In 2007 I completed a fun project that I call “Social Murmurs.” I recently had arrived home from living in Brooklyn for the summer and was interested in some of the behaviors I noticed from people around me while sitting in public; such as waiting for subway trains. Some people seemed shy or concerned when someone else sat next to them, while other people seemed irritated and upset. Commonly, couples sat next to each other; while strangers would place an empty seat between them. I found these efforts to control their personal space interesting. I wanted to force their inner thoughts to the surface and make people consider their responses.

While in New York, I had my first opportunity to work with an Arduino Microcontroller, already familiar with Processing I was really interested in how I could use an Arduino and some basic electronics to enhance my projects. That summer my friends at The Studio for Interactive Media and at Interaction Lab at RockwellGroup helped answer a lot of questions and really inspire me.

When I returned back to Minneapolis to finish up another semester at MCAD I found that I had to scale back my ideas, due to time allowed for execution and having only myself to rely on. At that point, using multiple capacitance sensors attached to a bench were a little out of my range, so I went digging.

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My recent past has been full of transition and I’m very excited to announce the recent changes in my life. Recently… I participated in the Twin Cities Maker Minne-Faire; I stayed up for more than 24 hours straight with a group of talented friends building a website for Child Protection International (new site not up as of time of writing this) during my second year taking part of the Overnight Website Challenge, and the very next day I started my new career.

On March 22nd, I began my new role as the Director of Creative Development at Y Worlds. It doesn’t look like much yet, but it will, I promise. We are a lean team on a highly-aspirational objective, more on that at a later date. To boil it down, I am in charge of the creative direction of our company, our goal is to aid in the transference of knowledge through interactivity and the development of knowledge visualization systems. Their have been a lot of bad decisions made in the world, decisions that don’t express equality or nurturing for self and others, we want to change that by educating people in a way that is easier to understand and entertaining, for an intelligently-derived future for all.

Below is an image of yworlds.com as it exists now. It will be interesting to look back at this in the future. I look forward to sharing more with everyone soon, our first visibility will come in the summer.

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It was announced on Friday, December 18th that I am one of five recipients of the Northern Lights organization’s Art(ists) on the Verge Fellowship funded by the Jerome Foundation. Art(ists) on the Verge is administered by Steve Dietz, the founding director of Zero1 San Jose Artists Bienalle and previously the founding director of New Media Initiatives at the Walker Art Center. This fellowship is aimed towards those working at the edge of art and technology, predominantly in a public space and this year there is an additional emphasis on networks.

I am looking forward to being a part of such a great program and am very excited to have received this opportunity. For the next nine months, I will be focused on working towards my goal of creating an installation space that encompasses a sense of memory and identity. The fellowship culminates in opportunities to present work at this years SparkFest in October.

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Well its actually been more than a week now, I’m still waiting for the intended slower pace to kick in. On December 12th I graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interactive Media. And look, to welcome me as an alumni I got a slick 1GB USB Drive. My project What Matters Most went off very well, I managed to get some good documentation and hope to have its content posted soon.