The XXX "ARTLAB" work in progress show is now scheduled to run from Tuesday, September 30, to Tuesday, October 14th. This will coincide with ArtsWeek, and bring some extra publicity. I will bring posters for people to distribute this week. InterAccess hours are noon-5pm, closed Mondays, and open noon-8pm on Wednesdays. We will need some volunteers to person the gallery on weekends noon-5pm, October 4/5th, and 11/12th, since InterAccess is normally closed on weekends. Please let me know if you are able to do this (even a couple of hours). We will probably need people there at other times too, since the staff can't be expected to babysit robots all day...

I will be at InterAccess on Sunday the 28th, noon-5pm, and people can start doing setup at that time.

The opening will be on Tuesday the 30th at 7:30pm, replacing the usual Tuesday meeting. The next week, there will be an evening of artists' talks, where the public is invited to hear the artists speak about their work and their experiences. I've just found out that I must leave town on Tuesday the 7th, and I *really* want to attend these talks, so I have taken the liberty of scheduling this night for Monday, October the 6th. I hope everyone can make it, and I apologize if this causes any inconvenience. Unfortunately, I will still be away for the closing party, Tuesday October 14th. Have fun!

If you're having a hard time getting your work together, now is the time to ask for help! Even - especially - if you have done *nothing whatsoever* on your project so far. You're not the only one. No-one will think the worse; in fact, people generally seem to be impressed and very eager when someone is willing to talk about what they are encountering in their creative process... Please, speak up at the next meeting, or use the discussion forum. This is what A.R.G. is all about!

If you hadn't heard yet, we received the Canada Council grant we had applied for, for the SpaceProbe project (see http://www.interaccess.org/arg/spaceprobe/ ). This means there is money to pay for advanced/intensive workshop instruction, resource material and web site development, visiting artists, a substantial amount for materials and tools, etc. We decided that the best way to deal with this would be to invite proposals from group members to run workshops, bring in artists, and do research, as well as requests for materials support for their artworks. We have also started working on a "shopping list", which I will post separately for discussion. This is probably also an appropriate place to remind people that InterAccess membership costs only $25 per year, and shows your support for projects like SpaceProbe.

I must say that I've been hoping for a bit more input from the group in terms of giving presentations, art or technology demonstrations, leading theoretical discussions, arranging visiting artists, etc., or even just suggestions for them. A few of the meetings lately have been a bit - well, less eventful than I would have liked. I suppose I will just go ahead and start arranging more things by myself if we don't get more proposals, but given the nature of this group, it would be really great if it was more of a community effort. Is there anything I can do to facilitate this happening? I would especially like to see more hands-on creative demonstrations, and more discussion of theoretical and aesthetic ideas.

There was a brief bit of brainstorming at a recent meeting, and the suggestions were for a workshop on "dangerous stuff", i.e. precautions to take with high voltage, etc., and "santa's elves" - how toy-makers and designers go about their craft. It became evident that there is a great need for "survey" work to be done, as we were hard pressed to list more than a couple of artists we would like to have visit, either in person or by teleconference.

We recently formed several smaller focus groups on various topics (see SpaceProbe update 97-08-17), and these may help generate some of the above. They aren't exactly off to a roaring start though. Any suggestions? Perhaps we should try breaking up into groups during one of the upcoming meetings.

At the last meeting, there was discussion about the upcoming show. Several people described what they were working on. Please excuse me for the horrible descriptions that follow; each of these works as described by the artists sounded very interesting and promising:
Mike - light seeking robot, also with magnetic recording tape fastened to the floor which his robot would record and play back sounds with.
Victoria - sketches of a piece in development
Norm - would bring his submersible robot "monster", or videos thereof.
Bob - a system to control lighting with X-10 units, based on crowd movement
Robert - three roaming autonomous robots
Paul - floor mat and flip-sign panel, a study for a work he described previously to the group where people are reduced to single bits of information.
Kim - something that one could telephone into and control, or a boot, or...
Yod - helium balloon with motors - autonomous dirigible.
Jean - refused to say.
Rob - moving lights, lasers, and time-exposure photographs of them.
Jodi - drawings of a piece that would harvest sound electronically
Jeff - a sculpture that moves when you touch it, or a bird-like thing with fans

In discussing equipment purchases, people seemed to feel that buying tools and larger items would be more useful than buying expendable parts and materials that people could probably afford to buy themselves. However, we also decided to purchase ten BASIC Stamp II microcontroller units at ten dollars off the normal price. However, the supplier has reneged on that offer, and will only give us $4 off each Stamp if we buy ten. I propose that we only buy 5 at this point, unless I hear from ten people that really want one. Furthermore, they don't take MasterCard, and InterAccess can't get a certified cheque before Wednesday or Thursday, so unless someone can put it on their VISA (about $500), we won't be able to get them until the end of next week, around the 18th.

David showed us the circuit he built for operating R/C-style servo motors using a 555 timer chip. Jeff (that's me) briefly showed the wire-wrapping system of prototyping.

After freezing on the patio and suffering a major case of food poisoning last Tuesday after Squirrely's, I went with the contingent to the Firkin-something-or-other at John and Queen, where they had no food and wouldn't let us bring any in. Well at least I didn't get sick. Next project: quest for a new beer spot...

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Jeff Mann