Month: September 2011

What I’ve got going on: Blue-Chip Show, TEDx, SoOnCon

Last year at this time, I was frantically working to get “Take a Picture” finished in time for it’s big debut at Nuit Blanche. Brad and I were spending an average of 18 hours a day hand-etching circuit boards, inserting components, soldering, and assembling. Between the two of us, we made just over one thousand boards.

When I wasn’t building, I was typing. I tried to get in as many blog updates as I could. The idea was to plant some digital seeds by writing about the issues that Take a Picture was attempting to tackle. That way, I would be mentally prepared for the questions that would undoubtedly arise throughout the course of the evening. These posts would also serve as a landing pad for interested spectators. If people really like the project, we owe it to them to ensure that there is more content available for them to look up later. Never launch an idea or project without first building the infrastructure to support it. This way, on the off-chance that the idea made it big, I’d be prepared for it.

During the event itself, it was decided that we would not be participating in Nuit Blanche in 2011. It’s not because we had a bad experience or anything like that; we just missed seeing Nuit Blanche ourselves. We were stuck in front of our project the entire night, unable to see any other work. We didn’t want to become disconnected from the experience of participating in Nuit Blanche as art fans.

In the days that followed, the reviews were harsh; too many projects were artists responding to other artists, there was little for non-insiders to enjoy. I fear that if I spend all my time presenting art, I will lose that powerful and direct “This is what I want to see, damnit!” attitude and start producing empty fluff. I don’t want to produce empty art fluff, I want to keep on making cool stuff. I hope this doesn’t sound conceted or egotistical, but I like to make art that I would like to see. So this year the plan was to do nothing. I’d Sit back, relax, enjoy some free time leading up to Nuit Blanche, and hit the sites in ‘art spectator mode’, I’m not going to have to do anything.

That was the plan. The next several paragraphs deal with with why that isn’t going to happen.

Continue reading What I’ve got going on: Blue-Chip Show, TEDx, SoOnCon

Lots of big things on the horizon, and New Toy!

Sorry for the slow pace of things here lately. (It seems like I’ve been saying trhat a lot here lately…)

I’ve made some changes to my lifestyle, and as a result, I have a lot less free time than I used to. On top of that, I’ve had a lot of really big, exciting stuff come up, and I’ve been doing a lot more freelance work than usual. (Thats right, I paint, and I shoot photos and videos, I have lots of creative outlets, because every time I practice one, I get better at the others. Seems like I’ve been doing a lot of everything these days. Who knows, I just might record an album some day!

As a result of everything that has popped up, the blog suffers. I’m sorry, dear reader, but when it comes down to it, I’d rather be making cool stuff than writing about how I was wishing that I was making cool stuff.

The good news: I’m going to be doing some big things in the near future, so I’ll have some new experiences to write about!

One of the things I can tell you about now is that I’m spending a lot more time in public transit than I used to. Far too much time. For upwards of seven hours a week, I’m stuck on a bus. That’s a lot of wasted time. I don’t like wasting time. Fortunately for me, I’m travelling on off-peek hours, meaning I always get a seat. After a few weeks of this, I decided to bite the bullet, and spend money on something not directly art-related: a shiny new netbook.

Here’s a picture of the little guy. Ain’t she adorable?

So, I’m currently stuck on a bus, typing away, and being ever so thankful to asus for still putting matte screens in their netbooks. If this were one of the far more common glossy-screened laptops, the glare from the sun would make writting in my current situation impossible. But here I am, typing away, making use of what would otherwise be wasted time.

Now, I’d better get back to work.

Don’t Let Yourself Become Some Company’s Bitch

Google recently announced that it will be closing down 10 services that get little use. I don’t have a problem with that. Google is a company, they can do what they want. There are people, however, who rely on these services, and are about to have them swept out from under their feet. If you find yourself in that situation, or if you fear that something similar could happen to you one day, it is because you’ve allowed yourself to become some company’s bitch. Building your business on their platform is like building your house on someone else’s land: sure, it’s easier and cheaper, but you just never know when they will come by and force you to leave.

Control of social media seems to be concentrating into the hands of a small number of big players. Twitter, Facebook, Google plus one, etc.

I used to participate in a number of online message boards. But not so much any more. It’s not from a lack of interest on my part, but a lack of replies coming from everyone else as the number of active users dwindles.
Some message boards have closed down, while others have slowly faded away as the majority of users migrate towards facebook groups. I imagine convenience is a primary motivator here, as facebook represents a one-stop solution for email, texting, message-boarding, posting ideas, ranting, and sharing links. The old way involved navigating between multiple websites, each with a different layout or design to figure out and navigate. This does seem to take more mental energy. Facebook made it far easier to do all of these things, and do them all in one place.

I fear that people forget that with the increase in convenience comes a loss of control. When a page, or a group is created on one of these third party services, you are agreeing to play by their rules. They could shut down your group, or close ‘groups’ in general. The whole company could collapse, close, be sold off, and you’ve lost everything.

Continue reading Don’t Let Yourself Become Some Company’s Bitch