REDLINE GALLERY (2350 Arapahoe St., Denver, CO)

FRIDAY OCTOBER 2nd

7 to 10 p.m.

There will be tasty treats and something yummy to drink. Free food and lots of giggly fun! Do I even have to mention the giant floor-cushion?! I think not.

Here’s some of the buzz we’ve generated:

RedLine Article

AIGA Colorado article

The Denver Egotist

Modern in Denver

Facebook invite

EVERYTHING’S CHANGED.

Not enough info? No? Well all right – I never could keep a secret anyway.

Our installation is AWESOME. It’s no longer digital and is, in fact, amazingly analogue to the point where the viewer has to pedal a bike to get the light on the lightbox to work. Cool, no?

This is the lightbox being wired. I know: it looks like a setup for the joke, “How many men does it take to wire a lightbox?” (I have to see these men fairly regularly: I’m not even going to go near that joke with a 10-foot pole.) My clever partner Sergio is on the left, Jamie in the middle and my lovely teacher Ken is on the right.

The Installation, “Copenhagen Colorado” starts with pictures: one set are paired pictures of Copenhagen’s bike culture and Denver’s car culture, and the other pictures are Copenhagen bike culture photoshopped into pictures of Denver’s environment. We packaged these pictures as ‘slides’ (transparencies with a heavy bristol board border) and wrote captions on them such as “Merry Christmas from Copenhagen!” or “Rush hour in Denver”.

To view these slides the viewer will enter a curtained booth containing a bike which must be pedaled to power a light inside a lightbox. Once the viewer activates the light, he can choose a slide and place it on the lightbox in order to see it. In this way he’s both actually and metaphorically illuminating, both the slide and also himself!

I’m very happy with this presentation of what I believe to be interesting findings on our part. Sergio and I have been down at RedLine Gallery a few days this week in order to set up the physical installation and it’s coming together very nicely. I think I’m most impressed with my partner Sergio, a hard-working and clever man, and how happy we are to still be working together. I’m lucky to have him.

So how are the men doing with that wiring?

Hmmm. Needs a little more work. Time for the feminine touch, I see! I’ll be back soon with more tasty information and thoughts but for now I’m off to see a man about some electrical tape. Ciao!

Yeah, the group dispersed to places diverse and distant. Waiting for my gf(f) who arrives tomorrow. Then to Oslo, Stockholm, Finland, and beyond.

It was a great trip. I’ll write in depth when it’s not from my phone.

Here, in the mean time, are some images from my presentation.

Intro and Outline

The first of many bike icons.

A start for describing narratives surrounding bikes/cars

The best image is too large to share, apparently.

The project idea now is to try and take advantage of Denver´s particular cultural and infrastructural context to allow for (happy) bike related interventions. Reverse graffiti. Umbrellas chained to bike racks. Modifying bikes so they leave traces of themselves throughout the city. That sort of thing. More later, especially once Skye and I get a chance to talk it over.

Off to the closing ceremonies,
-Sergio

The info here is either from or corroborated by multiple sources, the most concise, helpful, and visual being Jan Gehl and Lars Gemzoe’s Public Spaces Public Life.

-Sergio

Flash animated storyboard!

Yes it’s true: Flash CS in 3 days. My mind, she is tired oh hohoyes. But look how pretty!

The end result will, of course, have a number of additions.

1. A lovely voice-over narration (male and female voice) of the movie

2. Inclusion of a fly-in geographic overview at the very beginning, animated in AfterEffects by my very talented partner Sergio. 

3. Visuals during the in-between frames (when the camera is panning to the next major ‘scene’).

Still and all: very satisfied with what Sergio and myself have gotten done in something like two weeks. (Two weeks! Ohmygosh doesn’t that seem impossible? Yeah, I totally think it is! Yipes!)

And now: to present this final product in class! So this one last hurdle: will Team Cykelnaut get a ticker tape parade or *chirp chirp* ye old cricket-chirp silence? Stay tuned!!!

Hey ho: a very humble and brain-tired Skye here. Oooooh I am in trouble, friends. Flash CS4 came to town and there may not be room enough for the two of us!

First, my thanks to Oliver Keating who SAVED MY BACON today by giving me a start with the souffle that is Flash. Here’s the plan: I took this document, imported it into Flash, and animated the movement of it.

So what happens is that the ‘camera frame’ does a close-up on each square for a few seconds and then moves onto the next to hover there. I’ll take this document into Illustrator and replace the squares with pictures & text, and then ‘replace’ the rough map with the pretty picture map. The animation (move, then hover over the picture, then move) should remain the same.

DON’T ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT I’M DOING, NO.

But I am totally devoted to actually doing this. Totally. I’m in. It means I’m going to have to go to Tattered cover after class and get a book: ok. It means I’m going to have to work late tonight and then read as much after work as I can: ok. I’ll need to get up early to come into school (I can’t afford to get Flash on my computer, obviously) : ok. I’m going to make mistakes and likely whine a lot more than I usually do: ok. I’m going to work on my own through summer on this even though I’m already previously booked six ways from Sunday: ok!

The final outcome may not be exactly what I envisioned, but I will make this animation work to the best of my meager abilities. And I know my partner Sergio is totally doing his best, too: you should SEE these maps he’s made! Sugar-coated information, it is. The two of us, working together, are going to make something interesting and something we’ll be proud of.  

…I just don’t know HOW, yet. I hope I figure that part out soon…

This is MK12′s video and the inspiration for our project. This rocks, am I right? Totally!

We finally got an excellent book which Sergio interlibrary-loaned: Public Spaces Public Life by Jan Gehl and Lars Gemzoe. SO SEXY. Graphs and info and charts, oh my!

Our project look is coming together now. Thanks to my quite perceptive partner, we have this color inspiration study based on the MK12 video and some other colors that he likes.

 Nice! 

So I took this, merged it with our first draft and made a palette out of it.

Yummy!

An established palette is much more important than you’d maybe think, especially for two people working on one project together. Sergio and I have our individual strengths and come at things from different directions (which is really excellent in a project like this, in my opinion). The most important and immediate way to unify a visual project is to use color. In this way we can each work on what we feel is relevant and when we go to synthesize the disparate elements – each element clicks right into the picture in any number of ways and places, no problem! Art Direction from the beginning: I’m a True Believer all right. Wait until you see our final result and you’ll be a fan too.

So now Team Cykelnauts is all about gathering all the MANY details into one place and then we’re going to start mucking about in them with metaphorical fingerpaints, popsicle sticks, glue, stickers and sparkles (AKA Illustrator, After Effects and Flash). For grate justus! W00t!

* You know you would be let down if I didn’t link this now that you have it in your head. Well, and if you didn’t have it in your head… you do now!  Thank me later.  Skye out.