Trying things out
Press the button for an apology. A video in action: Your browser does not support the video tag. This project is a reworked version of this older project, to better align it with the spirit of the times. Reflection I can’t decide how I feel about this apology box project; my initial thought was that it felt funny in a wry or maybe ironic sort of way. Of course, there’s an obvious emptiness to the…
I made a note a while ago about the theme of plants and boundaries . The note was first inspired by this image from around Cambridge: According to iNaturalist, this is likely a Paulownia tree (specifically, Paulownia tomentosa ), a species that is considered “invasive” in the US, at least by some . This page explains more of its “invasive” characteristics: Paulownia tormentosa is an aggressive and…
I have been drawing for much of my life in different ways, but I haven’t spent much time really trying to improve drawing as a skill – learning the craft and principles, doing deliberate practice, and so on. I’ve decided to make a commitment to do this for a while, starting with Brent Eviston’s course on the basic skills of drawing . As with other kinds of learning, I find documentation to be a…
This post was prepared for a guest lecture in DESINV218 at UC Berkeley. Slides for the presentation are here . Introduction In this post, I will discuss my approach for deciding when and how to work with generative AI tools in a research context. While I will primarily focus on the setting of academic social science research of the sort I am familiar with, my hope is that this framework might be…
With my friend Elise, I have a piece in Issue 7 of the Quinobequin Review . The issue theme is “Magic”. Our piece is called “Seance for a Stand of Oaks” and is about the Waverley Oaks which once stood at Beaver Brook Reservation . The Q review is print-only, so I would encourage you to order a copy if you would like to read the piece (along with other great local art & writing).
With Quinn, I’ve been working on a project called Turkeys in Public Space which is about documenting the turkeys that live in and around my neighborhood in Cambridge, MA. The project involves both a handmade photo zine and a website where people can share their own turkey photos. Here is what the site looks like: Here is what the first edition of the zine looks like: The idea is that if people…
With Jesse , I received some funding from Cosmos Institute and FIRE to work on a project called Norma: Value-Checking for Political Speech . A version of the project is live here . Here is a screenshot of the interface: We wrote about the project concept here . Generally, I think the very general direction of the project is more interesting than the project implementation itself. Even subtracting…
Click to light a candle (maybe turn off the lights first?) More I started this sketch for another project but didn't wind up using it for that purpose. I've been enjoying making digital elements like this "by hand" on my computer. This one was drawn with the pencil tool in Figma, then styled a bit more ex post and animated. It'd be nice to add a few more animation frames for the candle to be…
Over the past few years, I’ve been trying to think about and engage more with maintenance and repair, especially when it comes to my clothes. In this post, I want to create a place to document some of these mends and repairs. Some recent mends on my forever-repair jeans. These were done at still life. I repaired two buttons that had broken on this jacket. I decided to go with a contrasting color…
It’s laundry day. You lug your hamper of clothes down the stairs to your apartment building’s shared laundry room, only to find that none of the washing machines are “available”. Three of the machines are fully “in use”, turned on and mid-wash. But the fourth has completed its cycle and is now sitting idle, someone’s damp clothes occupying the machine, blocking you from starting your own load and…