Project Anew!

A couple years went by and I had a great amount of failure in collaborating with a costume designer. I think the issue was that I couldn't offer a reasonable amount of money upfront and was relying on a successful crowd sourced fundraising campaign before I could offer decent payment.

One day I was riding around Berkeley and went to the Albany Bulb to view the sculptures made of wood and garbage washed to the shore.

I was contemplating this project and specifically the silver space suit since it was the biggest problem in my plan. I was thinking how I basically wanted an Air Force style flight suit that was silver. And it hit me - I should buy a flight suit and recreate it with silver cloth... No, I should paint it silver!

So, that day I returned home and purchased a cheap flight suit and silver spray paint.

I got the paint first and tested it on some cloth.  It goes on nice and thick, but is a little messy even once it's dry. I tried sealing by dry ironing then washing it, which helps, but it still sheds glitter. I'm expecting it will be fine after one or two more washes.

More to come soon.

Revamp idea

Now that the original suit is falling apart I have had to put it to sleep. Very sad.
However, by the time the suit got to the point of unuseablility I already had grand new plans for a new and better suit. As I stated before, that original suit was really just a prototype, a test. I was starting with some simple ideas that I could then generate more ideas for a bigger and better design.
I had a lot of ideas floating in my head and finally I made a simple sketch as to changes and additions I wanted to make. These included all the best ideas I could think of:

• fish bowl helmet
• video monitor on chest (OLED screen)
• Video ray gun (gutted Super 8 camera with mini video projector)
• Holster
• Speakers on the helmet on either side (like ears)
• Microphone with filter (old telephone sound)
• Welding specs
• Boots
• Silver suit with L-wire down the sides
• Apple II type text on front of helmet

Some of these ideas the technology is not quite ready and some things I thing the technology is probably too expensive. But still, a lot of fun ideas worth getting into...

History

As an independent animator and digital artist I have been working with a dilemma. I spend much of my time behind my computer creating complex and dream-like images. I consider my artwork to be more closely associated with music then with movies - hence the term Visual Music. I have always enjoyed live music and long ago I used to perform theater to a live audience. An audience gives you a strange kind of energy - you can usually tell if they are interested or not. If they are that gives you energy to continue and if they are not that gives you the energy to do better to try and gain their attention.

However, in the world of pre-created visuals such as animated art, this is impossible to gain. Occasionally, I do create visuals live, but even in that circumstance the artists is usually in the back of the room and there is a strong sense of distance from the audience. You can gain some energy from the audience, but not in the same way.

About 18 months ago I had a vision. I was wearing a strange and silly suit that made me look like a 1950's futuristic-style space man with glowing videos and images emanating throughout my body.
I came up with a simple suit using a cheap silver space suit Halloween costume and a digital picture frame (playing simple colorful videos) strapped to my chest. Every few weeks I would go to an event wearing my crazy suit and I would gain the attention of everyone around me. It was quite empowering.
I attended a Dublab New Years Eve party, an LA Record Valentine's Concert, USC's Rhythms + Visions event, I even taught a workshop at MOCA about 3-D imaging this thing (I drew a crowd of about 200 people) as well as a dozen other places.

After some time the suit wore out pretty badly. There are holes all over the fabric, the picture frame does not quite connect to the battery very well and turns off constantly and I have a whole bunch of new ideas that I want to implement (which I will list sometime soon).

So, stay tuned! I will explain my new Revamped suit as well as how you can help me fundraise for this project!