On March 24 , blog or twitter or facebook, or whatever, about a woman you admire in science or technology . Bonus Axon points awarded if she’s an artist working with science or technology, of course!

Stefan Powell made this circuit-bent Rudolph, and now people are scared to go into the studio.

I just finished a bodum full of coffee and a toasted bagel. I’m munching on an apple and I just finished washing dishes.  I’m kind of at this point in my packing where I’m SICK of seeing cardboard and can hardly see my floor to clean it. My new roommate did an awesome job helping me clean and unpack. I didn’t see him until Saturday night and when I tried to help he assured me, “no Laura, none of this mess is your fault….”

So yah, I missed everything on Friday. YYZ’s having a thirtenth party, MOCCA has Contact’s opening (man when did MOCCA change there website? Well about flippin’ time anyway), and come to think of it 401 had lots of openings that day. Plus the odd housewarming I said I would attend, rsvped via facebook. So I feel bad for not doing that. I was asleep by 10:30pm on May 1st. Right now my apt right now looks like a bad James Carl installation, I’m trying to not be grumpy and believe in art right now.

The best art experience I had in the last two weeks was treating my younger brother and his friend John Naro to a FADO performance called Not Waterproof by Julie Andree T. I admit I had never seen her work before that night, and the description sounded pretty straight forward, installation based set design, perhaps theatrical, etc, so I thought it would be pedestrian. Man, did I call THAT one wrong, and am I ever glad I did.

The performance started with the artist talking conversationally to the audience, and had to start the performance having a cigarette. She grabbed it  from the audience, took a drag or two and then taped it to a table, all while casually dropping anecdotes describing her practice. She made reference to previous performances where she urinates on the floor, at which some laughed nervously, and then drank a large glass of wine in one gulp. She then asks for another cigarette, does the same gesture, and swallows another full glass of wine, and I can hear my 18 year old brother muttering “Chug, chug, chug, chug!” After the fourth taped cigarette and before she sits by a stringed instrument, Julie runs to the nearby vase of water and vomits into it silently while the water inside turns a plum red. The tone changes quickly and my brother realizes this isn’t Janeane Garofalo.

another iteration of Not Waterproof performed at the Cardiff Art and Time (CAT) festival

I just got this from LaughingSquid via a Twitter update. It’s pretty spectacular, even just to listen to; it kind of sounds like someone should put this soundtrack to the original super mario bros…..

This video was taken at id Software just prior to the release of DOOM in 1993. It shows candid remarks from the developers during production, testing, and midi music production.

(more…)

An episode of “Computer Chronicles” featuring the latest in portable computing technology from 1985. Look at those batteries! Here is an interesting article on the History of Laptop Batteries.

(more…)