2/365 Days: A Match

May 02, 2009

Following the theme of dreams, I drew a scene from one I had this morning...

I was in a large hall with a sparring ring. A multitude of scissors were suspended from the ceiling at different heights; they were very sharp to the touch and I already cut myself several times on them before the match had even started. My friends and I were evenly matched, but I was chosen to go represent us against our mysterious rivals.

It was customary to eat a bowl of rice with tea before starting. As I gulped down my rice, I saw my opponent watching me avidly. That was when I sensed something was wrong. There was poison in my food...but that wouldn't affect me. I communicated with my eyes to let my opponent know that I knew about his tricks, and that he was still going down. I ended up winning, but the thugs weren't satisfied. As they pressed in on our small group, we dashed out of the hall and and drove off into the horizon in a stolen car...

Part 2 of this post:
I spent my whole day in R'dam today biking around with Inga searching for a new house. Afterwards we had tea with Tessa (where I bumped into Gas and told him about the 360day project), checked out the state of our garden (we saw bunnies!) and went to a dinner with MoMo guides. The dinner was delicious and in the studio of 2012Architecten. We then biked back through the fog to Delft in time to see Alex play at Ciccionina. When I got home just now, I found this in my mailbox...Gaspard submitted a drawing for this project!

1/365 Days: On the Run

May 01, 2009
Inspired by a chat with Loucas over coffee, and by an old photo taken by Marcos I stumbled across from way back when, I decided that I want to draw and post a picture everyday (no matter how crappy) for a year. It has been a long time since I sketched or drew for fun, especially now that I have no more lectures to sit through. This will be an extreme exercise in self discipline for me...and I'm starting now!

Yesterday I continued my marathon of barbeques with one on Hoi-kee and Loucas's roof. Drawing the awesome scene there was way too complicated (I have some wads of paper to show for that), so I ended up drawing something I dreamed about the night before. I was driving a bus or truck of some sort, on the run from some unknown danger with a bus full of people I didn't know.

Funny that I dreamed a variation of that same dream this last night as well, but this time it involved orcas, karate, poisoned rice and scissors...

Smart Surroundings

A few days ago, I attended the final event for the EU project, Smart Surroundings. Some people from Studiolab were also there with their prototypes. The event was in this typical ministerial building that one finds in the Hague (glass and triple story indoor atrium), there was a jazz band, free food and drinks. I am not sure what I expected, but I did see some nice and interesting projects. I was really interested in one in particular which was this flexible interface developed by engineering students from Lancaster University. The prototype consisted of elements (buttons, sliders, etc) that could be inserted into this foam board material that was overlaid with a sheet of graph-like paper. You could insert these elements anywhere and name them with a felt pen on the graph-paper. The pen was special because it had a camera that could read the written text and interpret it for use in, i.e. Photoshop. Instead of using these physical elements, you could also draw a slider on the paper and use the pen drawing movements as changing the state of the slider. It was really cool, but it looked like it still had a long way to go as a technology.

Work Blog

For my work, I just started a blog to organize my research. If anyone is interested in reading about what I am working on (sustainability in interaction design), or about the topic itself, check it out!

I am organizing a symposium about sustainable interaction design in the living and work contexts. This involves writing a benchmark analysis report (sort of literature study) on the current field. Additionally, it could include some side projects on wirelessly networking energy monitoring devices. We'll see how far I get. For that I am learning Max/Msp although that is going pretty slowly :/.

Wintersport

image: view of Morgins from the lift

Two weeks ago I went to Morgins, Switzerland to go snowboarding with my house mates. I had never snowboarded before, but now I'm hooked. I took morning classes while the boys boarded to France and met up with me for lunch afterwards. It snowed almost constantly and I only saw sun on the last day; on Wednesday it snowed so much that the lifts in Morgins were closed and I spent a day at home reading and drinking tea. We had an idyllic cabin to stay in, thanks to Tim's parents, equipped with an open fireplace, radiator for drying damp things and of course fondue and raclette sets (yum).Thankfully all the powder meant that I didn't fall very hard or get bruised (except when Andre mowed me over by stopping in my back :). By the third day I could go down the mountain by myself, and by the end of the week, I could do most things adequately. Mostly now I have to work on not being scared of going fast on straightaways...can't wait for next year!

Pictures here and here.

Books:
I am reading about a million books simultaneously, which isn't getting me anywhere fast. But, I did just finish reading Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase. A Wild Sheep Chase was very entertaining, and I especially liked his description of ears and the part of the book where the main character is sitting in a desolate mountaintop cabin. It reminded me of wintersport of course. I am now reading In the Bubble, a book I would recommend to anyone, but especially designers.

Videos:
1. Twin Peaks - I want to watch all episodes of Twin Peaks with Alexander before he leaves for Vietnam. Love it so far, especially the subtle yet creepy, pervasive music + imagery.
2. Classic Albums - Nirvana, Nevermind

Lists

Even though the New Year (both Western and Chinese) have both just come and gone, I have already been breaking all sorts of resolutions. One of the broken ones is to blog more consistently, which I haven't been doing (Ellen you too!). Today I try to catch up a bit before I leave for snowboarding tomorrow in Morgins, Switzerland. Maybe I will elaborate on these later, but for now they will remain lists.

Recent projects:
1. Symposium on Controls and Modelling
Logo, splash and bag design
2. Krashna, Next Generation Project
Poster and flyer design
3. Editing for the university's new research portfolio brochure
The perk is that they picked my photo as the cover image :]



Sanne, Jorn's niece..

Recent events (reverse chronological order):
- Joined KTK in playing Makeup in the volunteer's party of the IFFR in the Schouwburg, kleinzaal. Awesome party.
- Chinese New Year's celebration in den Haag complete with dragon dances, fireworks, dimsum, and mahjong.
- IFFR Filmfestival
- Live in your Livingroom, very cool concept of having bands play in random people's livingrooms
- Skating in Nieuwkoop and at the Delftsehout.

Films:
- 199 Ways to be Happy (2.5/5)
- Achilles and the Tortise (4/5) This one was too long for my frame of mind. Was pretty funny though in both understated and ridiculous ways.
- Still Walking (?/5) I fell asleep during this one. Very intense family drama in Japanese and subtitled in Dutch. I think I might have really liked it if I stayed awake...
- Art of the Devil III (2/5) Fun to watch but really convoluted plot. I loved the gore, but everything happened too fast, the dying that is.
- The Pot (4/5) Made me feel sick while watching it, nice psychological thriller.
- Grand Turino (3.5/5) I didn't end up seeing this at the film festival, since I had watched it a week earlier. It turned out to be the surprise film that I had left all you can eat sushi for.

Arts and Crafts Followup

After visiting Jamaica, I headed home for Christmas. This season I was especially strapped for cash, so I decided to make all DIY Christmas gifts. Additionally, I planned to make myself a camera case, since I got one as a graduation present from all my friends.

Right before I left for vacation, one of my friends, Maaiky, and her sister were hosting a sewing cafe in Ciccionina in Delft. So for 10E, all fabrics included, I took the class and made a kickass but rough reversible apron for Lanna (who loves making baked goods). I was also inspired by Naomi who is famous for making awesome aprons as gifts. For myself, I made a hood/scarf with pockets which is still sitting in Delft waiting to be finished. More on that project in the next installment.

Naaicafe


Lanna's apron


Originally, I intended to make something else for Athena, but of course after seeing Lanna's present she wanted the same thing too. So, I ended up making her an apron as well.

The next thing I made was a grocery bag for Jorn's mom. I borrowed the pattern from Burdastyle.com.

With all these projects beneath my belt, my enthusiasm was at a peak. But alas, I had to leave for New Jersey and New York to celebrate Christmas and New Years. The whole time, I kept my new camera in a orange hat. Finally when I got home, I dug into my closet and found this XXS wetsuit I had scrounged and saved (over 3 years ago) from the Senior Haus basement clothing swap pile. I knew one day I would have use for the neoprene (and I was right..woohoo!). Here is the result. I will post pictures later of the camera in the case because it looks better. It is probably lack of skills on my part, that the camera case has a hard time keeping a recognizable form when off the camera. What is nice is that I can keep the case on while shooting, because the sleeve rests snugly on the lens. It is a little annoying to zoom in/out, but it works. The flash also functions with the top flap out of the way. I kind of think of it as a turqoise banana. All parts of the camera are accessible if key parts are peeled open.

Neoprene camera case


I'm not yet totally satisfied with the result (especially in terms of craftsmanship), but tomorrow I am leaving for Delft and I will have to say good bye to my mom's sewing machine and supplies. I guess I can always make changes later...