Best BREAK Video Comment Ever

"how about fuck off with your gay ferret, and your gay videos?
thanks Mr McLOSER"

--dj sleevless

Remember When Brendan Fraser Was Cool...Me Neither

Don't forget to cup the balls...




One Brendan, one cup

Average Homeboy

Instructions for a DIY Light-Based Briefcase MultiTool

These are the instructions for said DIY Light-Based Briefcase MultiTool...
My DIYLBBMT is to be used for both those that want to diminish the effects of SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, and for the population of people that want to enjoy the artwork of Dan Flavin and have either a fear of commitment, or are simple on-the-go individuals who like to travel with artwork. So here goes:


1. Get an awesome old briefcase or suitcase (depending on size requirements or susceptibility of SAD). My case is a sweet number from 1987, in the oh-so-fashionable shade of 80s burgundy.

2. You'll also need three or more battery powered fluorescent lights (I found some at Home Depot), some velcro, aluminum (optional) foil, glue (I used Gorilla Glue), and a shite-load of batteries (I gots mine at Home Depot).

3. Cover the inside of the case as best you can with aluminum foil (optional), use glue to keep a grip on things.

4. While the glue sets up, attach the velcro to the back of the aluminum lights. Once the glue sets up (try and shoot for overnight), stick the other side of the velcro in a corresponding pattern to the inside of the case.

5. Put the shite-load of batteries in the fluorescent lights and stick 'em. This is about what yours should look like at some point.

Now, simply leave open and enjoy your DIY Flavin, or stick your face down in there for some light therapy!

For The Final

I am hoping to make a cheap, portable light-therapy box, for those who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (aka SAD). The examples I have seen on the interwebs are quite expensive and tasteless. If all goes well, I'll have something much cooler and/or crazy looking than this head-strap version.

"Parsons Does the Sims" Project Installation

For the Parsons Does The Sims exhibit (awesome double entendre) at the Chelsea Art Museum, my partner and I (not a double entendre, despite the hand on the shoulder) created a multi-screen, double projection installation of our machinima video work.

We began by augmenting and editing the footage of our SimLady along with some stock footage we acquired.
We also ordered some pretty cool fabric from a NY company called Rosebrand. They sell all sorts of cool fabrics. Mostly, they sell stuff for theatrical productions...mostly. We had them cut up our fabric and make four 8x4.5 ft. panels for us.
The Tuesday before the opening of the show, James (my business partner) and I headed over to the Chelsea Art Museum with some scrap fabric we ordered to set up our stuff and run some tests before hanging the good stuff.

We used Duct Tape to hang up our preview panels and projected some test video. Everything looked pretty cool to us, so when we got our good panels of fabric, we hung them using twine, to get a feel for how they would look when we strung them with wire.












So here, James is putting the final touches on our turnbuckles and twine. As you can see, the fabric has a little bit of a drape-like wrinkle thing going on. We decided at this point, that we definitely wanted to do a bottom level of support, just like the top, to get rid of said wrinkle thing.




















This is a detail picture from the next day of our wire and turnbuckle apparatus. Just like the twine business before, but much stronger, straighter, and more awesome. Below is a detail picture showing how the panels hang in relation to one another.





From this blurry image, you can sort of make out our projector setup. Using these poles that extend from the floor to the ceiling, we hung our projectors using some heavy-duty Dr. Octopus arms. The little white box on the floor contains a mac mini and various cables, power strips, and other electrical wonders that give life to our piece.


Here are some pictures of our installation (from both sides) in all its glory:

To tell you the truth, our piece looks a whole lot better if the room is much darker. However, the people that had artwork in the room we were in wanted to see their stuff too, so we had to turn on some other lights...whatever. You can still get the basic idea from these pictures, our SimLady is projected on one side, while some psychedelic imagery is projected on the other (basically). Below, I've included a condensed step by step instruction set for those of you who want to create your own, double projection, multi-screen installation.

1. Find a space suitable for such an installation. We ended up using the Chelsea Art Museum.
2. Measure the space and decide where your screens are going to end up. Make sure you have enough room on either side of the screens (front and back) for the projector to fill the surface area with an image.
3. Order, make, or acquire four semi-transparent screens made of fabric or plastic.
4. Buy, borrow, or steal the following-->two lcd or dlp projectors, 8 turnbuckles (with appropriate accessories (eyelet screws, s hooks, etc.), one spool of thin, coated steel wire, two mechanisms for displaying your imagery (computers, dvd players, etc), drill, drill bits, anchors (if needed), system for hanging/holding projectors (poles, shelves, the ground, etc.), power source with cabling of appropriate length and number.
5. Drill eight holes between two columns/walls/trees equal distance from each other, front to back, four on each column/wall/tree, at the height you want the top of the screens to be (repeat for the bottom set). Make sure that the distance between to top set of holes and the bottom corresponds to the height of your fabric/plastic panels.
6. Screw in eyelet screws in all drilled holes.
7. Cut eight lengths of cable so that they will reach from one screw on one side of the column/wall/tree to the other and give enough slack so that they can be secured to each screw.
8. Secure one end of the cables to one set of screws.
9. Thread each of the top cables through the top of one of the four panels (one panel per cable).
10. Secure the other side of the cables to the other set of eyelet screws using the turnbuckles.
11. Do the same for the bottom set of cables and screws.
12. Tighten your panels to the desired tautness using the turnbuckles.
13. Set up the projectors several feet from the panels (depending on the size of the panels, the projectors will need to be closer or farther away).
14. Adjust the distance and height of the projectors to fill the entire surface area of the panels.
15. Hook-up the dvd players/computers to the projectors and display images to help with previous step.
16. Turn off the lights or wait until the sun goes down and enjoy the awesomeness.

The $14 Tripod

The original instruction set from Johnny Chung Leeis from this site.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/steadycam/


What you will need...
Drill

1/4" in. drill bit for galvanized steel caps*

Dremel tool with grinding bit*

Pipes--> 3 1/2" galvanized steel or black iron pipes 10-12" in length (I used black
iron 2 12" and 1 10")

End caps--> 1/2" diameter steel or iron just as with the pipes

Basic T-joint--> 1/2" diameter steel or iron as with the pipes and caps

Weight--> 2 1/2 lb. weight with ~1 inch hole (I got mine at the Sports Authority)

Other small parts
A - two 1-1/2" 1/4" machine bolts
B - one 1/4" wing nut
C - three 1-1/2" diameter flange washers for 1/4" bolts
D - three lock washers for 1/4" bolts.
E - two 1/4" machine nuts.


Instructions:

The first thing you will want to do is get some holes drilled through the middle of two of the end caps. *This may call for a dremel tool to get you started because of the hardness and thickness of the caps. I used a grinding bit to thin out the center of the top of the caps and then used my drill bit to finish the job. A vise would sure come in handy at this point, but if you need to, putting it on the floor and holding it with your feet is an option (note: I don't take responsibility for any misuse of power tools).

Once the holes are drilled, the rest is pretty easy to put together. First you'll want to take a bolt, two regular washers, one locking washer, a nut, the weight, and an end cap and put all that together. Lay out the pieces on a table and from left to right they should line up like this: bolt, regular washer, 2.5lb weight, washer, end cap, lock washer, nut. The bolt should thread through all of those items in that order, with the end cap opening facing away from the weight.

















Now lay out the other parts as such: bolt, lock washer, end cap, lock washer, nut, washer, butterfly nut. The bolt will thread through in that order with the end cap opening facing away from the butterfly nut and covering up the slotted end of the bolt. Then thread this contraption onto the end of one of the pipes.
It should look like this...
















Now make your pipes look like this...















Screw together your parts add a camera and you have a bad-ass, cheap steadicam-ish camera holder!




Here is a detail view of how the camera mechanism works.