Updates from Ben Dalton RSS
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03:41:35 am on October 4, 2011 |
These all worked for me. Read books and journals from parts of the library you are unfamiliar with. Get involved with a regularly meeting community of people who get shit done (hack space, programming language meet-up, radio station, life drawing, etc). Start a project that lets you interview the people you admire (blog, zine, podcast). Offer to work for a while in exchange for lunch in the coolest place you can think of. Install and ‘hello world’ as many tools as you can. Disassemble and rebuild something technical (like a phone or laptop) using instructions from the web. Watch classes on MIT OCW.
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09:10:19 am on August 16, 2011 |
output of a processing sketch
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03:58:19 am on August 3, 2011 |
Here’s a couple of old face paint experiments following on from the clowns (I subscribe to the belief that halloween costumes should be scary). One borrows from my bunny project and a my little pony eye (steamer):
The other took inspiration from an illustrator whose work I once saw in a hairdressers in Kentish Town (any ideas who this might have been?) who had drawn giant-mouthed creatures.
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03:48:56 pm on July 21, 2011 |
I am reminded occasionally of a group of film gangs that are related in their scary, re-appropriated face paint. I think they all derive from the coulrophobia that runs through our veins.The opening scene to The Dark Knight (2008) is the most recent clown gang I can think of.
Akira is the classic I measure all others against.
Akira’s Joker (ジョーカー) has a great upside down mouth in his early appearances.
The Warriors (1979) had two gangs that used face paint. The Hi-Hats were basically mimes.
The Baseball Furies, we’re a nice mash-up of New York Yankees and clown makeup.
Here’s the Furies in action.The asymmetrical eye decoration of one of the Furies members is reminiscent of another face – young Alex from A Clockwork Orange (1971).
Here’s a gang fight from that film.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssxMTb3puUs
If you’re seeking inspiration for face make-up for a clown gang of your own, all clowns registered with Clowns International produce a painted egg to register their unique face painting – seems like a joke but isn’t :)
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06:24:47 am on July 1, 2011 |
for some reason youtube doesn’t currently have a link from the normal landing page for a playlist to any way of actually playing the selection of videos end-to-end.
this could be because: they are trying to do something clever around blocking third parties or in preparation for google tv or in terms of advertising; or because they are disorganised and have broken this core feature of a playlist; or because the button is there, but I can’t see it because of bad UI.
anyway, you can fix it with this firefox keyword bookmark:
location:
javascript:void(location.href='http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p='+location.href.slice(location.href.lastIndexOf(%22/%22)+1,location.href.length))keyword:
playlistor bookmarklet:
view play listof course, as with all things youtube related, this fix will be redundant any time soon when google switches round all the functionality and code again.
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03:50:33 pm on June 20, 2011 |
Hi <insert name here>,
Nearly all my flickr images are automatically available to use under a cc by-sa licence. You can see the details in the photo page by clicking on the licence. Basically:
You are free:
to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to Remix — to adapt the work
to make commercial use of the workUnder the following conditions:
Attribution —
You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Share Alike —
If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.
You can attribute me by linking back to the flickr photo page or to http://bendalton.noii.net/
If you need a different, or more flexible licence, please send me a quote for your standard picture rates and requirements and I will be happy to consider.
Ben
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04:09:49 am on April 7, 2011 |
One of the blue plaques in Chapeltown is “Frank Kidson M.A. 1855-1926 Musical antiquarian and folk-song collector lived here 1904-1926“.
Frank Kidson was a co-founder of the Folk-Song Society.
Are icecream vans folk music? What other forms of folk music are catalogued in Chapeltown homes?
I like bread as a universal symbol for humanity. I think there is something bread-like in almost all cultures. My original thought on this was that bread should be the illustration on all Euro bank notes, with each country choosing bread examples for each denomination. ‘Bread’, ‘dough’ – get it.
Collecting recipes also seems a good way of documenting community.
Sculptures of fictional characters appeal to me.
The art piece I saw a while back comes to mind where the funding was spent to slightly sink some of the paving stones in a town to create a puddle when it rains. But the artist kept the location of the ‘art puddle’ a secret, so that every puddle was a contender. I can’t remember much about who made this. Anyone know?
I find it interesting how often ‘invasive species’ are described in terms of a particular country of origin – like the country is to blame. Japanese knotweed, Africanized killer bees, giant American toad, European green crab, Indian mongoose, Argentine ant, Dutch elm disease, Mozambique tilapia, English starling, West Indian stinging ant, etc.. Classic fear-based flood metaphors (normally seen in the pages of the Daily Mail describing immigration) are also often used to describe wildlife.
I consider myself part of one of many Chapeltown emigre communities.
The Brooklyn Mobile project from Dan Paluska is good. A straight-to-youtube recording device for use on the streets.
I like this idea of 3D printing residents of a location too “Honey I Shrunk the Red Hook” is a collaboration between Luis Blackaller and Andy Cavatorta.
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06:22:05 am on February 12, 2011 |
The Passive Multiplayer Online Game (later called NetherNet) did a good job of digitising experience points and merit badges via a firefox plugin for general web browsing. I’d like a something that would work for education across more than one web platform for tracking exercises and tasks completed. I imagine a list of tasks, and ‘embed’ code for each task, that could be added to work while it is being created and act as a call back to the system to update what had been completed in someone’s todo list.
A tutor log-in or peer voting layer would allow for feedback and confirmation of completion to be added within whatever page the badge was embedded. A QR-code generator could allow badges to be added to physical work, again to allow comments to be added directly.
Anything like this exist?
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03:57:16 pm on January 25, 2011 |
Some quotes and context around technology and art teaching, and the history in Leeds.
An understanding of contemporary media and the means of production, informed by a sense of digital technology, aesthetics and ethics.
Process & materials. Mechanisms of communication.
“In a field that moves so quickly – where today’s innovations may be obsolete tomorrow – students need more than just technical skills. They need an understanding of the underlying structures that fuel the dynamism between technology and creativity.”
Sara Diamond, Artistic Director Media and Visual Arts, Director of Research, The Banff New Media Institute
“… if technology and the ability to be connected disappear further into the background, what will occupy our foreground? A bit of the humanity we’ve always valued in the “real world.” Legislators who are currently fixated on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education as the key to innovation will realize that STEM needs some STEAM–some art in the equation. We’ll witness a return to the integrity of craft, the humanity of authorship, and the rebalancing of our virtual and physical spaces. We’ll see a 21st-century renaissance in arts- and design-centered approaches to making things, where you–the individual–will take center stage in culture and commerce.”
Your Life in 2020, John Maeda (2010)
“Innovation is born when art meets science.”
John Maeda, President, RISD
Leeds City Mechanics’ Institute- 1824 – Leeds Mechanics Institute founded.
- 1845 – Leeds College of Commerce founded.
- 1846 – Leeds College of Art founded.
- 1868 – Leeds Mechanics Institute became the Leeds Institute of Science, Art and Literature, later renamed Leeds College of Technology
- 1874 – Yorkshire College of Education and Home Economics founded.
- 1907 – City of Leeds College of Education founded (part of City of Leeds Training College)
- 1933 – Carnegie Physical Training College founded
- 1970 – Leeds Polytechnic was formed from the amalgamation of Leeds College of Technology, Leeds College of Commerce, part of Leeds College of Art and Yorkshire College of Education and Home Economics
George Birkbeck (1776-1841), held a degree in medicine. When he started his lectures in 1799 he found it necessary to have a good deal of apparatus, and while this was being made under his instructions he became acquainted with a number of Glasgow artisans. He found them so intelligent and so eager to learn that he resolved to start a course of lectures and experiments in mechanics ‘solely for persons engaged in the practical exercise of the mechanical arts, men whose situation in early life has precluded the possibility of acquiring even the smallest portion of scientific knowledge.’ The lectures proved a great success. After Birkbeck removed to London in 1804, the lectures were continued by the next occupant of the chair; and finally, in 1823, the members of the class organised it into a ‘Mechanics’ Institute’. Its purpose was defined as ‘instructing artisans in the scientific principles of arts and manufactures’.
http://www.uefap.com/reading/exercise/ess2/barnard.htm
Artisan: “A skilled manual worker who uses tools and machinery in a particular craft. A person who displays great dexterity.”
- open, free, course of lectures on the ‘mechanical arts’
- mix of classes, library, reading-room, and apparatus for experiments
- lectures on mathematics and its applications, and on natural and experimental science and drawing
- “threw into relief the connection between material advancement and the necessity of education to take part in its advantages”
- funded by benevolent groups and individuals, businesses and small rental fee
- provided free light on two evenings a week from the local Gas Light Company
http://www.infed.org/walking/wa-birb.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanics_institute[in] 1955 [Harry Thubron] became Head of Fine Art at Leeds College of Art. During his ten year tenure in Leeds he helped to revolutionise art education in England by establishing the Basic Design Course, a programme inspired by the German Bauhaus college and the theoretical writings of Herbert Read. In this programme, art and design students were not taught specific skills for any of the disciplines of art and design, but visual literacy in the use of colour, establishment of form and construction of space. Out of this, and similar experiments undertaken by Victor Pasmore and Richard Hamilton at Kings College Newcastle, a new introductory course for art, design and architecture students emerged, called the Foundation Course, which went on to became the standard degree course-entry qualification for art, design and architecture students … He also helped to create a prototype for Britain’s Polytechnics by sending his students to work on collaborative projects with engineering students from Leeds College of Technology, out of which Leeds Polytechnic was formed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Thubron
Out-take from Christopher Burstall’s BBC documentary A Question of Feeling 1970. Day one with students on the reconstructed The Locked Room project. © Garth Evans
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03:47:53 pm on November 26, 2010 |
Made with 3fram.es
