E-origami: The Intersection of Craft and Technology
A workshop with SparkFun’s Jeff Branson
Miller Center Champlain College
175 Lakeside Avenue, Burlington, VT
Monday, January 21, 2013
4pm – 6pm
Fee: $35 This workshop is full! Today Jan 21: If you have already signed up for this workshop and have a question you must ask before the workshop begins, please text your question to 802-238-7768. This workshop if full. Thanks!
By combining the ancient art of origami with emerging technology we can explore a whole new set of tools for both learning and teaching concepts in electronics. In this workshop we’ll explore embedding controllers, building switches, conductive thread, and conductive ink as materials. We’ll also look at the more traditional paper techniques as applied to the creation of more interactive crafts.
In December Vermont Makers’ own IBM Chief Scientist of Design John Cohn and artist/designer Jenn Karson participated remotely in Connectivity Lab Live at Malmö University in Sweden. It was a great opportunity to introduce Vermont Makers, swap stories about the maker movement and share our explorations arts, science and technology. To learn more see the links and video documentation below.
In 2012 the Vermont Makers Book Club pilot project was a success and we’ve decided to continue the program into 2013. We plan on choosing eight books for the year.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Frankenstein is a novel written by Mary Shelley about a creature produced by an unorthodox scientific experiment.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine
Synthetics by Stephen Jones
New technologies continually arise, offering repeated opportunities to artists in search of the technologically novel. Stephen Jones calls this phenomenon the “rolling new,” and in Synthetics he describes how artists in Australia used new technologies in their art, from the early days of digital computing in the 1950s to a landmark exhibition in 1975.
Enfoldment and Infinity: An Islamic Genealogy of New Media Art
by Laura U. Marks
In both classical Islamic art and contemporary new media art, one point can unfold to reveal an entire universe. In Enfoldment and Infinity, Laura Marks traces the strong similarities, visual and philosophical, between these two kinds of art.
Rethinking Curating: Art After New Media by Sarah Cook and Beryl Graham
As curator Steve Dietz has observed, new media art is like contemporary art—but different. New media art involves interactivity, networks, and computation and is often about process rather than objects.
MediaArtHistories edited by Oliver Grau
Digital art has become a major contemporary art form, but it has yet to achieve acceptance from mainstream cultural institutions; it is rarely collected, and seldom included in the study of art history or other academic disciplines. In MediaArtHistories, leading scholars seek to change this. They take a wider view of media art, placing it against the backdrop of art history.
Art and Innovation The Xerox PARC Artist-in-Residence Program
Edited by Craig Harris
The idea behind Xerox’s interdisciplinary Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) is simple: if you put creative people in a hothouse setting, innovation will naturally emerge. PARC’s Artist-in-Residence Program (PAIR) brings artists who use new media to PARC and pairs them with researchers who often use the same media, though in different contexts. This is radically different from most corporate support of the arts, where there is little intersection between the disciplines. The result is both interesting and new scientific innovations.More information about the book club pilot project in 2012
Our friends at SparkFun are raising money state-by-state to donate training and Inventors Kits to students. For every $3,000 raised by Vermont for Vermont, a team of highly trained instructors will travel to Vermont (possibly your town) and donate a SparkFun Inventor’s Kit Lab Pack – $1,250 worth of tools and equipment. Here are the details straight from them and a link to the initiative. Funding ends on December 19, 2012. It would be great if we could at least raise $3,000 from Vermont.
“In today’s global climate, education in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) initiatives is more important than ever. The goal of the SparkFun National Tour is to promote electronics education across the US – helping our teachers and educators make electronics part of their everyday curriculum. If we reach our $150,000 goal, SparkFun will complete a nationwide tour stopping in all 50 states to teach electronics in a fun, approachable and relevant way.
We met Peter and Amy at this year’s Tech Jam. This job posting comes directly from them and if you are interested please use their contact information below to get in touch with them.
Summary: Jesse is 19 years old with high functioning autism and multiple learning challenges. He is also very mechanically skilled and knowledgeable about manual machines like gears, pulleys, hydraulics and such. He has been working with a mentor at Bike Recycle Vermont for 2 years and is a decent bike mechanic. He really “gets” how moving parts go together and he is a HIGHLY visual person. Show him something once and he will remember. Tell him something, and forget about it. He has an electric bicycle which he is interested in converting to solar power.
What we are looking for in an employee:
You must be a good communicator. This is key. Must be able to keep Jesse on task because he gets easily sidetracked by his ideas for “improvement”. His ideas are sometimes possible but not often realistic. We need someone with very good mechanical skills who can work hands-on. We see this as “project time”…building and working together.
We pay $20/hour and if interested people contact us we can give them more information on Jesse and what we’re hoping they can do for/with him.
If you have any questions or if you know of people who might be interested, please don’t hesitate to pass our info on to them. We would be absolutely thrilled to connect with someone who could work with Jesse.
The Burlington City Arts (BCA) Center in Burlington, VT has put out a Request for Proposals for installations, maker projects and art that celebrate sound and light. Inviting all artists, scientists, technologists and architects – we encourage you to apply! Proposals due December 3 Here’s the RFP.
Coming right up! Join us to discuss “You are Not a Gadget”
You are Not a Gadget, Jaron Lanier Thursday December 6, 6pm Miller Center, Champlain College 175 Lakeside Avenue, Burlington, VT 05401 More info about Book Club Meetings
As our calendar of events begins to take shape, we imagine that these readings will give those who participate a common point of reference and spark lively conversation and debate.
In December we will read the thought-provoking “You Are Not a Gadget. A Manifesto” By Jaron Lanier.
The book is out in paperback. If your local library doesn’t carry it, remember that they can get it for you through interlibrary laon.
Here’s what some are saying about “You Are Not a Gadget”
“Sparky, thought-provoking…Lanier clearly enjoys rethinking received tech wisdom: his book is a refreshing change from Silicon Valley’s usual hype.”
-New Scientist
“A call for a more humanistic – to say nothing of human – alternative future in which the individual is celebrated more than the crowd and the unique more than the homogenized…You Are Not a Gadget maybe its own best argument for exalting the creativity of the individual over the collective efforts of the ‘hive mind.’ It’s the work of a singular visionary.”
-Bloomberg News
It’s Stick Season in Vermont and we are looking back on a great year and forward to 2013!
Tech Jam on October 26 & 27 was a great event – it was a real treat to meet so many great people in the community. Find photos of us at Tech Jam here and here.
Earlier this month we had our first Vermont Makers Book Club gathering – a small and informal group, we had a stimulating conversation about the book “Program or Be Programmed” and look forward to the next meeting on December to discuss “You Are Not a Gadget.”
Also this month we begin planning new programming for 2013 and we have a special meeting planned with Vermont librarians to discuss potential partnerships. In early December some of us will participate remotely in Connectivity Lab at Malmö University in Sweden.
Have a happy and safe holiday season. We’ll be in touch! Let us know about the projects you are working on at our facebook page.
