Interface Foundry

Hi it’s been a while

I’m delighted to announce my new startup Interface Foundry!

It’s an collaboration with fellow DT student, JR Baldwin and a natural extension of Vortex. Our mobile app Locket allows you to browse and build data bubbles in specific places and times, and you can switch your identity while entering them i.e. a data bubble for East Coast Mall, you can enter with an “employee” identity, “first time shopper” identity, “repeat visitor identity” etc etc it also has various security levels to ensure that all communication is done in a safe and transparent manner that empowers users and companies.

Thanks, and I hope you’ll check it out 😀

test

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ghost town

So there’s been a good 6 months between the last post and this, so here’s a recap:

1. THESIS IS DONE!
Rejoice – Here is the video documentation:

Website:  http://www.milkred.net/vortex

DT website: http://mfadt.parsons.edu/2013/projects/vortex/

Here’s the panel livestream (‘hacking art & design’ with Cap Watkins from Etsy)
http://new.livestream.com/TheNewSchool/dt2013/videos/19122604

And then here are some pictures:
 

2. Wrote a blogpost for Mathbabe about my thesis!

Guest post, The Vortex: A Cookie Swapping Game for Anti-Surveillance

how cool is that huh??????????

3. So what’s next??
– I’m writing a book with McKenzie Wark called ‘W.A.N.T’ which we are releasing on kickstarter only! Will not be published or sold anywhere else except during that 30-day run

– working on getting a job/spiffing up resume/ applying for grants. It’s harder being an international student you have a whole pile of additional paperwork to clear **sigh** Am also thinking of applying for a PhD…. but maybe in the future

– doing normal stuff: cleaning up the cesspool of apartment (after thesis, it looked like an archeological dig site); learning how to ride a bike, possibly going to get my driving licence, catching up on reading, meeting people etc etc.

…. Mostly though, I’m trying to keep busy. I know I bitched a lot during thesis, the stress was eating me alive and I remember on the day of the opening I panicked because the code will NOT work and it was 4pm and the show opened at 6pm. I remember getting on the M train with my hair still wet and laptop balanced with a hand frantically coding from Brooklyn to Union Sq. and freaking the fuck out. Then after the opening came graduation, then dealing with family and then, nothing.

That’s the thing – you work so hard, so long and then suddenly: NOTHING! You have absolutely nothing to do, and you’re going bonkers because of it. PTSD = Post Thesis Stress Disorder, you wander around listlessly making up stuff to do, going back to the library and lab like a ghost trying to recapture some semblance of normalcy. Summer is hard for me because I depend on routines to keep me grounded, and with no one around + nothing to work for I can’t help but feel a lost and a bit unstable.

Anyway I’m trying — next week I’m going to do what I did in winter: pretend I still had classes, and work on a piece of code everyday. I don’t think I will look at thesis code for a while, but I’ve bought a book on Python and planning to look at Angular.js framework. Slowly start a work cycle again. Having nothing to do really drives me crazy >_>;;;

portfolio website is up!

http://www.milkred.net/vortex

Indiecades East 2013!

Took a break from thesis-ing and went to Indiecades. It was great!! (and most of all, we won against NYU in the Iron Game Challenge xD;;;;;)

game pass!! for being part of the Iron Game team, I got a speaker pass ^o^~

Museum of Moving Image – foyer wall projection (made of thousands of gifs)

Spelltower – It’s an OK game, kinda interesting mechanic but not complusive? I played about 2 rounds but that’s it

Bloop – super simple idea (tapping colours) but OMG SO FUN. ADDICTIVE. Played 8 rounds, twice with random strangers (whom I dragged to play with me)

Child of Eden – very pretty rhythm game; a cross between Everyday Shooter & Lumins(sp?) the PSP game with the blocks and music….

Vintage 3-D game, fucking cool!

Star Wars X-force

GALAXY FORCE!!! omg is amazing

Sifteo

Racing Squrriels – quite fun!!! I liked it a lot, the aesthetics super pretty and kinda reminded me of crash bandicoot

original Galaga!!!!

This one was another super pretty game – the queue was pretty long, so I didn’t get a chance to play but it looked cool :0

voxel.js (webgl + node.js + three.js)

full documentaton here: http://badassjs.com/post/40691367335/voxel-js-a-minecraft-like-block-based-game-engine

trial sample here: http://substack.net/projects/voxel-creature/

wayback api 1.7.0

http://archive-access.sourceforge.net/projects/wayback/apidocs/

😀

look&feel 1

documentation

interview(?) with Ken Wark & Jonathan Baldwin — actually I’m in it too, but only a bit. I think it’s more like a filmed discussion, which is pretty weird. I did it as a joke because I was given an assignment to document an interview and then decided hey! I would document – but I would do it as a time lapse without sound (lol)

but it ended up pretty cool – like without sound, you REALLY have to pay attention to how people’s body language plays as part of the discussion. It’s like vibration frequency or  particles in matter vibrating in response or neurons connecting or something and it’s really rather fascinating since you literally watch the conversation – all the ebbs and flows and pauses and awkwardness then slumps down to a more relaxed posture and the stillness and even the people who are listening aren’t still and it’s like seeing “oh yeah! people are thinking!”

I have other things but I have to finish other work first 😡

ostelgia

So today I went with Ken to meet his toy designer friend and somehow we ended up talking about Berlin and history and memory and maybe it’s just me but this is what I think:
We remember things like photographs, photographs with faces cut out like lost loves and dying flames – all our lives, wondering and wandering in the present city, looking for traces of these torn faces. Not out of love, but curiousity. Some of this is part of me, that’s what I think. So it becomes a kind of nostalgia, to try and live in the place where the photographs were taken, to try and imagine who was in those cut-out faces and it’s all fantasy and imagination and we know that — but by erasing the history and the traces of it, can’t you see, that’s all we can do, to make it up for ourselves and live the past in the present city again?

I think maybe it’s just….. different. Then ironically today, again for presentation this media artist came in and again — no historical context. And I wonder, why are we trying so hard to both destroy and recreate the past? We shop for vintage clothes, but disregard the history of sevage and labour. We talk about polaroids and derive, and forget about the war that created the saint-germaine orphans. It’s almost like we’re just taking the artifacts of history, and rewriting the history of objects altogether. And maybe it’s just me, but it feels a bit…… unethical?

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Documentation notes, check out my crappy handwriting! oh well, at least it’s still legible 😡

More research into python and py.cgi and pexpect and just wading into deep code now. I think maybe I’m just a little tired of people/this semester, or I need some time or I’m just bordering on a burnout right now. Usually by the time finals roll around I’m like okay ready for a last push!!! but instead of feeling the rush of determination, I’m just lethargic and panicky and strangely restless.

As Christmas draws nearer, I seem to miss my mom even more I miss the tree, the red bows and golden balls, the feel of staying up all night, the crazy dinner and mashing potatos, the sparkle lights, sakky hanging out till mornings, the post-xmas with jw & audy and most of all I really really miss my mom. I don’t really talk about my parents very much but my mom = awesome, brought all of us up and everything+++ and right now I wish I had a teleportation machine so I can be on other side of the world for a hug…… idk, feeling unnessescarily mawkish today