Tick, tick, tick, tick....

Is SxSW-i NEXT WEEKEND! WHOA! What happened to February?

Well, I’m spending the weekend shivering in my workshop and putting the finishing touches on Approximation (a kinetic sculpture) and some more mixed-media paintings (with LED pseudo-neon a la case mods). I’d like to get at least the sculpture and one painting ready to show at the EFF/EFF-A/ACTLab [url=http://www.eff-austin.org/sxsw/]party[/url]. I originally wanted to have Brainstorm Table ready for that, but I realized the venue might not be as appropriate for the table (which would require viewer interaction and relative silence beyond the table… since there will be loud music and bizarro ACTLab performances competing for attention, I doubt Brainstorm Table would work in that environment).

Speaking of art at SxSW, the Austin-based [url=http://www.robotgroup.net]Robot Group[/url] will be showing off lots of their robots at the trade show.

I hung out with some of the Robot Group guys last night at an elementary school’s Science night… there are [url=http://www.robotgroup.net/index.cgi/ScienceNight]pics[/url] (I show up in one of them)… I was responsible for hooking those guys up with the school… They’re pretty much like you’d expect… Except a whole lot nicer and friendly. It’s clear they have a love for their hobby, which is inspiring.

They work on the philosophy that if you are going to spend enormous amounts of time and money on a hobby, then it’s not all that wise to take the results of your work into a ring to be destroyed by other robots. Poets, not fighters. I dig it.