berlin

technical textiles + new seashell scripted knits

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In April here in Berlin, I threw a little textile art show and event with talks and workshops called technical textiles. Thanks to everyone who shared art for the show, threw workshops, and came by and saw some examples of modern uses of older knitting machines and computer scripted hand embroidery. Pictured here below is the gallery show during Martin Schneider’s Turtlecraft Embroidery Workshop.

 

For the show I managed to finish two new pieces with scripted images from algorithmic based seashell generative designs. The first was an orange and blue stole, Cymbiola Vespertilio 00, and the second a black and white stole, Cymbiola Vespertilio 01. The name Cymbiola Vespertilio refers to the mollusk’s shell that is modeled with the software algorithm, the mollusk is also known as the bat volute. The two stoles are pictured here below hanging in the technical textiles show at etib here in Berlin alongside a knit portrait by Veronika Persché.

On June 19th, 2013 I gave a talk at the Humboldt Universität here in Berlin on Knitting machine hacking, in English. You can watch a video of the talk and a hands-on demo with my hacked KH930 knitting machine here on youtube. A video piece about me also about knitting machine hacking (and the orchidarium, now with released source code) appeared in German on Elektrischer Reporter on June 27th, 2013, on the ZDF Info tv channel; the online video is here.

13.1 miles, 21.08 km: berliner halbmarathon

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so i signed up for the Berliner Halbmarathon, aka the Berlin half marathon, on April 5th. today I jumped into a 12 week training schedule (pdf of my training plan here, created with the nike+ site which i don’t especially enjoy using), a week and a half late. after last year’s 10k training (blogged here here and here), it’s nice to be back on some sort of prescribed workout plan. this morning i had to replace my garmin forerunner 50’s battery, (followed this) as well as my pedometer foot pod’s battery. today i tried out my new running gloves for the first time, they made such a difference against the cold. here is a shot of the ice from my run today:

but luckily it was just a three mile jaunt, not a 7 miler like tomorrow has planned. the half marathon will be the longest race i’ve ever run (and trained for), and i’m hoping to have fun in the process! also i am back on the less-of-a-crummy-diet bandwagon: less booze, less junk food vegetarianism, more protein and veggies and rice and all that good for you stuff. rumor is we are getting an elliptical trainer at the office this month, so i will be able to log the shorter runs at work.

life has lurched into fast forward

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this is just a quick post to round up a few recent activities, and a small explanation as to why my life seems to have been vorgespult (fast-forwarded). since the beginning of october i’ve joined forces with Kai v. Harbou at doctr.com. as CTO, i’m defining the tech for the company and i can’t begin to say how stoked i am (even after more than two sleep deprived months!). we are building secure and stable communication platforms for doctor to patient and doctor to doctor. i’ve been doing the web2.0 conference rounds lately, so if you’ve met me at one of those events and want to geek out further, please drop me a comment or an email. in reverse chronological order, i attended Le Web 08 in Paris, Open Everything Berlin (at which I spoke about open source hardware, slides here [pdf]), Medizin2Null (helped organize via doctr.com, videos here), LateCrunch, Girl Geek Dinner Berlin, Barcamp Berlin 3, and the Pre-Web 2.0 Expo Europe Drinkup.

and if you thought i was going to stop, haha good luck. this week kicks off a long series of houseguests international flatmates. for what comes between christmas and new year’s each year? oh yes. it’s chaos communication congress time. this will be my fifth congress in a row. i won’t be presenting or running any workshops, but i may be around lending a soldering iron or multimeter as a hardware hacking enabler. if this year’s ccc is anything like last year’s month-o’-hardware shenanigans, i’m up for a very hacktastic time:

i’m already planning some crazy projects for next summer’s har2009 .nl hacker camp as well as finding a location/date for my own event here in berlin: hardhack (site down at the moment, some documention here). so stay tuned and i’ll try keep my blog more closely synced with my real-time life.

mit richtig echten Voelkern

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japanese team

well as they say, the best laid plans go to waste. i didn’t end up doing a single thing two weekends ago that was on the last blog post. i did, however, have a smashingly good weekend with friends in town. we just happened to end up at the Weltmeisterschaft das Strandvoelkerball: the world championships of beach dodgeball. the japanese team (pictured above and here) were the reigning champs and in spite of their sumo wrestler loincloths, kicked some beach dodgeball butt! i love Berlin because i can always find something incredibly strange and fun to entertain me.

this weekend in berlin

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art and bike

just thought i’d post about a couple of nifty things to do this weekend in berlin. firstly, tomorrow starting at 18uhr is the monthly critical mass bike get-together meeting at Heinrichplatz in Kreuzberg. saturday get your vegetable on with the yearly water gun fight between F’hain and X’berg on the Oberbaumbruecke. gather up some rotten veggies and lob them at the opposite neighborhood. waterproof camera gear is a prerequisite.

also on saturday i think i’ll go check out street artist xoooox’s exhibit. the show goes on until sept 10th. also showing right now is the paparazzi photo exhibit showcasing classic stolen shots of stars in the 60’s and 70’s. the helmut newton museum is free on thursday nights, so start your weekend this evening.

as seen on the street

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bitte nicht pissen

i was walking around berlin yesterday, and saw the sign pictured above on the wall next to the entrance to an apartment building. yes, it smelled awful there but i could not stop laughing at the sign.

and on the opposite end of the cuteness scale, i almost walked on this kitteh:

kitteh

summer in berlin

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yellow ring

last night was fete de la musique, and here in berlin we do it electronic style with dj’s on the bridges and underground club nights. the photo above was semi-staged, she did strike that pose by herself first, but then i asked her to do it again so i could capture it. a happy summer to all my peeps in the northern hemisphere.

party and postparty

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stage light halo

[stage light halo — click through for larger version]

i thought i’d share some recent shots. the former is shot with my “big” camera, the latter with my e70’s built-in cellphone camera. i find them both equally evocative of berlin’s night scene. the blonde hair with long bangs look is just a coincidence — i don’t think it’s the same girl.

sleepy on the tram