Absences electronic interventions in nature

Time to sleep. Finally. After a week of abusing my poor little body by keeping it artificially awake with a combination of coffee and energy drinks, the departure of Ong to Japan marks the beginning of a new era of leisure.

Ong m'a donné une idée l'autre jour. Le groupe Sumo Studio qui est passé par ComPeung en 2007, a développé une installation sonore aquatique sur l'un des lacs avoisinant le centre d'artiste.

Les vibrations induites par l'objet ont eu un effet secondaire insoupçonné: elles attiraient les poissons! Mignon, non? Je garde ça en référence, pour un futur projet. Voici le lien vers le projet:
http://www.phototeveli.net/ONGOBONGO/ARTISTS/SUMO.htm

I'm back from the holidays, back to work. Everything went really fast at the end of December, as I struggled to get the first Absence project done and document it. I did, so I had to work extra hours, and then came the holidays.

We did the filming around Christmas, I know because I sent a DVD to the Canada Council for the Arts on December 26th. But I soon realized that the installation was not, actually, really working. There was still a few adjustements to be done in the sunset computation.

Trente-et-un moins six jours avant la fin de ma résidence. À mon retour des montagnes, en visite chez les Lahu pour les fêtes du Nouvel An, j'ai fait un grand ménage de la maison. Je retardais ce moment, je voulais que le projet Première Absence (les "fruits" gonflables) soit complètement terminé. Ce n'était pas encore le cas, enfin, plus ou moins, je croyais que ça marchait mais il reste encore queqlques trucs à régler. Mais la maison était insalubre et puis, voilà, j'ai décidé de laisser aller... il fallait que je reprenne mon élan.

Last week pasted so quickly... Friday, I thought we were still on Wednesday. I don't even know when it started. What day exactly did I move to the land, connecting several electrical extensions to get to that lonely little tree in the backyard.

I installed everything. The blowers, the condoms, the wires, the sensors, everything. I even dug the hole to put the electric box containing the precious circuit.

No comments...

I tried different ways of installing the condom on the blowers. I don't really want the whole thing to look like a joke, nor like some kind of political sexual statement. I just find the condoms are interesting because of their light material and their shape.

I think the reference to sexuality is interesting as this project has a lot to do with natural cycles, day and night, life and death. But I think the use of condoms can make it a lot obvious, so I'd like to somehow "hijack" the condoms, give them a different look, putting new directions, new impressions in them.

Louise, an australian artist in residency at ComPeung, has invited me to contribute to one of her works, a genuine spirit house (see this post for more details about these).

I had this idea of building a simple circuit that would display some sort of autopoiesis, a looping reference to itself. I thus built a simple circuit consisting of an LED and a photoresistor. The circuit follows the following simple, autorefering algorithm:

loop:
  x = lightValue()   (1)
  setLedValue(1 - x) (2)
  delay()            (3)

Worked a lot over the past week. Did not have the time to update that journal. I was waiting for the sunset to come.

I need to wait for it everyday. First thing in the morning, I put the circuit out under the sun, letting it wake up, giving the batteries a chance to recharge. The days have a strange shape. I seem to be waiting for the sunset to come for the whole day, measuring the voltage increase as the day goes, doing some internet, writing some code, running simulations.

I've worked much on the circuit for the "inflatable condoms" project. I've ran in so many problems. The biggest one is the electrical management. I had to fine tune the length and dynamics of the "heat release" process, that is, the part of the program where, when the sun sets, the blowers start to be activated.