ride the wave

Jewelry and QRcodes, and hidden messages

parismarashi — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:03:23 +0000

Today at the Sustainable South Bronx Fablab I made some jewelry using a laser cutter, 1/16″ thick wood, and ready made earring hooks that I brought from a craft store. One of todays earring designs was inspired by a series of QR-code jewelry i previously made at the Fablab.QR codes link to websites, personal messages, phone numbers, and images using only your cell phone! You can send messages to be discovered and provide specific, location based information…Say you want to label an object or a living thing. Perhaps you want to provide information, or learn more about a place: If you want to read a QR code next time you see one on the street, all you need to do is a download a QR code reader for your phone model. If your phone doesn’t have a 2D barcode reader already, you can find and install a QR Code reader here. This week’s QR code series was inspired by Masaru Emoto’s book, The Hidden Messages in Water, also on Amazon. Emoto is a scientist who has documented how the messages we send change the physical properties of water. Since our bodies are 70% water, I made QR code earrings that link to the mobile-encoded wikipedia entry for words love and gratitude.First, I went to Semapedia to download a mobile version of the wikipedia entries I selected, here. I added these designs in illustrator, used the “live paint” feature to turn the images into vector graphics (for crisp, clear etchings). Next, I set the lines I wanted to cut to .001 point. The files were ready to print, and we just had to set up the hardware. Jon prepared the suction device (attached to the laser cutter) to extract any fumes and dust particles.After the pieces were etched and cut, I was able to pop them out of the wooden frame. The results:I also made these earrings today using illustrators rounded rectangle tool:Finally, here is a laser-etched leather bracelet– The etchings are from one of my illustrations. I cut the leather in a swirly asymmetrical fashion.

QR code tribute to the fertility goddess on valentines day.

parismarashi — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:15:02 +0000

February is traditionally a time for fertility celebrations. In the spirit of this, I made earrings (via a lasercutter) that act as a physical hyperlink to the wikipedia article for the Fertility Goddess. Taking a photo of these earrings using a qr code reader on your phone will take you to the mobile version of the page. I generated the code using Semapedia.

Unfortunately, the ones I made without writing “Fertility Goddess” (so just the 2D barcode) didn’t turn out dark enough…but this works to show the concept. More versions to come!

MIT Media Lab + Sustainable South Bronx = SSBx FabLab™

parismarashi — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:11:44 +0000

MIT Media Lab’s Neil Gershenfeld and Majora Carter from the Sustainable South Bronx have come together to create the SSBx Fablab™.

“Sustainable South Bronx seeks to inspire area residents to demonstrate their own strength and vision by helping to create a more livable, breathable, and vibrant community from the grassroots level up.”

“[The Fablab aims to] bring “digital fabrication”, the modern means of production, to ordinary people for solving community problems. Ideas are conceived and designed in the digital world, and can be realized in the physical world through the FabLAB. Equally as important, these ideas, designs, and schematics can be shared digitally through the international FabLAB network as a kind of “Open Source Hardware.””

The FabFellows, (including fellow ITP alumni) will encourage and empower the community to learn by doing. The FabFellows will enable access, inspire creativity, innovation, and sustainable business solutions for the South Bronx community. The use of recyclable and recycled materials will enable the physical revitalization of the South Bronx.

An illustration of mine, taken to the lasercutter, later used to make a print.

Thing-a-day blogging for the month of February

parismarashi — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:39:42 +0000

Thing-a-day is a creative project taking place all of February. The collective soup of ideas and feedback “beats the February blues” and nurtures the creative process.

Participants on thing-a-day post one creative sketch, project, or idea online every day. You can cook, draw, paint, sew, knit, sculpt, or even make penguins that answer your phone. They invite all artisits and creators, with any background to join in a “collective creative sprint” for the month of February.
The community keeps me inspired to make new things every day. link to my posts on thing-a-day.

one of my daily “things”, an illustration using ink and marker.

Sharing is caring

parismarashi — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 00:25:05 +0000

Thanks to daniel for sending me this WNYC linkage on Iranian artists, thinkers, and writers, including one of my favorites, Goli Taraghi. Her story of the Pomegranate Lady makes me cry to this day.

I was also sent beautiful photographs taken by Safa Daneshvar, of the process of picking saffron from flowers (download power point).

Pars Arts is a great resource on Iranian arts (thanks Shaghayegh!), as is the Persian Arts Festival Blog. The Persian Arts Festival is a team of wonderful individuals committed to spreading the diversity of Persian Arts, and I am delighted to be a part of the PAF team:

Founded in 2005, the Persian Arts Festival (PAF) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to showcasing the magnificence and diversity of Persian art and culture through its voices, artists and visionaries. PAF brings local and global communities together to support these artists and explore one of the world’s most ancient and rich civilizations. The festival gives audiences of all ages and ethnicities the chance to discover new Persian voices and celebrate established ones. Areas represented at previous events have included fine art, music, film, comedy, family activities and literary.

One of the new developments with PAF is the Rumi Poetry Night, every third Wednesday of every month at the Bowery Poetry Club until May 2008. Coming up at the Queens Museum of Art is also an exhibition curated by Pooneh Maghaze, called: “Weaving the Common Thread.” The opening night is February 24, from 5-9 pm. I am collaborating with Dean Gransar to have a piece up on the opening night! More news on that to follow.

I also want to share the Rageh Inside Iran documentary, as I love it, Thank you Rageh Omaar! There are 10 parts on youtube, but well worth checking out if you want a comprehensive look at both Tehran and the people living there. Matt Lauer also went to Iran for the today show, and advised NBC on where to go and what to do… I was delightfully surprised to see this piece on Firewomen in Iran (nevermind that he called Iran “Iraq” at the start of the clip).

Finally, Ahmad Kiarostami sent me linkage to his music videos for the Iranian band, Kiosk. One of the videos is called, Esgh-e-sorat, or Love for Speed. I also heard about his work through friends and family. The lyrics and video work so beautifully together–thank you, Ahmad!

Life goes on in Tehran, and hopefully more visitors, too.

parismarashi — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:17:00 +0000

Life goes on in Tehran shows photos from Iran, the people and the diversity…

The mission statement is “To show that regardless of what any president would have you imagine, despite what any media outlet would have you believe, life goes on in Tehran and elsewhere in Iran.” New Photos are added at the first of every month.

I was thrilled to learn that Americans are traveling to Iran as part of the Fellowship for Reconciliation’s Iran Initiative. Michael is on one of the visitors from one of these tours, and he posted some of his videos from his experiences here on youtube.

Pop-tech Re-cap: reflections from an Iranian-American blogger

parismarashi — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:25:27 +0000

I am so grateful to collaborate with Hamid Tehrani in sharing my experience of Poptech with an Iranian audience on Global Voices Online Farsi. However it is in the time after the conference that I am able to truly reflect and share my experience to both Iranian and American audiences, and as a citizen of both of these countries, to speak to all people about the things that are closest to my heart.

We are the ones who can solve the worlds’ problems. To solve these problems we must first recognize that there are people who share with us a dream for a better world. The first step is to hold on to the dream that there can be peace, and I realized that at Poptech there are many people who share this dream with me. For example, Zainab Salbi was a great source of inspiration when she spoke about the role of women in maintaining peace within society. She founded Women for Women International, responding to a need to make sure that the world is safe for women. Women hold together the family structure, and if women are being raped, killed, or offered food in exchange for one of their children, a society can only fall apart. Her organization makes it possible to give these women a chance, and a choice.

Van Jones is another world-changing thinker that is bringing his dreams to life. He realized that people living in poverty were not being given chances to succeed the way more affluent, educated kids were given chances. He recognized that he could combine solutions to social inequality and environmental destruction. He explains that by creating green jobs [jobs that are beneficial for the environment], he could work in creating educational, rewarding work opportunities for people–creating “green pathways out of poverty.” He worked to create the Green Jobs Act, an initiative that identifies jobs and skills needed to grow renewable energy and energy efficiency industries, while creating a way out of poverty for low income adults.

The solution that Van Jones brings to life is the type of thing I dream of seeing happen between Iran and the US–exchange of culture, tools, ideas, and technology that improve our understanding of one another, and help us all toward achieving a safer planet. Rather than fighting about how we disagree on certain things, we should keep our focus on the problems that relate to us all, and find solutions to those problems. Our environmental problems are a global concern, and our emphasis as citizens of this planet should be on generating global solutions to bigger the issues that impact all of humanity. We have a choice: to focus on “the other”, creating labels such as terrorists, militants, freedom fighters… or we can find solutions, collectively, for global exchange, interconnection, and peace.

Our Bodies: The Skin

parismarashi — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 14:30:30 +0000

This image shows the sensory homunculus, which represents the relative sensitivity in various parts of our body.

Nina Jablanski, professor of anthropology and author of the book, Skin, A Natural History, explains how a huge part of our brain is devoted to perceiving the world around us through our sense of touch. Touch, she explains, is known as the mother of all senses–primates use it to patch things up after a dispute, and our levels of stress decline tremendously when we touch one another. Though we may sometimes consider ourselves more advanced than the grooming apes–we still pay plenty of money for facials, massages, and other forms of physical contact.
We gather enormous amounts of information through our skin, a great amount of this is through our hands. The nerve endings on our hands send information back to our brains, and are enormously sensitive compared to the rest of the body.

In our skin, we have our humanity, and Jablanski reminds us that through the millenia, we have been in physical (not electronic) contact—with our lovers, elderly, and children. Next time we think to take a picture of someone and send it to flickr, Jablanski reminds us to take a moment to connect to one another and to make physical contact with one another. The depth of understanding experienced through touch tunes us in to the ancient elements of our human evolution.

Oceans in balance

parismarashi — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:02:38 +0000

For us to lead healthy lives, we need healthy oceans. With oceans taking up 75% of the planets surface, and 99% of its volume, it is without doubt that what happens in the ocean has a major impact on our lives. Today Claire Nouvian, Enric Sala, and Ted Ames gave some insight into the way that the damage of our oceans have occurred, and possible solutions to these problems.

Claire Nouvian, a filmmaker, journalist, and now the curator for a deep sea exhibit at the Museum of Natural History in Paris, explains how deep sea creatures (such as those in the image above) are a mystery to many, and the major threats that occur as a result of deep sea mining, dumping, and trawling. Bottom trawling is a fishing method that destroys tons of fish within seconds. For example, seven tons of Orange Roughy can be caught within 20 seconds. These fish mature around the age of 20-25, and some live to be 200 years old. She argues that if we are fishing so rapidly, especially since these fish take so long to reach sexual maturity, they may very well go extinct.

Enric Sala describes our study of the coral reefs. His metaphor explains it best: “Imagine you are an alien from another galaxy who has heard Earth has something called cars. Your spaceship lands in a junkyard beside a rusting automobile with a dead engine and no instruction manual. There is just enough power in the battery to start the windshield wipers when you press a button. From this you deduce that a car is something that allows you to contemplate a landscape comfortably when it’s raining. This is just like marine science. People started researching marine ecosystems long after they were damaged by human over-fishing, pollution, coastal development, and global warming. We’ve been studying this rusty car for too long, it’s time for a new approach. To know what marine systems are truly capable of we must look at the few pristine places that remain.”

Hence, Sala is creating new initiatives that allow interested people to save the oceans while taking a trip to some of the worlds most beautiful waters. His plan is to protect these unexplored areas of the ocean and bring a small number of tourists to pay money, people from the media and national geographic to document these developments, and to empower the local communities who live in these areas to protect the integrity of these pristine ocean environments.

Ted Ames brought up some fascinating solutions to problems he has witnessed to extinctions that have occurred in the course of his own lifetime. For example, the lobsters of maine fisheries were almost depleted in 1932, and today they are at 76% of Maine’s industry. To save the other fish of the region, they can use the similar methods and techniques used to increase the lobster population. This includes the protection of their habitat and reproducing females, control over the amount of fishing taking place, and an apprentice program. Farsi link

The Pursuit of Happiness: Pop!Tech

parismarashi — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:10:41 +0000

This morning at Pop!Tech, presentations were given by a number of inspiring speakers including Dan Gilbert, Carl Honore, and Jonathan Harris.

Dan Gilbert is well known for his writing on happiness, and today he spoke about risk–our ability to deal with the risk of global warming given the nature of our brains. Our brains have evolved for millennia to respond to immediate things. However, often times global warming does not appear to us as a threat for these reasons:

1. It does not have a face. Our brains are accustomed to responding to people and recognizing that they are threatening. If global warming had a gun and was walking toward us, we would recognize and respond immediately.

2. Global warming does not arise emotions of revolt, disgust, and dishonor, as a threat to one of our moral beliefs might create. Since global warming does not arise visceral emotions, as food and sex—we are less likely to be enraged.

3. We see global warming threat to our future, but not to our present.

4. Our brains are sensitive to relative, rather than absolute changes. If a change is slow enough, you cannot recognize it. For example, if someone turns on a candle in a bright room—if changes happen slowly, we are less likely to notice them. GW is a deadly threat, because it “leaves us sleeping in a burning bed”, a gradual change that we are in the early stages of understanding.

Carl Honore spoke about the International Slow Movement, and its contrast to a culture that is obsessed with speed. He states that Slow has a great role to play in the 21st century, because if we learn to unplug, we can be more creative, intelligent, and produce work of higher quality. His message is clear: less is often more—and slower is often better. It is not about working as fast as possible, but as well as possible. He emphasizes how it is not so much about always being slow, but that we need to learn the art of shifting gears.

In Italy, the slow food movement began to raise awareness so that people can take pleasure in food, and recognize how the quality of cultivation and preparation has an impact on our body (digestion, taste, pleasure, etc.) Honore describes how working less can actually mean working better. Some of the most successful schools, countries, and companies promote vacation, free time, and relaxation. By working more slowly, we can take time to process what we learn, and in result be more creative. Additionally, he explains how the constant barrage of electronic equipment actually decreases IQ.

Finally, Jonathan Harris spoke about some of his projects, including We Feel Fine, which in my opinion is one of the most extraordinary and emotional data visualization projects I have ever seen on the web. The content of this site has brought me to tears on numerous occasions. The site aggregates content from all around the web, searching in blogs for variations of the words I feel, I was feeling, etc….Check it out here. Farsi link