vanderwal.net

An Artful Barrage from Josh Davis

The mind is functioning and also completely blown from watching and listening to Josh Davis. The world of visual, digital, mathematical, and relational information has broken more synapses than I new were functioning today and seemed to have spawned new channels for information to flow and be processed. In other words, my mind and concept of the world has just been altered again. Not only do I know have an understanding of what somebody means when they say the words that comprise the name Josh Davis, but I have a whole new way to look at information and human responses.

One of the items presented was a visual and audio presentation of network activity. Not only could one visually watch the activity and interaction of those on the network and watching what activities the users on the network were performing and showing their IP address. This visual presentation was augmented with audio that dynamically corresponded to the actions. A sys admin could sit and monitor a network aurally and not watch a monitor. Like a mother and a child, a sys admin could emotively interact with the sounds of the network. A user on the network has saturated the bandwidth the downloads, and the sounds emitted could trigger and emotive response from the sys admin to nurse the network back to a healthy state for all users. As many of us hear our cars and listen to the pitch the subway train makes pulling into the station, which indicates how full the train is so we know where to position our selves on the platform (usually lower tone>es indicate fuller trains and the lowest rumble on a seemingly empty train is the money car on the money train).

I found Zoomify to be an insanely cool application. The clarity of the zoomed image was stellar. It reminds me of some of the LuraTech graphic compression applications I tried a couple years ago, when I was looking to build a document repository for Web based use that allowed quick loading snapshots of the documents prior to downloading. Zoomify would be a great application to inspect photos and painting details while keeping the image weight relatively low. Genius.

Now for something completely different... Dollar Bill origami. I made the Shirt in less than 10 minutes and I suck at origami. I had to stay in on recess in grade school to improve my folding, but no more. [hat tip Michael Angeles]

A National Gallery Trip to Get Clear Thinking

Today was one of those days where things are looking gloomy and I was waiting for feedback on a piece of a project before moving forward. So lunch today took me to the Mall for a cheap tourist shack sandwich then to the National Gallery of Art. The Galleries are a wonderful way to problem solve and transform into a world of the portrayal of light and colors. There are two exhibits that I took in on this slow November day, the Aelbert Cuyp and Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo's Ginevra de' Benci and Renaissance Portraits of Women. The renaissance portraits was a well done exhibit, which I went through in reverse order, with the juxtapositioning of Italian and Northern Renaissance works next to each other. The differennces in color, textures, and light was very evident. The Cuyp exhibit was wonderful, but then again I really like Early Norther Renaissance artists. The detail, lighting, and stories are breath taking. I also stopped in to see the Monet room, which houses The Houses of Parliament at Sunset a favorite, now one of many in this room. As time passes I become more and more intrigued with impressionism and particularly Monet. The light and blurred vision, unless your are across the gallery, the strokes, the lack of detial yet catching all the nuance. It was a good break and greatly refreshed my spirit and mind.