The Rockwell Group

Starting in  November, I worked for 6 weeks with the Interaction Lab at the Rockwell Group.  It was loads of fun, and great to work with such smart guys.  I went to Portugal and Bristol, UK to install a project for Timberland, and worked on a recently launched installation for Cosmopolitan Hotel.  I was kind of a hired gun on both of these projects, brought in at the end to help them meet their deadline, but I’m glad I got a chance to work with them and I hope to work with them in the future.

Flightphase

Back in July, I did some work with Karolina Sobecka (who I met at my Minneapolis Art on Wheels residency) and Jim George for Infinity.  Like Rockwell, I was just a kind of hired gun, but the project turned out really well, I think.  I mostly worked on hacking OpenTSPS (not-so-coincidentally developed by the Rockwell Lab), optimizing the people tracking to make the interaction smoother.  The project was built in openFrameworks.  Another group who I hope to work with again very soon.

The project was commissioned by Hush Studios.  There are some additional photos on Flickr.

Listings Project

Listings Project is a free weekly email of living and workspace for rent, sublet, swap, and sale focused around our arts community.

I signed up for the list a few years ago when I was looking for a place to live, and recently I was put in touch with Stephanie Diamond, who runs the list.  This was one of those situations where a little work on my part could save Stephanie a ton of work, so it just kind of made sense.  I have made the submission process database-driven, and we will continue to work on more improvements in the coming months.

Globes iPhone app

Marshall and Nora , aka Ligorano/Reese, are two great artists who I met while at Eyebeam. One of their projects is a set of snow globes that feature a single word, including all of the seven deadly sins, and a special “Fuck” globe.  I am working on making an iPhone version of the globes using openFrameworks, the Bullet physics engine, and a OBJ loader made by Bill Dudney.  It’s been a bit of a struggle, seeing as how I am still slightly above n00b level with OpenGL and I have never worked with loading OBJ files before — much less with the restrictions of OpenGLES — but I’ve just about got the flakes flying around like real snow inside the globe.  Stay tuned!

FlyingLotus
Almost a year ago, I started working on computer vision project for the musician Flying Lotus.  Originally, I was writing a server-side demon for matching submitted images.  In fact, it’s the same daemon that I used for the POP Magazine app.  But recently, I discovered some pretty amazing work by in-spirit.  Eugene used the Alchemy Project to compile a SURF algorithm into ActionScript, and the Apparat framework to optimize it, resulting in a totally real-time matching algorithm in ActionScript, ASSURF.  Using ASSURF, I was able to write a little Flash app wherein users could hold up albums, cds, and printed artwork, and “lock in” the matches at different angles. When you get the right combination, it triggers a download of a secret track or other special feature. It was supposed to launch in November, but it still hasn’t launched for some reason, so until then, here is a demo that I made for the Warp guys:

For the past year, we have been developing the Ecosystem Engine in openFrameworks, although I am once again looking at Ogre3D and a few other engines as a good foundation for Ecosystem.

Another team of volunteers (again, recruited from the communities mentioned above) would write documentation about the process of creating animations for the Ecosystem Engine and creating a website where it will be available for download for all major platforms.  Our hope is that we can eventually attract animators to use Ecosystem and showcase other artists’ projects on the site.

AgoraXChange is a project by Natalie Bookchin and Jackie Stephens, designed by FDT Design in New York. I was responsible for all of the CSS layout, database design and implementation, and a content management system.

I created this site in 1999, and a redesign in 2000 with Formscience for a video producer in New York. It includes a client login system and a portfolio of work.