Motore Galvani by Renee Tantillo

July’s meeting was styled as a round robin discussion, inviting attendees to present whatever projects they have been working on. Here’s a general list of what was shared:

Artist Carrie Fucile showed us a project that was recently exhibited at Artscape. How to Melt My Heart is a time based work in which  a frozen model of the human heart melts onto paper. As the heart melts, a contact microphone picks up the sound of the dripping fluid, and the drips, which consist of pigment and water, create drawings on the paper. You can check out How to Melt My Heart, as well as some of her other projects at www.carriefucile.net.

Artist Renee Tantillo shared some of her sculptures which are made from scrap metal. Tantillo is interested in making new works which are kinetic in nature.

Multimedia Producer, Laddie Odom spoke about contraptionism.com. This site documents a Chicago exhibition of art-making machines and the art they make.

Kelly Egan gave us an update on the progress of Baltimore Node, a new hacker space in town.

Finally, Les Bradley provided a status report of his Wiichuck + Arduino project involving distance sensing.  Bradley is looking in to LIDAR (Laser Radar) technologies for distance sensing.
Check out this video which explains how Radiohead’s House of Cards “video” was made using LIDAR scanners.

Last week at the Patterson, Zack Waugh (Programmer and Developer at Fastspot, LLC and the developer of QuickPic) gave us an introduction to developing for the iPhone. Zach showed us the iPhone SDK and gave us some helpful tips on how to get started with Objective C/Cocoa. He then demonstrated a simple “Hello World” app and played around with the interface builder. Download his Keynote Presentation and Sample Files for more information!

In addition, Les Bradley brought in a dismantled Poloroid camera. He plans on using the sonar from the camera along with an arduino and his Wii Chuck from last month to create a mapping device. Stay tuned as his project develops!

I forgot to bring a pen to last night’s meeting, so here is what I can recall:

Magnetic Ferrofluid Audio Playback Device

Recent graduate of MICA’s MFA in Photography and Electronic Media program, Patrick Hunt, shared documentation of his thesis work. (I am going to muddle this description, I am certain.) Hunt’s project involved using a bath of magnetic ferrofluid to transmit an audio recording of a line from a Rainer Maria Rilke poem. He used electromagnets ripped from relays to alter the surface of the bath. A video camera mounted above the liquid captured images of the surface which were interpreted to recreate the audio waveforms. The audio created from this process was then played back in the gallery.

Wii Chuck and Arduino Diecimila

Adam Bachman demonstrated his progress with hacking a Wii Chuck. So far, he has the nunchuck controlling pitch and roll of a 3D cube created with Processing. Here are the resources he used to get his project started:
About the Wii Chuck

Arduino Playground

Les Bradley also brought along his own Wii Chuck to show us the cool adapter he bought for it.

Aaron Oldenburg’s Sucky Game

Oldenburg shared some new games he’s been creating using UNITY. Aaron’s latest game was created in under 48 Hours and was inspired by the verb ‘to suck’. The game doesn’t suck, except that it does. A lot. (huh?) I’m sure my description of the game will clear things up: You are a white blob that moves, floating through space, by pumping a bellows at your side. As you move,  you encounter other white blobs with giant puckered, sucking lips. The goal is to allow the sucking lips to suck something (?) out of you without letting it suck you up entirely. Eventually, the lips either suck so much sparkling ephemera out of you that they explode, or they suck you up and you die.  Still confused? Play the game!