AMY E MARTIN // Blog

So I've seen a few blogs that post a weekly update of sorts. I think I'll join in for a while just because I have tiny things on my mind that I'd like to share but have no particular reason to share them and 140 characters just isn't enough.

Idea: In the future water is so scarce that we have bio-engineered our sweat to act as a kind of soap. To get clean we have to partake in serious, strenuous physical exercise. I heard a few weeks ago that humans evolved for endurance running (barefoot, of course) and that we'd actually just chase our prey for hours until they got tired. I don't know where I heard this and it's possible that I completely made it up, but for whatever reason, the sweat as soap idea made me think of our alleged past and a funny circle that is probably completed in a sci-fi short story somewhere.

Thought: Is it an American thing to see an idea whose fame is based on its novelty, and get completely pissed off because you've seen that idea before and the anger-inducing instance of that idea does not credit the people who executed it first? Nevermind that I have no idea if the second idea executioners had any knowledge of the first idea executioners. I still get miffed. It's an emotional reaction that I find kind of baffling because I can't think of any ideas I've had that are unique. I should not be surprised that people have the same ideas... even the incredibly creative ones. And yet, I still groan when I see a clever idea twice. Makes me wonder if the groaning is somehow tied to a socially-taught, underlying morality-based concept of intellectual property. I'm sure there's a phD candidate I could talk to about this.

Other than those two stray thoughts and, say, really wanting to visit this dream come true trampoline gym, I've been working fairly constantly on my thesis work. I feel I've only recently gotten to a place I am really enjoying and I hope I can finish up the last few ideas I'm having before I have to stop and document the whole thing.

I posted the video below to my thesis website. There's more description of it there and if you click to Vimeo. I like it but I really need to add a time slider and animate the code such that we can see the city building itself up over the course of the week. Unfortunately, I've spent the last two days hacking through someone else's code to extract data from it for my last piece (or second-to-last if I can finish it fast enough). If only I had more time.

Monday, March 29, 2010 // 0 Comments

So I'm working on a website for my thesis project: Re: Fwd: Email. Most thesis-related posts will happen there from now on. Hooray!

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 // 0 Comments

As I am approaching the end of my MFA odyssey my schedule is something like: roll out of bed. work. work. work. work. maybe eat, most likely not. work. work. work. stress out. cry. work. question belief system. work. work. work. collapse. So when Processing creates something quite lovely out of a misplaced for loop, I can't help but go "awww, math is beautiful."