Nape Nape

Some work I finally got around to putting up. Inspired by a particularly enlightening experience a couple of years ago on a New Zealand beach watching the sun rise over the Pacific.

Aphex Twin – 4

Just found out Aphex Twin is playing Dublin this weekend. Woot! In celebration, here are some visuals I made in processing for the track “4″.

Aphex Twin – 4 from Mackers McMackers on Vimeo.

Playing with Processing – Eyeball Funnel

I have recently been playing again with Processing trying to crank out some interactive visuals.

Below is something I knocked up in a couple of hours: A trippy eyeball funnel that (sort of) follows the mouse pointer.

Apologies for the Java applet, I couldn’t get this example working with Processing.js.

The SmileBunny Project

In which Mackers presents more of his arty bullshit… This is the same work that was exhibited a few months ago in Valencia. If you missed that, here is a short video I put together of the evening.

Enter the world of SmileBunny, a realm created from human emotion. This piece is an exploration of how technology’s indifferent understanding of facial expressions can be adapted to create a sort of virtual dimension; a place reflecting that most pure of human emotions, joy.

This is an interactive installation. Digital tools such as projectors and webcams might facilitate the opening of this gleeful gateway, yet it is you the participant who must guide the journey.

Paranoid Tees

Paranoid Tees have opened their doors in Plaza Cedro, Valencia! From the website:

If you are a designer or illustrator, you love t-shirts or you know that you have something distinct to offer, and you would like to be a part of our team.

If you are a music group and you want to promote and generate cash with your t-shirts without investing anything, we’ll make it easy. We’ll produce and sell your t-shirts and then pay you. Everything is of the same quality as your posters and CD covers.

If you’re a t-shirt fan, then you’ve arrived at the right place. If not, then you’ll soon see. The countdown has begun…

Here are the two t-shirts I designed for them.

The t-shirt on top shows the molecular structure of everyone’s favourite analgesic. The formula appears to be projected onto a conical surface. The material is 100% bio-cotton, and hopefully they’ll soon be able to offer it on organic hemp.

The bottom t-shirt is, of course, a homage to Carl Sagan – ‘A Glorious Dawn’ ft Stephen Hawking (Symphony of Science). It turned out quite well. On the back will be a unique bit.ly link (redirecting to the youtube video) so I can track who actually bothers typing it in.

jQuery.webcam

I have created my first jQuery plugin. Called jQuery.webcam, it is a plugin which allows jQuery to read data from a user’s webcam or other video capture device.

Features:

• Until browsers support native webcam capture, an (open source) flash blob is used for the actual capture.
• The plugin can optionally prompt the user to allow flash access the webcam.
• The plugin writes the video to a canvas element.
• Support for adding callbacks and filters.

There is a demonstration available (testing on Firefox 3.6). The performance is terrible at the moment, but I will be working to fix that.

I’m planning to use this plugin for my next interactive art installation, which will allow the participant to interact with a virtual environment using facial emotions. Stay tuned!

Update: I’ve put the source on github.

Update 2: Check out WebRTC for a future native browser implementation.

Bug in a Rug

There exists an old Persian legend about a bug who spent his entire life in the world’s most beautifully designed rug:

All the bug ever saw in his lifetime was his problems. They stood up all around him, he couldn’t see over the top of them, and he had to fight his way through these tufts of wool, in the rug, to find some crumbs someone had spilled in the rug. And the tragedy of the story of the bug in the rug was this; that he lived and he died in the world’s most beautifully designed rug, but he never once knew that he spent his life in something which had a pattern.

o2sms

o2sms is a useful program to send SMS messages using the websites of Irish mobile operators. Despite its name, it supports all four major Irish operators – o₂ Ireland, Vodafone Ireland, Meteor Ireland and Three Ireland.

I created this program and maintained it for several years, but I have since left Ireland and so have little interest in continuing to maintain it.

So… I have moved the project to SourceForge. Hopefully this will diversify maintainence and ensure continued development should I drop off the planet :) If you want developer-level access, please contact me.

Xbox 360 Drive Fix

A couple of months ago I was generously gifted an Xbox 360 – purely in order to play Guitar Hero (although later I branched out to GTA4).

As seems to be the norm, it broke down last week, complete with various flashing lights. It being an out-of-warranty flashed Mexican NTSC Xbox, I decided taking it for repair might raise some eyebrows. So, not being willing to splash out for a new one, I gave a go at a home-made fix.

Torx screwdriver set in hand, I cracked her open to discover that the disc loading mechanism was fubared. No bother, I sat a disc in the drive tray and manually pushed together the mechanism holding the spinning motor and lens and popped the drive cover back on. The end result: Success! The drive now spins and reads the disc sin problemas. The only catch being that you have to disassemble the drive every time you want to play something else…

If Yer gettin’ Cows

To promote their upcoming “Boobies” record, Karl’s Shyhhy Records have released a ‘net only vidyo of “If Yer gettin’ Cows”. You heard it here first, folks.

Irish? Global? Mackistani? Mackers is an open-source hacker, mackatronic artist and digital drifter.

Using the Internet to facilitate a non-traditional lifestyle rejecting nationality, possessions and seeking adventure with like-minded, creative people, this is BoHo 2.0.

And then I’m going to Japan and walk all over that hilly country finding ancient little temples hidden and forgotten in the mountains and old sages a hundred and nine years old praying to Kwannon in huts and meditating so much that when they come out of meditation they laugh at everything that moves.

Email: me@ this domain.

My professional work is on 33eels.com.