Art

Interview on Open Hardware Junkies and Museum Exhibit

4volt — Sat, 07 May 2011 22:35:53 GMT

I was recently interviewed on a new podcast called Open Source Hardware Junkies about the Jansen walker, we talked about the walker, CAD and laser cutters. It was fun and you should check it out.

http://opensourcehardwarejunkies.com/2011/05/jansen-walker/

Also, I’m taking the opportunity to post these photos from the exhibit the my “Jansen Walker” and a Theo Jansen original Strandbeest last fall.

It was Jansen Walker built to my design in the an exhibition at the Verbeke Foundation. (www.verbekefoundation.com)

(It's the version built by hexman, Kurt Van Houtte, Ghent)

The exhibition was about copies VS. original art and the attitude of artists towards reproductions.

JP Image Book 2009

4volt — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:42:56 GMT

Every year I release a small “Image Book” of my favorite pictures, images and art. Some of the images I’ve published here, some are new to you.

To see last years edition see: Image Book 2008

As always I’m releasing the PDF for free, download and enjoy it.

I also have a printed version in limited quantity, and if you like my work and want to support what I do. I’m offering a printed version of this book as a thank-you for US donors, while I still have supplies.

Soon I'll be buying a new camera, my old camera is now about 5 years old, and has served me well over that time, but it is time for a new one. Any money you donate, I'll put right towards that camera.

So donate and and I’ll send you one! Be sure to mention it in your note, and include an address.

Otherwise here’s the files, download and enjoy:

Image Book 2009 (Print Quality, 56MB)

Image Book 2009 (Web Quality, 12MB)

Stel Music Video

4volt — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:13:48 GMT

'Stel' is a song I've been meaning to make a music video for since I released it in 2008, and with a few effects I wanted to experiment with and the short length of Stel made it an ideal test.

I used 2 effects pretty heavily, Adobe Premiere's "Time Warp" effect and PSCombine in video mode.

I used Time Warp to "morph" between stills, and all the video you see here, is actually still images taken with my still camera imported as video. Once the stills are imported as video I used Time Warp to slow them down by 200-500%. The result is an interesting morphing effect with the somewhat disjointed photos, and a buttery smooth motion between photos that are similar enough.

To add some randomness in the titles and some short flashes, I used PSCombine, it works well in short bursts.

For an HD version, go to: http://vimeo.com/9187331

Download the mp3 at: http://4volt.com/music/albums/array/

JP Collected Works 2009

4volt — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 03:52:59 GMT

At the beginning of December each year I start collecting material for an anthology of my work of the year, the last couple years it’s been largely photography, but this last year I’ve taken less photos and produced more “things”, many I’ve posted about here.

You can download the PDF of last-year’s book at: Image Book 2008

So how many files is a year’s worth of work? This year for me it’s 25,470. Now, if I could only post more often.

If you are interested in this years book, please leave a comment, so I can gauge interest.

Plus, if I’m feeling generous at the end of the year, I may send you one on my own dime.

New Generative Art – Missile Cloud

4volt — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 07:06:12 GMT

Lately I’ve been playing around with generative art for framing and hanging, this is a collection from some code I wrote in Context Free. I’ve also recently discovered the function to render at high resolutions and really adds another dimension of detail in this kind of recursive art.

The frames you see here are cropped sections of one of the renders I found interesting.

If you want to explore one of the 5000x3500px high-res frames, it’s here: Missile Cloud 8 – VBX (7mb). I also have a 10k pixel, 22mb version, if anyone is interested I’ll post it here.

The Context Free code is here: Missile Cloud (CFDG).

Abandoned House

4volt — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:19:18 GMT

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to take a bunch of photos in a turn of the century abandoned farm house, and it was very cool. It was out in the middle of nowhere, Minnesota.

The house was in disrepair and was pretty treacherous, but not seriously dangerous. Some walls were smashed, garbage strewn around, and there were trees that had not been trimmed back in years. But no graffiti or fire damage.

Check out the full galley here: Abandoned House

Also, if you’ve been missing the lack of cool new DIY projects and laser related goodness, it’s because of a house remodel that’s been taking up all my extra project time. But, I do have some very cool stuff in the works, so stay tuned.

Father’s Day Gift – Laser Etched Journal

4volt — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 06:28:44 GMT

In the past there’s been a lot of talk about laser etched/cut moleskine blank books, but it’s come to attention that the PVC outer layer is very toxic when vaporized.

On the other hand, real leather bound journals are great for engraving on and make a great Father’s day gift. This isn’t really a new idea, but it’s great in context of Father’s Day.

I chose an image from “Ernst Haeckel: Kunstformen der Natur” It has fantastic and artfully hand drawn illustrations of various plant and sea life, and better yet, is in public domain. If you have not seen these images it is worth your time. I’ve used the illustrations in many things.

Try a google image search, or you can download the full PDF at following site.

http://caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de/~stueber/haeckel/kunstformen/natur.html

http://images.google.com/images?q=Haeckel+Kunstformen&hl=en&hs=YNS&sa=N&um=1&imgsz=xxlarge

John Aho’s 3rd PSCombine Set

4volt — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:15:34 GMT

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything PSCombine related, if you are not familiar here is a short blurb:

PSCombine is a program that will import your collection of images or photos and randomly combine them in Photoshop with a random blending, opacity, and filters. I like to think of it as "Computer Assisted Art".

It’s free to use, all you need is photoshop, go check out the PSCombine project page for more detail. If you have a PSCombine gallery let me know, I would love to see it.

John just posted a new gallery on flickr and I wanted to post my favorites here.

Laser Engraving with Highlight Paint

4volt — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:46:41 GMT

Last week I posted about a coin that I laser engraved and enhanced with some paint, but did not post step by step instructions. With a recent project for Midnight Research Labs, I had a chance to take some more pictures.

I engraved the coin in the regular way and then painted over the whole sheet with a standard acrylic spray-paint.

After the paint dried over night I used a random-orbital sander to sand off the excess paint. I also sanded the back sides of the coin so the back finish matches the front matte.

Here is the coin after cleaning, as you can see the paint stays in the engraved areas very well.

The small square token is a QR-code encoded with a secret message, I included it to use up some of the extra space, as well as test the resolution of the engraving.

Fail Whale Stencil

4volt — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 08:33:30 GMT

For the most of Monday my ISP and connection was having issues and the site was up and down all day (mostly down). In honor of the occasion I decided to make a Fail Whale stencil, something fun for the whole family for when the site goes live again.

Making stencils with a laser is as easy as it sounds, the most time consuming part is making the design. This version is loosely based on the twitter's infamous fail whale.

Download the Fail Whale Stencil DXF file.