Big Day

Well folks, a while back I teased that there would be an announcement today.

So, here we go. The rant begins.Ever since I was an even younger kid, I’ve been haunted by visions of beautiful machines… singing and dancing and mesmerizing. I couldn’t articulate it very well. I still can’t. What I can do is share smaller, more tangible pieces, in hopes that this world I’ve invented during my daydreams will somehow emerge with the help of an audience.

Almost two years ago, I began piecing together a complex strategy of where I wanted to be with my professional life. I knew that technology would factor into my career heavily. I’m a geek at heart.

I am also most happy when I’m creating, innovating, and dreaming. However, the thought of me spending my precious few hours on earth toiling away, working on someone else’s Project, padding their wallets with my sweat, with little room for emotional expression, was disheartening.

I admitted to myself that I wasn’t interested in just the challenge of engineering technology. I am just as fascinated with the math and science behind financing, marketing, and humanizing those inventions.

I also formed a philosophy that convinces me it’s possible for humans to develop emotional relationships with their technology and the process through which it’s created.

Most of us rarely stop to think of all the ART and creativity that goes into the tools we use. If anything, we often talk about the frustration of our technology getting in the way and strive to make them as inconspicuous as possible.

Yet we never feel overwhelming joy about how beautiful all this engineering can be. When was the last time you cried when using your can opener because you wished you had been the one to have innovated its elegant function?

Most people claim they don’t “get” science. Artists, in particular, tend to believe they just don’t understand the techie stuff, yet they use math and science every day in their creations, whether they know it or not. They dismiss engineering because our society hides the emotion underneath a veil of science. It’s stunning to me that we never think of engineers as artists, despite their beautiful creativity, and even go out of our way to segment them as people who think with only one side of their brain… the emotionless side.

Bullshit.

Artists are Engineers are Artists… A painter uses pigments, brushes, and canvas to engineer and construct ideas, using math and science to build experiences through the work. An engineer uses computer code, gears, and electricity to create emotions… usually striving to make her audience experience joy and relief at having an easier life.

The mediums are different, but the creativity is the same.

I belive that every human being is capable of creating both art and technology. I believe every human being has personal tacit knowledge of science and math, learned through life experiences (you just KNOW that gravity works, right? You don’t have to think about it). Every one of us has experienced a very deep and complex tapestry of emotions, ideas, and thoughts in our short time on this planet.

We have the raw ingredients to create.

Why do so many people, then, give up their inherent talents and never strive to invent?

It’s because we’re marketing engineering as too hard and art too soft.

To me, it seems like a matter of self confidence.

I want to spread THE EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE OF ENGINEERING. I want to build an infrastructure which allows the repressed dreams of the technologist to soar into the collective artistic fabric of humanity and allows the artist in all of us to explore creativity through inventing technology.

I’m interested in engineering the entire system that inspires individuals to create and appreciate artistic, emotional technology.

So today I am soft launching Iogeo. Before I go to sleep tonight, I will have, live on iogeo.com, a welcome page, introducing the concept of the project.

Here’s what to expect:

Iogeo.com, as of this morning at my house, wasn’t pointing to the right place on the server. DNS propogation isn’t a science OR an art :). Soon, within 24-72 hours, iogeo.com will take you to a simple page showing off the logo, a taste of the corporate image, some text describing Re-bots and Tessera, and a chance for you to sign up for a newsletter containing art+tech projects you can try for yourself (first issue to be published next week). The newsletter mailing list will also serve as an announcement list for the full site and initial product launch, which I expect to happen the week of October 20.

I will continue writing my stories on davidnunez.com, and now that I’m pulling the veil off of the Project, I expect to write more about my progress.

I’ve recieved so much support from friends. I want to thank you for the email, snail mail, phone calls, advice, and words of encouragement. With your help I’ve finally trudged far enough uphill to this tipping point…. The crest of that hill is still nowhere in sight; your support is very valuable to me and will only grow more precious.

In particular, I need to thank Chris. A couple of months ago, Chris was the straw that broke this camel’s back. He basically told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was wasting time and needed to pull together all the little bits and loose ends and just GO. That encouragement was a catalyst for breaking inertia and just getting it moving.

So to everyone: Thank you for coming along for the ride and pushing me on my way. It should get more interesting from here on out.

With gratitude,
David Nunez
Iogeo