By Justin on March 9th, 2010, 10:57 pm 2 Comments

Drawdio is a DIY music project by designer jay silver that let’s users draw the instrument of their choice on a piece of paper and play it with their finger.

While possible to use in a variety of  objects, when used with a pencil, the graphite acts as a circuit on the paper, transmitting the electric signal across the drawing to produce a different sound based on the specific form.

If you can get past the sort of hilarious / awkward editing in the video, it’s a very cool and simple design. It makes me curious about the potential for creating some kind of traceable sound-map, what sounds would Detroit’s streets make versus Windsor’s streets? What would happen if you added new roads or buildings — what sound could that make?

[via Designboom]

Tagged: audio context design DIY drawing paper sound Soundart

By Justin on February 4th, 2010, 11:00 am 0 Comments

While we’re still moving along on our Save the City project in the background, we’re also continuing to look ahead to other projects and deadlines coming up. Tuesday mornings are always a really good productive time, and this week was no exception.

While we wait for our ribbons and postcards to arrive for the upcoming Sites of Apology / Sites of Hope event, we’re looking into CAFKA and the ANTI 2010 festival, both of which could be a lot of fun and give us a chance to go and play in other cities.

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Tagged: architecture BCL drawing Finland Kitchener proposals research Waterloo

By Justin on July 10th, 2009, 12:51 am 2 Comments

This is a small excerpt of a large map made by students in OCAD’s Cities for People summer workshop, depicting the East Chinatown neighbourhood, its businesses and their smells.

You should take a look at the larger map, which helps to demonstrate the potential in mapping outside of the continually pervasive Google Maps.

To take time to note a neighbourhood in this somewhat peculiar detail is an interestingly necessary method for interfacing with a place one might normally walk by, and in turn, of course, makes me eager to do the same somewhere around these parts.

[via Spacing]

Tagged: business city context drawing map psychogeography

By Justin on July 29th, 2008, 1:35 pm 0 Comments

Attaching pens to branches of trees, Tim Knowler produces tree drawings, or rather, sets up the situation in which a tree can produce drawings. I was pleasantly reminded of his work, having come across it sometime last summer, through an email and Inhabitant.

From his artist statement,

“The exploration of Chance and Process is core to my artistic practice. Akin to scientific experimentation and investigation, the results of my projects [although operating within carefully developed controls and parameters] are unpredictable and outside my control. It is the wind, postmen, the motion of a vehicle, or players of a game that unwittingly determine the outcome.” 

I will be forever interested in the idea of chance within artwork, especially when the elements of chance are coming from nature.

[via]

Tagged: chance drawing nature trees