Today was a great start to the Making Things Happen (For a Week Straight) show. We got the gallery basically put together, showing some of our existing projects and making it into a big studio of sorts. The major projects of the day were painting the title wall, getting a new adapter for our LED …
Made from a hacked Kill A Watt, a device used to measure energy usage from a power outlet, Ladyada made this real-time Twittering energy monitor. The Tweet-A-Watt can be made for around $50, and would be used in each room—your office’s power bar would have one connected to it, your living room, bedroom, etc. Check …
Over the past couple of months, we’ve been working on making blocks of ice with letters and text embedded in them to create temporary street art. I think this idea came out of working with wheat paste, realizing the enjoyment of working in public spaces, and wanting to continue to work throughout the winter. I …
I recently got a copy of Issue 6 of the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, based on a recommendation from WMMNA. I’m still making my way through it, but an article by Lisa Anne Auerbach entitled, “D.D.I.Y.: Don’t Do It Yourself,” really caught my attention. Auerbach basically argues that D.I.Y. culture has been hijacked by corporations and …
Tuesday night’s Broken City Lab Office Hours were successful, but as usual, all too short. Spending the majority of the time in Lebel’s wood shop, we started working on our LED sign, but still have a long ways to go with it. We cut plexiglass, drilled holes, and started soldering—I think we’ll continue next Monday …
We spent a couple hours last night highlighting areas in Windsor that are of interest to us, either as potential research sites, potential exploration sites, or places in need of further examination. If you have anything that should be added to the map, please do so, but in order to edit it, I think you …
We spent the last couple of daylight hours on Friday working with rope and one of the fences at LeBel. We needed to test some techniques for communicating via rope (or ribbon, as we later decided) on a fence for another project. After moving inside to the warmth, we also settled on a preferred material, …
Our Tetris Tournament / Wheatpaste Demo / Sticker-Making Party went amazingly well—we successfully hijacked that big TV in the Lebel hallway, the tournament was filled with high-stakes Tetris 2 action (you can see Susan and Craig battling it out above), we demoed our wheatpaste recipe (hot water + flour until its a smoothie-like consistency) and …
Danielle and I spent the better part of the afternoon a couple days ago going through wheatpaste recipes, ultimately going with the simplest. We had wanted to avoid having to use a hot plate to make it, and after 4 different recipes requiring varying amounts of heat, we were successful.
In preparation of our upcoming Tetris Tournament / Wheat Paste Demo / Sticker Making Party, we had made a list of supplies and had set out to find the goods at (what we thought) was an obvious choice—Value Village. At the top of our list was a hot plate, Tetris for SNES, and supplies for making …