Sleep

Long day.  It's 4:53 am and I just got home from Shift Space.  Everything looks great.. except the chip decided to not work at the very end of the test run.  It did fine all evening, but stopped.  So, another chip will be put in tomorrow afternoon.  The "flys" look great… but I am wondering if I need yet another fan… totaling 4.  I'll sleep on that one.  Tomorrow is going to be very long I have a feeling.

Wednesday

Tonight was spent gathering some items for the installation.  Two oscillating fans were purchased, grill guards removed and sprayed flat black to be installed on the ceiling rafters.  This is to give the "fireflys" a gentle push for some movement.  Although, I think I need a third.  I also placed the small speakers (two on the floor and two on the ceiling… there are supposed to be four on the ceiling, but I stepped on them… oops) and finished up the wiring on the "fireflys".  All that is left is to connect all the "flys" to the logo chip and BOOM… magnificent, lol.

Thursday will be spent tidying things up and troubleshooting.  And the grass will come along on Friday afternoon after getting another day of good, hot sunshine.  I also have more pics to download of todays events. 

Second stage of Firefly environment.

After some discussion, it was decided to add some sound to the piece. So I downloaded a great MP3 file to use. It's a summer evening sound bite. I will be using 5 small speakers hanging from the ceiling and on the floor. Each speaker was mounted to hang by using electrical tape to decure the wire onto the back and then taped around the magnet to secure the entire thing. They are small speakers (2"-3") and incredibly light so there will be no problem with their weight.

The space has been hung with 45 "fireflys" from the ceiling and there will be 3 on the floor in the capture jar. The grass is also growing nicely in a container that was built for the installaion. People keep asking what illegal drug I am growing to subsidise my graduate career. I will post some pics of it later after they are downloaded off Steve's camera. I will also take some pics this evening of the space to post.

It all seems to be coming along nicely.

Pictures of “fireflys” being built.

My high speed has been down at home for a week and couldn't get pics downloaded. And god knows I'm not doing it at WSU in my studio with dial up. But here are some pics of the "fireflys" being constructed at Henrion. Each of the pics are listed from left to right below. All together there were 50 "fireflys" constructed, 48 will be used in the installation.

1. Cutting the LED wires down to cut down on heat shrink tube.

2. Cutting heat shrik.

3. Using soldering flux on the wires.

4. Soldering the wires to the LED posts.

5. Affixing three pieces of heat shrink on the fireflys. One on each LED terminal post and ove around both wires to keep from pulling apart.

6. Pile of finished "fireflys".

7. "Firefly" detail.

8. "Firefly" detail.

Shift Space VII: Rent Event Fundraiser, An open letter and review.

So, if you haven't recognized it, there is soap box under my feet. A very large one at that. As the event coordinator for Shift Space VII, I have a few open wounds to bandage up and some words of advice for the WSU Art and Design students as a group. This past Final Friday was an attempt to save an excellent off campus art venue; WSU Shift Space Gallery. And you know what… I did it. I raised over $6000 in 7 hours. Now that single "I" should not be as far as I am concerned. Don't get me wrong, I had help… but it was the same help that always steps up to the plate and follows through. Is this a problem? You bet it is!

The event, which took several months of extremely indepth planning and hundreds of hours, was attended by an estimated 1200 people. This number is almost three times our usual attendance. Over 450 artworks were donated by WSU students, faculty and staff and sold for the unheard of price of $20 or less. It was a raging success in my opinion and provided a continuation for Shift Space.

Now, what is my gripe with the students of the WSU Art and Design Department? Many of you are lazy, complaining, non-follow through excuses of artists. Yes, I said it. Does it piss you off? Good, it should. Many of the 450 works were donated by the same people who always follow through with events at WSU. Many of you donted over 10 pieces of work, some even 20. And several of you, put in countless hours of volunteer work for the event. Where were the rest of you? I continually hear complaints on our campus of nothing going on and nothing to get involved in. Well, I am here to tell you that you are blind as bats. Our department has countless events that happen throughout the semester that are poorly attended by the students of WSU. Not general students either, art and design students. Event planning and guild meetings are extremely difficult to have due to poor attendance as well. Overall, almost anything in the Art and Deisgn department is difficult and discouraging to have due to poor attendance and a general lack of interest from the students.

So here is my words of advice to you. Get off your butts, quit complaining and take charge. Plan an event. Participate in events. Get involved with the Art and Design Department at WSU. Finish your homework on time, attend your classes with a positive attitude and be glad you are in school and not working a dead-end job somewhere.. that will happen soon enough in your life most likely. And most of all, VOLUNTEER your time and FOLLOW THROUGH WITH THOSE TASKS. I ended up doing much of the work for this event that was deligated out to students who fell through. And this seems to be a constant at WSU. Do you think that the real world is going to put up with such things? I can tell you that it will not. You will loose jobs, miss out on opportunities and generally be thought of as a flake due to such actions. You are the only person in your life that will drive your abilities and opportunites. Take advantage of this and open your eyes. Prove me wrong and make me eat some crow. Believe me, I am hungry from it so start cooking.
Now for those of you who continually volunteer, attend events and participate… THANK YOU! You are the backbone of our department and the future success stories of our society. If it weren't for the select few at WSU that continually participate, this event would not have been possible as well as many other events. You give me some hope that people are good natured and care about other things than their own selfish ideas. Congratuations on a huge underdog win for Shift Space. We are here for another run of excellent shows and opportunites for the students of WSU.

Fire Fly Environment

Muaz and myself came up with another idea for the final project. The mason jar idea is something that there really isn't time to do the correct way and I don't want to show them half evolved. They can come along at another time.

Muaz had said something about lights in a past discussion, which got me thinking about a more visual idea instead of auditory. The Fire Fly Environment will be 50 LEDs hanging from different lengths from the ceiling, each lighting randomly like fire flys do. There will also be a hint of an outside environment with a plot of grown grass on the floor (probably 4' x 4') with a jar or two on it… full of fire flys. This is a simple idea to evolke feelings of childhood and summer evenings. There was also so discussion the other day to put some sapling trees in a couple of spots for another hit to the outdoors.