CML Makers

February 23, 2016 Christian and Jin Sol

Here are a couple of process photos taken by the Makerbot, along with a Mysterabbit figure we printed for fun. Check out this website to see the global project: http://www.mysterabbit.com/photos

Our binaural bear installation :)

-Asma and Christine

Making bears out of socks and stuffing anf no sewing experience. Christine made the pink bear and Asma made the blue one. Christine is going to attempt another bear on monday

We had some major issues coding our Arduino to do what we wanted it to do, but managed to figure out a few of them. Definitely still more work to do!

We ran into some issues with our final project this evening. However, thanks to some serious troubleshooting, we think we’ve come through the other side! More details to come in class.

Kari and Alecz: I went to the ultimate "maker" house, and found this rigged up puzzle door. There are three deadbolts plus a door lock, and two dozen keys to choose from. But those are just distractions: the real trick is in turning the picture frame to the left of the door in order to unlock it. How cool is this? He told me that unless he's making something (guitars, furniture, pizza oven, stained glass) he feels like his mind is out of control.

Kari and Alecz: It's here! We are so excited to put our soldering skills to use tomorrow. (Keep that solder sucker handy for us, Professor...)

Christian and Jin Sol: A quick glimpse at our first time dabbling with the Makerbot!

Found this video about bad robots (shared on facebook by the UW fine arts page), and thought it was neat how none of the robots were doing what they were “supposed to be doing.” After all, isn’t that why we build robots? To be functional and to make parts of our lives easier? These robots seem to be objects-to-think with in this sense. Thought I’d share it here so everyone could check out these bad boys!

This photo was taken from the Instagram feed of a woman who is a self proclaimed public relations, social media, and events expert with her own events studio. This really got us thinking about the question that we’re hopefully going to be addressing in our final project: are makers artists? And furthermore, what qualifies as ‘making’ and as ‘art’? This individual does not physically make or craft anything. Her idea of ‘making’ lies in her ability to communicate verbally, through writing, and via social media, and to create effective and successful events. However, she obviously considers herself to be a maker regardless of this, and publicly proclaims it on her social media channels. Her work is her art, but this art also represents her making something, albeit something that is not tangible (i.e.: PR relationships, social media strategies, successful events). 

Kari and Alecz: As we think more about our project, we stumbled upon this fantastic video that teaches us "How to make modern art." It takes a skeptical look at some MoMA installations and then the artist tries his hand at a piece of modern art. His masterpiece (an old toque in a picture frame) is currently on eBay with the latest bid of $2,000,100. The video is a good place to start examining what actually makes something art, and whether or not the things we make can/should/are considered art.

Here is a parody of maker culture - the subject of this short video talks about the art of making toast for a good 4 minutes. It's interesting; if you don't know that he's talking about toast, much of what he says is in line with our readings. -Kari and Alecz