On Wednesday, June 29, astrophysicist Charles Gammie who's s visiting professor of theoretical astrophysics at UCSB, brought images and animations that illustrate how black holes behave. The supercomputer simulations showed fascinating fractal-like clouds of stars being sucked into black holes in clouds of turbulence. There was a brief presentation, lots of cool questions and the usual Fishbon Event Lab craziness. Charles promised to make animations available and plans are already underway for ways to use the images in future experiential event projects. To find out more about Charles and his research, check out his website at:
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~gammie/
for simulations check out: http://rainman.astro.uiuc.edu/ddr/index.html
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Motion Controlled Fire in the Streets
In its continual quest for innovation, Fishbon Event Lab hit the streets outside the studio with Motion Sensor controlled Fire Snakes. The Wednesday, June 22 meeting featured the same Doppler Radar sensor, but this time it was used to control bursts of Propane flame from the Fire Snakes. Since the entire operation took place in the middle of the street, it caused an understandable reaction in the neighborhood. Passers by slowed down, stopped, got out of their cars, came over and finally played like the rest of us. One diner from the local pizza restaurant took hundreds of pictures and promised to come back every week from then on.
Puppets Speak
On Wednesday, June 15, Fishbon Event Lab operatives again experimented with Doppler radar motion sensors to vary the pitch of digitally altered audio, but this time with a twist. To make it more real or ridiculous as the case may be, a puppet with a seedy reputation (Mervyn Ruddles, carnival promoter and all around slimy character) was placed in front of the sensor. This made it seem, to the gullible, that Ruddles was making the odd sounds that eminated from the oversized speakers behind an orange curtain. When Lab denizens approached the figure, a series of odd electronic sound were heard. The closer and faster the approach, the higher the pitch. This made it possible to actually modulate the sounds with motion and make it seem like Mr. Ruddles was speaking in some objectionable language. After the experiments music and videos rounded off the festivities.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Smoke Speakers and the Eye Project
On Wednesday, June 8, Fishbon Event Lab denizens were treated to Interactive Smoke Speakers and Ethan's first pass at his Eye Project. The speakers were created by coupling a 5 gallon plastic bucket with a hole punched in the end to a woofer mounted on a pole. This made it uselss for bucket functions, but opened up an exciting new life as a smoke speaker. To make it work, the bucket was filled with smoke from a smoke machine and then connected to a microphone and Alan's electronics. The result: voice activated smoke rings. On the eyeball front, Ethan demoed his Eye Project, a superimposing of eyeball images collected from lots of friends and sequenced to create an etherial montage.
Useless Tool Developed at Event Lab
On June 1st, The Event Lab Convened with a secret purpose, experiment with the concept of uselessness. Using special low temperature plastic and a special pan perfected in pasta experiments, Fishbon Event Lab staffers, created malleable plastic shapes that were later transformed into Useless Tools. These highly evolved objects were found to be unable to perform any useful function whatever, making them highly coveted by Lab insiders.
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