Self-Referential Title

Upcoming: 6 weeks of awesomeness - Google + Burning Man (+ NYC) + Amsterdam + Russia

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:50:51 GMT

Friends! Things have been so excellently busy.

Google invited me to bring my Über Lite-Brite to their annual Google Dance party next week (8/19). This year's theme is Glow in the Dark. Perfect!

After that, I stick around San Francisco for a few days (8/20 - 8/22) before the rest of Camp Monoplaya arrives (aka Debra, Jeff, and William). Then we head out to Burning Man, with the Über Lite-Brite in tow, of course (8/23 - 9/1).

Back in NYC, the museum launches a new website, and hopefully I get a chance to stop by the Conflux Festival (9/2 - 9/15).

Then I'm off to Amsterdam to see the 2008 ExperimentaDesign biennale, where Pixelator is being exhibited in Scott Burnham's "Urban Play" (9/16 - 9/19).

From there I head to Ekaterinburg, Russia (thanks to CEC Artslink) where I'll be giving a workshop in light-based public art. We're using old 35mm slide projectors, and maybe mirrors and colored plexiglass! (9/20 - 9/26)

Then I explore St. Petersburg for a few days (9/26-9/29).

Then I fly home and it's pretty much October.

Awesome achieved!

In other, decidedly less-exciting news, I claimed my name on Twitter because it is in such high demand. We don't want any impostors! There I record my 140-character epiphanies, like, most recently: "You know how home fries fall irretrievably into the ketchup when you try to dip them? Solution! Dip fork in ketchup, THEN stab home fries." Follow along if you can stand the once-a-month mind-blowing insight.

NYC status: still awesome

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:10:53 GMT

Oh my, the city is in full swing these days isn't it? Here's what I've been up to for the last couple months:

Improv Everywhere Camera Flash Experiment: In the cold rain, Gene, Debra, I, and 700 other agents lined up on the Brooklyn Bridge and set off the flashes on our cameras in a choreographed manner. The weather was miserable, but I snapped this awesome photo of Charlie and the final video turned out very nicely!

The Bridges of New York County walking tour: a 14-hour, 33-mile ambulatory journey around the edges of the boroughs and the magnificent steel, stone, and concrete constructions that connect them. Excellent people (Debra, Matt, Naomi) and wonderful sights: quite a treat, even if I couldn't walk the next day.

Toronto! I was commissioned by Kevin and Lori of Newmindspace to construct the Uber Lite-Brite in Toronto for their BRITE! fundraiser. Kevin and Lori also program Random Land at Circa so Steph, Gene, and I went and ended up dressing as Random Land characters and dancing in their weekly parade.

Come Out and Play Festival: Victor and Jenna were in town! We played (and won) lots of awesome games:
-Comfort of Strangers: The mysterious soundscape created such an awesome mindspace. Victor and I won! (Jenna lost!)
-Re:Activism: A politically-oriented scavenger hunt that pushed all of us outside of our comfort zones. We won!
-Ravenchase: Jen, Hari, Debra, Victor, Jenna, Matt, and I dominated this riddle-ridden scavenger hunt and missed first place by mere seconds. If only we had run to the finish line!
-Human Blackjack: We dressed up as cards. Simple, quick, goofy fun.
-Ministry of Silence: We only got to observe this subversive game taking place inside a Barnes and Noble, but it looked really neat.

Posterchild came for a visit! He brought some Stained Glass pixelators with him and Steve and I helped him put them up. Also we did an experiment with a projector in Union Square and met the Wooster Collective people.

Going Places (Doing Stuff) curated by the Flux Factory (Lost in History vol. 65: Staten Island Adventures led by Matt Levy). Debra and I (and Flux adventurers) visited the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel shrine, walked a a labyrinth at Castleton Hill Moravian Church, and checked out the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art (founded by a crazy lady) before we had to split early.

MoMA/PS1 "Take Your Time" Olafur Eliasson show: I really wanted to like this because of his work with light and color, but found it pretty vapid. Beautiful, clever, witty, yes, but vapid.

Bonus Level+++: chiptune dance party geekgasm: Off the hook! Data Addiction, Bubblyfish, Glomag, Bit Shifter, Nullsleep, and The Rev rocked the house (and I mostly broke even). Chiptunes are a hard sell to the uninitiated, but everyone who came had a most excellent time.

Upgrade! @ Eyebeam: Andy of The Yes Men gave a short talk, and I got to operate Jeff Crouse's BoozBot. On the way home, Naomi and I found an empty speech bubble from Ji Lee's Bubble Project, so I filled it in!

Governor's Island art show extravaganza: Figment Fest and Emergence were disappointing, but the IN-SITE sculpture show was a wonderful surprise. I'd loved to have played the Figment mini golf course but was too impatient to deal with the long and mishandled line. Also: David Byrne's Playing the Building is executed nicely! Bonus: seeing all four of the Eliasson's Waterfalls on the ferry to Governor's Island. They are actually quite nice!

Going Places (Doing Stuff) curated by the Flux Factory (Pennsyltucky Expedition led by Douglas Paulson). This time we stopped at an old swimming hole with an awesome 35-foot cliff, visited Centralia, underneath which a mine fire has been burning for more than four decades, and ate a 50lb cheeseburger.

Bubble Project spotted!

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:02:56 GMT

I have much to report, dear reader, but until then, look what I found last night!

It was a blank speech bubble from Ji Lee's Bubble Project when I found it. Now it is a Ji Lee/Jason Eppink collaboration (with thanks to Naomi)!

My, do I love this city.

Bonus Level +++: chiptune dance party geekgasm @ Wonderland!

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:28:17 GMT

I'm throwing an enormous party next Saturday 6/21! It is pretty much going to be the definition of "Off the Hook"; ergo, you should attend.

On June 21st, navigate the Mermaid Parade, find glory at the Bubble Battle, earn your Bonus Level.

Tunes to whet your appetite: Bit Shifter | Bubblyfish | Glomag | Nullsleep | The Rev

Giant Lite-Brite: Success!

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:21:46 GMT

Oh man you guys, the giant Lite-Brite turned out so awesome! Thanks to Kevin, Lori, Steph, and The Rev for all their generosity, hospitality, and down right hard work. The Lite-Brite ended up being 4-sided with a surface area of 96 ft² and more than 13,500 peg holes! Plus the pegs were all UV reactive so we used black lights!

I am trying to come up with a better name for this than just "Giant Lite-Brite", which is efficient, but I think leaves out some details. Maybe you have some ideas?

Full project webpage coming soon! In the meantime, here are the rest of my photos of the night.

Biggest Drawing in the World is only theoretical

Wed, 28 May 2008 16:17:24 GMT

Following up on the Biggest Tag in the World, Erik Nordenankar claims to have made the Biggest Drawing in the World using a GPS device that he sent via DHL to a series of locations around the world. No marks were left on the earth; instead, the "drawing" was performative, existing only by visualizing the path the GPS device took.

Unfortunately, the project was only theoretical! (Many are calling it a "hoax", but I propose that the final execution, in this case, is much less important than the idea. In fact, the documentation surrounding the work is very nicely executed.)

I love (hate) that it was a self-portrait. How egoistic!

"Rambler" by Nevin now @ Internet Archive!

Thu, 22 May 2008 16:15:07 GMT

Hurray! Nevin's first album Rambler is now available online at the Internet Archive under a generous Creative Commons license! (I used the album's title track for my Twenty-First Century Campfire video.)

Rambler is a gorgeous, meditative 45 minutes of ambient soundscapes. Just really fantastic stuff. I begged Nevin to put it all online so I could share it with you, and he did! Now go check it out!

Giant Lite Brite (and me) coming to Toronto!

Wed, 14 May 2008 03:34:00 GMT

Hey! I'll be in Toronto May 30th - June 1st, mostly building a giant Lite Brite for Newsoundspace's big shindig. My instructions were "make some light art or something, maybe a giant Lite Brite?" I was tempted to come up with my own project so I could claim more authorship, but man, that is such a perfect party interactive! It's cheap, incredibly visual, has a low barrier of entry, accommodates several people at once, and is virtually asshole-proof. No-brainer!

As usual, I went searching for prior art to see what others had done with the idea. This guy took it literally, using over 62,000 original pegs! Expensive! Kinda cheesy! Not very interactive!

Lite Brite Camp, from Burning Man 2001 and 2002, constructed theirs of pegboard. I had hit upon this idea mere hours before finding their site! I was concerned about how to make the peg holes reusable. (In the original version, you would punch out a piece of paper, so if you removed the peg, you were met with a point of white light.) Lite Brite Camp solved this problem by using black lights and reactive pegs, so the light bleed from unused holes is minimal. Excellent idea!

So yeah, this is gonna be sweet, and hopefully we can bring the Giant Lite Brite back to Burning Man this August! Maybe I will see you in Toronto? Maybe you would like to help out a little?

a year's worth of del.icio.us.ness

Fri, 02 May 2008 21:41:12 GMT

A heads up! If you like some of the stuff I post here, keep your eyes on my del.icio.us account over the next week. I'm catching up on a backlog of A YEAR'S WORTH OF LINKS! It's going to be EPIC.

New Conceptual UK Coinage

Fri, 02 May 2008 20:30:54 GMT

I can't get the fantastic new UK coinage out of my head. Not only is each denomination a beautiful, asymmetrically framed piece of the Royal Arms shield, but the lowest six denominations can be pieced together - like a jigsaw puzzle - to produce an image of the entire shield!

Suddenly the whole coinage has a cohesive, unifying theme! What a wonderful, conceptual thing to do to such a utilitarian collection of objects.

Check out the interview with the 26-year-old (!) who designed them (via Kottke). And hey, USA, get your act together and stop cranking out this crap.

Twenty-First Century Campfire

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 21:07:13 GMT

The Twenty-First Century Campfire website is live! I hope you like it!

The music I used in the video is from my new favorite album: Rambler by Nevin. I'm helping him put the whole album online so I will link to that when it is finished. It is quite fantastic.

barefoot lifestyle: see now, I was on to something, people

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:31:40 GMT

New York Magazine recently published an awesomely validating article entitled "You Walk Wrong" about all the ways shoes mess up your body. Seriously people, shoes are bad for you!

For the two years I lived in Malibu, I rarely wore shoes, and I even wrote a pretty big paper on the barefoot lifestyle. (Incredibly, I still recognize a lot of the medial studies the author cites.) I sure do miss those barefoot days, but the unshod life is so impractical in the city. I'd love to grab a pair of Vivo Barefoots, but they don't seem to have anything big enough for me? :(

New work at Live/Work art show

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:24:21 GMT

My new art piece, Twenty-First Century Campfire, will be debuting this Friday at Live/Work. Here is a portrait of me by Justin Tellian that will also be at the show. PERFECT FOR A NEW FACEBOOK PROFILE PHOTO DON'T YOU THINK?

In the portrait, I am lording over my TV wall. Did you know I have a TV wall? Now you do!

ANYWAY you should come to the show! It has to do with live/work spaces and artists being priced out by developers and sociopolitical stuff like that. Also: art. Address info here. It is being thrown by those Fame Game guys, if you hadn't figured it out yet. Oh, those guys!

For those not in NYC (and for those who would rather sit at their computer) I'm working on the Twenty-First Century Campfire website this week and aim to launch it by Friday. Party time!

second-guessing search engines

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:48:44 GMT

Slashdot* links to another article on how social networks are changing search. Actually, the author prefers the term "killing" to "changing", and his premise is that "the people in your online social network should know you better than a mathematical equation".

I mean, that's true, but look: if I'm using a search engine, it's precisely because my friends, whether in conversation or online, couldn't point me to what I was looking for in the first place.

I benefit from the anonymity of Google searches. I benefit from Google being a predictable, neutral tool. Once my search engine tries to predict me, won't we be second-guessing each other? Further, if I'm searching, it most likely means I'm looking for new information, so why would I want to limit myself to data I'm already marginally familiar with? That's just a way to create a giant feedback loop.

This is just to say: I'm sick of the social network search hype. Sure it can be useful for, I don't know, recommending movies, but isn't that what we do in real life anyway?

* Yes, I still read Slashdot. I used to read it for the funny tags. Now I guess it's just habit?

Typical Tax Day Rant

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:45:56 GMT

So, I dropped my tax paperwork in the mail last night.

Most of my peers get excited about their tax refund, but I get pissed. Why has my employer been giving so much of my scant, hard-earned money to these bloated, lazy, murderous behemoths of institutions that they have to give some back?

It's bad enough that I'm being robbed. (And I do mean that literally. Taxation meets the definition of theft: forcible removal of property.) But to add insult to injury, the tax code is so labyrinthian that I have to pay someone else (either an accountant or a software company) to make sense of how much of my property is being taken from me? Are you SERIOUS?

I have a hard time grasping the legality of this. I really do. If the IRS isn't going to be abolished (I'm not holding my breath), the least they could do is develop software free of charge, make it available online, install it in public libraries, and provide training.

Always switch doors! (Or, the Monty Hall Problem)

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:16:20 GMT

As a casual fan of statistics, the Monty Hall Problem (and how its recent invocation has invalidated a lot of Cognitive Dissonance research) is really fascinating because it's so counter-intuitive!

First play the game. There are three doors: one door has a new car behind it; the other two have goats. You select a door, the game show host opens one of the other two doors to show you a goat, then you have the chance to switch your choice. Here's where it's counter-intuitive: you should switch doors! There is only a 1/3 chance that your original door contains the new car, NOT a 1/2 chance!

Anyway, hopefully you're intrigued and will read the rest of the article! Statistics is such a powerful way to model and understand much of the world. Did I mention I <3 statistics?

interactive abstract narratives

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 01:02:14 GMT

A few months ago, Ryan pointed me to Passage, an art game about our finite existence and how we chose to spend it. In the game, all of life has been condensed into five minutes.

Jason recently released his follow-up, Gravitation, "a video game about mania, melancholia, and the creative process". It's all sorts of fantastic and I really can't recommend it highly enough.

I still encounter people - especially in my line of work - who scoff at the idea that a video game can be Art. And now I think I've found my poster child.

Big-Ass Pillow Costume

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:53:44 GMT

The Big-Ass Pillow Costume website is up, complete with video. It recounts the story of one big-ass pillow with a big-ass dream. I think we can all relate to that!

If you're too lazy-ass to click through, here's a crappily-encoded YouTube embed.

Also!

I made a giant pillow costume

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 18:50:27 GMT

Yesterday was International Pillow Fight Day, as declared by those lovable folks at Newmindspace, so I made a giant pillow costume for the battle at Union Square!

I got beat to a pulp, but that is pretty much to be expected. I am a masochist, maybe a little bit? Thanks to Jack and Jen for being my impromptu handlers. Here are a few photos spotted on Flickr. Video coming soon, thanks to Seth!

bookshelves made of television sets oh what a statement

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 03:42:19 GMT

So I finally had the chance (and resources!) to work on those television bookshelves I've been wanting to make. They are turning out pretty swell, don't you think? I keep meaning to take better photos of them but WHATEVER I want to make about three more for that corner, so I will just photograph when I finish!

Some friends want me to make a bunch of these and sell them and I'm like, NO THANKS. Making a few television bookshelves is fun! Making a lot is WORK!

In other news, I have been neglecting dear ole' Self-Referential Title as of late, eh? Poor guy!

N95 bluetooth modem settings for Leopard

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 05:08:41 GMT

I finally got my N95 back on Thursday. The original device wasn't repairable, so Nokia sent me a new phone, and somehow that took more than a month. In short, Nokia made me look like a complete and utter fool to my friends and colleagues, and I'll never forget that. I'm buying an iPhone next time.

So now I'm in the process of re-customizing my phone, which is annoying, but also, fresh starts are nice sometimes. Here again, for the Google Gods, are the hoops you have to jump through to set your N95 to run as a bluetooth modem on your Macbook Pro, this time running Leopard OS X.5.2, if your carrier is Cingular/AT&T:

Run Bluetooth Setup Assistant and configure the phone as a modem with the generic Nokia bluetooth modem script (no more need for Ross Barkman's excellent scripts).
Account name is WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM and password is CINGLAR1. Everything else stays default.
Once you've set up the device, on the command line "cd /dev" then "ls" and take note of how your bluetooth device is named. You should see something like "cu.Bluetooth-Modem" and "tty.Bluetooth-Modem"
"cd /etc/ppp" and create a file named "options.cu.Bluetooth-Modem", or whatever the device is named in step 3.
In the file, add these three lines:
refuse-chap
refuse-mschap
refuse-mschap-v2
Save, restart, and connect!

(Creating the specific "options.<device-name>" file allows VPN or other protocols using PPP to still use CHAP authentication, which is what we disabled for the bluetooth modem. Nerdtastic!)

I am a frickin' computer wizard

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:49:26 GMT

<geek>
I totally set up a music server at Wonderland this week running Firefly Media Server on Mac OS X.4. Not only does the server broadcast on the local network as a shared iTunes library (with unlimited plays - screw you, Apple!), it has a sweet back end console and I can SSH and FTP in remotely! (Static IP addresses ROCK.)

Firefly (previously known as mt-daapd - excellent re-branding decision!) is still a little tricky to install on OS X (it's Linux-native) but I can't recommend it highly enough.
</geek>

Next project: a giant pillow costume for International Pillow Fight Day :)

The Ebb and Flow of Movies

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 02:18:23 GMT

If you haven't seen it yet, check out this breathtaking data visualization of box office receipts from 1986 to 2008. Major kudos to the New York Times for creating opportunities for these comprehensive (and beautiful!) works.

Related: Waxy groks six years of Oscar-nominated film piracy data. Conclusion? The MPAA's attempts at piracy prevention haven't worked.

Here are some things I did last year that are just making their way onto the interweb

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 17:26:55 GMT

Welcome to another edition of HEY JASON IS ALL OVER THE INTERNET:

Improv Everywhere: Last spring, Meredith, Jen, Anna and I were PAID to participate in Improv Everywhere's NBC pilot (which, bittersweetly, failed to be picked up). For the mission, all 200+ of us froze for 5 minutes, unfroze for 5 minutes, froze again for 5 minutes, then nonchalantly exited. It was much like the Slow Mo Home Depot mission, but better! Meredith and I (and some friends we made there) decided to freeze while taking a photo. This was an excellent decision because non-participants would almost walk into the shot, apologize and stop themselves, then after an awkwardly long pause realize we were frozen like everyone else. For the second freeze, Meredith brilliantly stuck up some bunny ears. Unfortunately, this was the moment my camera decided to malfunction, so I don't have a single photo of the stunt!

I guess Charlie finally got the rights to the video and put it online. The internet went crazy over it. I'm really impressed by how creative everyone was! Anyway, there I am!

The Children's Games Project: Hey, remember Figment Fest last July? One of the cool projects Jen, Keith, and I got to participate in, aside from handing out gallons of free lemonade to limbo-ers, was The Children's Games Project.

It's based on Pieter Bruegel's Children's Games, one of my favorite paintings ever. The number of simultaneous narratives occurring in the painting invokes pure wonderment. Seriously, I could stare at this thing for days on end. It inspired an interactive film project I did at USC!

For the project, artist Louisa Armbrust did massive amounts of research on the (fascinating!) history of each game being played, created diagrams of each game as depicted in the painting, and began soliciting photographs of recreations of those frozen moments. Awesome! Anyway, there I am on the front page.

My N95 is Dead. Long Live My N95.

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:44:09 GMT

So my N95 died last night. It's had intermittent screen outages for a few months, but this time it flat-out died. Much to my delight (as delighted as one can be when one's phone dies) it is covered under a 2-year warranty! So the phone is currently on its way to Nokia for some desperately needed love.

I guess this is just to say that I won't have a phone for a couple weeks, though I'm not sure if people who call me even read this, but you know, in case someone decides to google "why hasn't Jason returned my phone call", now they'll know.