When Geeks Get Creative: Tech Art

Art with a technologist's twist. We worship the graffiti research lab and things that glow with electrons.

“To arrive at a creative solution to a persistently unsolvable problem, an individual must often change the method by which he or she has already attempted to solve the problem—in other words, think outside the box. Observations on problem solving have included William James’ view, expressed in 1890, that the ability to switch strategies is integral to divergent thinking and Charles Spearman’s suggestion in 1931 that creativity results from bringing together two or more ideas that previously have been isolated. One way to solve a persistent problem, then, would be to see it in a "new light" by combining different forms of knowledge and cognitive strategies mediated by the two hemispheres of the brain,” (Exploring the Brain’s Role in Creativity, NeuroPsychiatry Reviews Online).

Here are some ideas I came up with so far:

* Computers as art on a wall. Take a bunch of really old equipment, hook it all up, but instead of mounting it in a computer case, mount it on a plywood board. Paint the board pretty colors and strategically place LED lights to illuminate it in the dark. It could either be running or not. If it were running, I think it would be cool to use it with a projector as the output. It could even project back on to the wall art, itself. Maybe illuminating each part one by one. Or who knows what.
inspired by http://www.instructables.com/id/S8IL1G3F3C4XL3A/

* Research patterns used in the inputs of VGA monitors. Maybe we could program an AVR to produce weird patterns of our own to send to a VGA monitor or projector. kind of like circuit bending, but as a visual application.
o this can be done with a simple fpga dev kit, as many of them have the connectors set up for a vga device
o fpga and vga, do take some work, but that was when i was still in college, FPGA should have 16x more units than when i was using them so it should be easier

* Etch our own designs in circuit boards as wall art. Maybe design it such that we can connect LEDs to the art itself without the need for extra wiring, but that may corrupt the coolness of . There's also en entire Systm episode on etching custom circuit boards. Idea loosely based on http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-your-own-Embossed-Business-Cards-us...

* Make an LED sign for bucketworks. Much cooler than the standard neon signs and much cheaper. Inspired by: http://www.instructables.com/id/Electro-Graf/

* Make a music player in the style of iPhone or the iPod touch using a touch sensitive screen or a notepad style laptop and hang it on the wall as your jukebox. Connect to the speakers over wireless.

* Create an open source hardware project for portable media players

* create a digital moon wall at bucketworks with 18 color nodes behind moon like frosted glass/plastic, and change the colors based on a digital media server
o the light could represent data of the city
+ of bucketworks
+ of its members
+ of the local space
o it could play a game or interact with people

Of course there are a number of non-original ideas:

* Projection Bombing - get a really bright projector and some car batteries and inverter and project cool art onto the sides of buildings

* Projected Graffitti Writing - the GRL has released software that combines a camera with the above project bombing idea to sense laser pointers and draw where the pointer goes. So you can literally take the side of a building with your name using a laser pointer.
http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=99#video

* Masses of LED Throwies http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=46#video