transitlab

20 Feb, 2007

the problems of artists access to technology

Posted by: brian In: art|technology

So youve discovered this piece of technlogy that interests you. You want to make some art about it, maybe you want to make some art with it, maybe you want to critique what lies behnd it. What is access and how can you get it….

Access can be broken into three separate albeit interrelated aspects:

    -physical/economic access (do you have the money to buy?/economics)
    -intellectual access (do you have the right to use/patents)
    -regulatory access (can you use this technique without crossing proscribed boundaries/can you satisfy regulations?)

If we take Stelarcs third ear as an example, it would be expensive to attach the ear surgically. The cast of his ear would have involved using a proprietry polymer, and the surgey itself may have required regulatory approval.

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About

Brian Degger is a technologist/artist, he writes, thinks and makes around themes of interactivity, biomimicracy, and collaboration

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Asides

PDF import and editing in openoffice
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miniFM

miniFM
In the foreground is a Tetsuo Kogawa version (built during RadioCraftLab, during AVFest08) and in the back the remix by sonodrome (built last week at Sonodrome Central). Both assembled by me.
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Bioplastic
Jay Cousins and friends had a hackday around bioplastics and laser cutting. Making the bioplastic from starch and glycerin (see this link for more details) and then laser cutting them. Cool stuff, they were even making different color ones. This is important as people move from using commercially sourced plastic in their makerbots to something else. Plastic is expensive to buy for these machines, but it is all around. SO be it bio-plastic or post waste plastic, ways of reusing these provide a compelling reason to throw away less waste. It is amazing that these materials are coming out of the factories, to be used in domestic situations. Together with polymorph and sugru, there are a variety of materials to play around for wearables, for prototypes and one offs. Bring on the future, with peer production.

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augmented foraging - cool use of layar -

augmented foraging Originally uploaded by _foam A mobile phone guide to edible urban wild-food sources.
Amsterdam urban_ edibles is developing Augmented_Foraging, a  mobile phone guide to wild-food sources using Layar. Much better use of this program than finding property in Amsterdam (unless you live there of course)!
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