Magnetic Ink

In a bit of procrastineering research, I started looking into making my own ferrofluid. Apparently the best stuff to use these days is Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) Toner. But, it's a little hard to find in bulk. The most amazing work I've seen done with ferro-fluid is by Sachiko Kodama:



It's difficult and messy stuff to work with. Not to mention you need to know how to generate custom magnetic fields to move it. So, it's always been a little low on my project list.

Though, in my brief search for materials, I came across this wonderful artwork by flight404. This is done with an application called Processing, which is a programming environment designed for computational art that grew out of the MIT Media Lab. It's definitely evolved quite a bit since the last time I looked at it if you can create these kinds of visuals. It's beautiful and all free (as in open source). =o) Maybe I'll try my hand at it again (in what little free time I have). Simply trying to recreate something that approximates this visual style would be a satifying exercise.

What would you do with a thousand sheep?

This is absolutely astonishing! What are YOU doing with your sheep? eh? Whatever it is, it's probably not as good as this:

Factor 5 lives on

I can exclusively reveal that the renowned developer Factor 5 (´Turrican´, ´Star Wars: Rogue Squadron´, ´Lair´) is still in business. The studio is neither bankrupt, being liquidated or has been taken over.

The team has been reduced, though, and the projects developed for now defunct publisher Brash, like ´Superman´, are currently on hold. But development is continuing on other titles. While I was initialy told that an announcement was forthcoming soon, I am now being informed that Factor 5 may not have anything to announce publically until later in the year.

But, it seems, Factor 5 is able to survive on its own following the lay-offs and work on the announced Wii titles is continuing.

"Birth of a new art form..."

It's not often you hear that phrase. I don't think I've ever used it myself, but a few people have been tossing that around when talking about Kutiman's work at Thru-You.com who does video remixes of musicians around the world to create amazing new musical/video pieces. The one that is getting the most blog exposure is called The Mother of All Funk Chords. However, the one I think more clearly demonstrates the subtlety and intricacy of this artistic contribution is below entitled "I am new":



There have certainly been many video remixes before, but this steps it up a few notches in several directions - in no small part facilitated by abundance and wealth of YouTube performances. One of the earlier examples of musical/video editing that I really enjoyed is work by Lasse Gjertsen. He started with "human beat boxing", but really stepped it up in the following video. It's worth remembering that he doesn't know how to play these instruments:



On the topic of the great examples of creating musical mixes with video, this is another wonderful example of what one individual with a camera, video editor, a few instruments, and some determination can create:



Trying your hand at making something like this would be an excellent procrastineering project.

´GTA´ developer warming to Wii

Here is a brief update. In relation to some exclusive information I gave you some time ago, my guess regarding Silicon Knights was wrong. Just to make up for it, though, I can reveal that publisher Take 2 and developer Rockstar are warming to Wii.

When developing the DS game ´Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars´, they were very happy with Nintendo's third party support and are considering a `Grand Theft Auto´ on Nintendo's newest. I had asked them last year whether a GTA on Wii was a possibility and they had categorically ruled that out. Now, it simply hinges upon the success of ´GTA: Chinatown Wars´. If the DS title performs well enough, Rockstar will be swayed by its success and bring the franchise to Wii as well. Whether they would invest in an original installment running on a dedicated graphics engine is another question.




On a personal note, please excuse the recent lack of updates. The Falafelkidkid is a lot of work and it is hard for me to find time to write decent articles. I have a number in the pipeline, though, including a lengthy examination of controversial developer Nibris (`Sadness`), which should be online within the next two weeks. So please stay tuned.