session with them after the screening. Last May The BLF and Ron English joined forces in San Francisco for the extraordinary “To Serve Man” billboard improvement.
In the second installment of our Pranks series, the BLF, those storied stalwarts of late-night billboard alteration, surface in our gallery—merry, masked, and Mayday-mobilized, to introduce Pedro Carvajal’s POPaganda. Pedro’s hr-plus doc focuses on the antics of painter Ron English, a modern-day Robin Hood of Madison Ave., who renders an alternative universe of advertising subversion. Shepard Fairey, Daniel Johnston, and the Dandy Warhols also have a hand in the production. PLUS Craig Baldwin’s history of billboard hits, Bryan Boyce’s latest celebrity defenestration, and a preview of Negativland’s upcoming DVD. Free toast and grape jam (and grape wine)!
Black Rock Arts Foundation is having a special dinner fundraiser, “Flip Your Lid! Let Art Go to Your Head”, this Thursday, April 27th at supperclub in San Francisco.
Grab your CRAZIEST! cap and come help raise funds for BRAF’s 2006 National Grant Cycle and to bring Dan DasMann and Karen Cusolito’s ‘Passage’ (the monumental mother and child piece from Burning Man 2005) to Pier 14 on the Embarcadero.
Dinner tix include opulent five-course meal, wonderful wine and decadent drinks. Entertainment hosted by $teven Ra$pa and featuring Janine Fondiller of Xeno, Soprano Marisa Lenhardt, Ouchy the Clown of the Porn Clown Posse, Michael Anthony and The Late Night Sneaky and an extraordinary array of amazing aerialists, thrilling performers and magnificent musicians. Hat creations galore! including an auction of fantabulous art hats crafted by some of our favorite community artists and a chance to climb in bed (supperclub style) with a great cast of Burning Man characters.
Then, starting at 11:00 PM!, live performances and strolling characters create a carnivalesque atmosphere of imaginative self- expression to accompany your favorite Black Rock City DJs, including Laird (Get Yer Freak On!), Alibi (House of Lotus), Smoove (Space Cowboys & News Breaks) and Syd Gris (Opel/Opulent Temple).
The 26th installment of dorkbot-sf takes place this Wednesday, April 26th at RX Gallery in San Francisco. Featured artists include:
Mikey Sklar on DIY RFID Implants
Craig Latta on Quoth: interactive fiction meets musical livecoding
Open dork to follow the main presentations.
The first annual Maker Faire was really amazing. Here are a bunch of photos that I shot on Saturday and Sunday.
Random highlights include:
- EFF’s geek celebrity Dump Tank fundraiser, hosted by Danny O’Brien, which included the drenching of Steve Wozniak, Tim O’Reilly and Jacob Appelbaum.
- The amazingly fantasitc Electric Giraffe (electricgiraffe.com).
- Segway Polo featuring Steve Wozniak and the MythBusters.
- Because We Can’s ShopBot powered CNC For Couples.
- Michael Shiloh’s wonderfully DIY Make Play Day room.
- Kids shooting off model rockets!
- The Crucible’s beautiful Educational Response Vehicle (aka “fire” truck).
Chuck Cirino’s infamous Weird TV has been nominated for 3 Webby Awards:
You can vote for Weird TV on the Webby Awards website. May 5th is the deadline.
Weird TV was way ahead of its time, helping kick start the whole reality tv thing. It features coverage of strange art events and unusual video segements and was orginally a Fox TV show, running from 1994 through 1996. After its run on Fox, Chuck Cirino took Weird TV online, where he continues to produce bizarre and humorous videos. Weird TV content includes the legendary 1994 Burning Man video, an amazing video on the 1995 Car Hunt event, as well as segments on The Cacophohy Society and much more great stuff.
As part of their 3rd anniversary, Varnish Fine Art has a new group show called “3 To The Third” running April 18th through June 3rd, featuring the works of Brian Elliot, Liz Orleans and Kevin Evans. The show’s opening reception is this Saturday, April 22nd from 7-11pm.
Here more from John Law on Kevin Evans and the show:
Kevin Evans is the single most Lovecraftian artist/human I know (and I know a bunch!) In his spare time away from his career professionally designing strange characters and landscapes for Lucas Arts & other computer games companies, Kevin has spent untold hours toiling away in obscurity, creating painstakingly detailed illustrations, coldly compelling paintings and the occasional lurid sculpture.
Like a modern day Charles Dexter Ward, he kept it all to himself for years, perhaps for the best of humanity. Until now he has steadfastly avoided most attempts to show, sell or in any way promote his work. I always expected that late one night while slaving away at the latest ghoul, kraken or evil line print Kevin would, through some unholy convergence of geomantic happenstance conjure up a ravenous succubus that would then suck the flesh from his face leaving him a gibbering madman, a gapping maw with no eyes, ears or chin.
Oh, did I mention he’s my favorite artist? He’s also one of the handful of people responsible for transporting the mind numbing hedonist death cult out to the Black Rock Desert in 1990, a fact that horrifies and embarrasses him to no end these days.
Kevin is finally allowing a few of the dangerous images he’s been hoarding, out into the cold clear light of day at the Varnish Gallery. If you’re a wanna be art collector, don’t miss this show, he’s still affordable… Don’t miss out; one of his creations could super-animate at any time, dragging the artist down into the underworld never to be seen again - exponentially increasing the worth of his paintings and drawings, of course.
This is the third anniversary show at Varnish and features cast metal sculptor Brian Elliott & ceramic sculptor Liz Orleans as well as Kevin Evans.
Each of Brian Elliot’s cast metal pieces—about 27″ high, 11″ deep & 18″ wide—has an improbable charisma & beauty, which is only enhanced by their lightness of appearance. These brave ladies, like a fleet of demure, feminine Zeppelins, look as if they might float away
unless tethered.Sculptor Elizabeth Orleans tells “ceramic tales.” She pairs visual & tactile structures like smooth, orbed surfaces with crusty exteriors in order to excite “visual sensations.” These ceramic tales reflect the currents & ravages of time & evolution.
- John Law
Laughing Squid
Special Projects
Eddie Codel shot a great Geek Entertainment TV video of last Saturday’s Bring Your Own Big Wheel event.
Of course there are a ton of BYOBW photos up on Flickr. It was even featured on the Flickr blog.
As a Maker Faire sponsor, Laughing Squid has a few extra tickets, so I thought it would be fun to have a little ticket giveaway contest.
Here’s how it will work:
1) I’ll ask some triva questions in this blog post about about a few of the Makers who will be at the Maker Faire.
2) The first person who leaves a comment on this blog post with the correct answer, will win a free ticket to the event. It’s an actual printed ticket (not electronic) and it is good for one day’s admission to the event, either Saturday, April 22nd or Sunday, April 23rd.
4) I’ll contact the winners for their mailing address so I can send them their ticket via US Mail. Make sure you include a working email with your answers in the comments. If a winner lives outside the Bay Area, then we may need to make other arrangements for their ticket.
5) The contest will run today, Tuesday, April 18th and Wednesday, April 19th.
Ok, on to the questions:
Question #1
Maker: Cyclecide Bike Rodeo
Question: What Mexican city has Cyclecide traveled to in the past for a giant pyrotechnics festival?
Answer: Tultepec
Winner: David Nichols
Question #2
Maker: Evolution Control Committee
Question: Who is the artist that did the song that was sampled by ECC for “I Want A Cookie”?
Answer: Sammy Davis Jr.
Winner: M G Feitel
Question #3
Maker: Power Tool Drag Races & Robogames
Question: What unique food item was sold at both the Power Tool Drag Races and Robogames?
Answer: Either hot dogs or grilled cheese sandwiches, cooked with an iron.
Winner: rajbot
Question #4
Maker: The Crucible
Question: What was the original address of The Crucible before it moved to its current location?
Answer: 1035 Murray Street, Berkeley, CA or 1036 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley, CA
Winner: Brian Walsh
Ok, you guys are pretty good. Time to crank it up a notch and make things a bit more difficult. I’m also swiching the format around to “guess the Maker”.
Question #5
Question: Which Maker created a shirt made out of computer cooling fans to wear at Burning Man?
Answer: Mikey Sklar
Winner: Michael Williams
Question #6
Question: Which Maker was involved with developing a toothbrush that can allow the person using it hear a song through vibrations of the teeth and jaw?
Answer: Andrew Filo
Winner: Michael
Question #7
Question: Which Maker installed a motion detector near the Golden Gate Bridge to keep track of the number of suicide attempts?
Answer: Natalie Jeremijenko
Winner: Michael
Question #8
Question: Which Maker is bringing something to Maker Faire that is powered by a 12 horsepower engine that uses propane gas?
Answer: Lindsay Lawlor (Electric Giraffe)
Winner: Edwardo Martinez
Question #9
Question: Which Maker has a daughter who is also exhibiting at the Maker Faire, at the PTDR table?
Answer: Michael Shiloh and his daughter Yasmine
Winner: Eddie Codel
Ok, I think we will end the contest here, which will give us enough time to send out all the tickets to the winners. Thanks for playing!
Just a quick reminder that Make Magazine’s first ever Maker Faire takes place this weekend, Saturday, April 22nd and Sunday, April 23rd at the San Mateo Fairgrounds in San Mateo. Tickets can be purchased online. Here’s the full program and for more info, check out the Maker Faire FAQ.
Join the creators of MAKE magazine, the MythBusters, and thousands of tech DIY enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, science clubs, students, and authors at MAKE’s first ever Maker Faire!
Levni Yilmaz made a really great comic that deals with some common childhood fears http://twurl.nl/lrqwps #
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