Matthew Borgatti

The good folks at Coilhouse were kind enough to release something I’ve been working on for a bit: The DIY Guy Fawkes Bandana Remix Fun Pack Genuine Revolutionary Occupy Experience Machine!

The general idea is that I’d like people to be anonymous, wearing protection, projecting a captivating image, employing creative disruption, and in possession of crucial data whether protesting or no. I also believe in opening up the source as much as humanly possible/ethical/feasible on all of my projects.

However, I was worried that releasing a full source would diminish the value of the initial product to the people who have been buying them to support both protesters in the street and myself as a business. I’ve also been afraid (based on some laughably earnest emails) of people looking to copy my design for profit.

I felt like giving people a Creative Commons pack full of resources, info, and stencils might be the right tack to getting anyone an OWS bandana regardless of finances without pissing off the folks who have so graciously bought bandanas and haven’t yet come to burn my house due to late shipments.

Hopefully I’ll have a chance sometime soon to cut out some stencils and provide a tutorial on how to make your very own bleach printed OWS bandana. I designed the stencil to minimize the cutting without sacrificing the design or readability. Since there’s a PDF version, converting things for laser cutting is a snap, and I’m fairly convinced this wouldn’t do poorly as a spray painted symbol as well.

Early on in the sudden rise to fame of the OWS Bandanas, my business had a bit of an existential hiccup. You see, Paypal, patron of the meek and downtrodden, decided to suspend my account after the second week of bandana sales. They did this without warning and without explanation. I found out when I went to pay some bills and discovered that the numbers in my Paypal account were fake numbers, to be used only as a sadistic tease to my impoverished state of being.

This would have been less of a humiliating tease if it weren’t for the fact that they had given me a call week one, chatted with me about my business for a half hour, and told me everything was going to be fine. I made the mistake of continuing on as if being told everything was fine actually meant what it said on the box.

The following Facebook thread provides a reasonably accurate timeline of events following the discovery that my business was threatened with imminent collapse:

I’ve had anons telling me to switch to a reasonable company, one who doesn’t harass my favorite authors. I’ve heard the litany of complaints. I’ve heard the stories of capriciousness, stupidity, terrible customer service, and outright evil, but as an Etsy seller, I seem to have no alternatives.

I can understand that, until the massive influx of bandana sales, I was only using PayPal to sell a bit of jewelry here and there. My business was, for the most part, an interesting side project. It was an excuse to make new fun things that might just pay for themselves. I never expected to be a 24/7 business owner. Now I am. So, I can understand the company that manages the transactions that my business generates wanting to do due diligence. I can picture insulating my customers and myself from fraud. There are much more functional ways to do this than pull the plug on said business and sit on top of the funds like a mother hen.

I am still waiting for half of all of the money generated by bandana sales to be released. I’ve been promised this will happen soon.

It might be time to investigate running my own store that accepts PayPal alternatives. Any chance Shopify accepts other merchant service companies?

So, after some trial and error, I finally have some lovely TARDIS rings to show off. They’re cast from a high resolution 3d print generated in SolidWorks. One of the beautiful bits about using a CAD program to drive the design is that I can change the proportions of the ring, shank, and TARDIS independently while keeping it within some attractive, reasonable proportions.

They’re available for presale on Etsy.

Speaking is intensely exciting. I love sharing, teaching, and lining up all of my thoughts into something concise and convincing. Something about ordering a swarm of swirling tenuous ideas into a coherent presentation makes them more vivid and solid.

I’ve been looking for more opportunities to speak and on my hunt for possible events to pursue I stumbled across the Extreme Futurist Festival put on by Michael Anissimov and Rachel Haywire. It seemed like an interesting gathering of tech enthusiasts, new media junkies, teachers, singularity proselytizers, and a huge varied random smattering of people I thought it would be fun to talk with. Plus Alex Peake was going to be there, and it was impossible to refuse an opportunity to catch up on what he’s been up to.

I went there with a talk on a subject that’s quite close to my heart: Neuroscience. I’m an incredible fan of the mechanisms we’re slowly beginning to analyze in the brain; mechanisms for visual analysis, mechanisms for facial recognition, all encoded in intricate, complex, labyrinths of meat. The talk was called “Art is Wrong: How your Brain Tells you Beautiful Lies“. You can find a video of it below.

If you’d like a copy of my presentation to view, share, and remix, you can find it on Prezi (which is an awesome tool for giving presentations, btw). Here are all of my notes for the talk, and here’s a link to a large majority of the papers I used to construct my lecture. Also, the illusion videos I made kind of borked during the presentation due to internet gremlins. You can catch them here, here, and here.

I’d like to thank everyone who came and made the event an absolutely fabulous experience. The conversation was tremendous and the hospitality was wonderful. I’ll certainly be coming next year. Also, you may recognize the term “Art is Wrong” from the blog of the excellent hacker and adventurer Alex Horenstein who is always worth checking up on.

Bonus:

Watch me get interviewed by the preeminent Kim Solez, who also shot the presentation video and title photo for this post.

After seeing protests erupt all over the world I wanted to make something that could change the game a little. I want people to be able to protest with OWS without the risk of being fired for showing solidarity. I wanted to make something useful, portable, something that could make the biggest difference to the most people. I came up with this mask.

It’s a foldable guy fawkes bandana that can be worn as a full or half face mask. It’s printed with safe sane protesting advice about dealing with police, sharing your location, who to call in the event of legal troubles, and more.

I’m selling them on my store, with one donated to an OWS branch around the world for each one sold –etsy.me/fawkesbandana

You can find a whole slew of images up on Flickr.

Edit 11/03/11: Folks have been asking for details on a few aspects of the project. First, I am going to be providing a simplified version to use as a stencil and screen so people can use the design for their own purposes. I’ll be releasing it sometime next week as Attribution Non-Com.

The bandanas are printed in NJ, in a little print studio just a stone’s throw from my childhood home. The blank cotton bandanas come from China.

Lastly, The design of the bandana isn’t directly from anything, though it borrows from the long tradition of Guy Fawkes Masks and Guy Fawkes day. People have been saying “Penny for the Guy” for a handful of centuries, now. I also can’t help but be influenced by the incredible V for Vendetta comic and the subsequent movie. Although my design isn’t traced from a particular image it is a blend of features I like from Guy’s various incarnations throughout history.

I have so many people to thank for helping make this project happen. Specifically the person who screened the first prototypes, the absurdly talented Melissa Dowell. The fabulous photographer Tony Lanza provided funding for the first run, and SfSlim was essential to the process, providing advice, recommendations, and fueling the viral fire that made it click. I’d also like to thank Nick Farr for recommending some changes to the wording on the final bandana.

Bonus:

JWZ.ORG, Boing Boing, Super Punch, Laughing Squid, Geekosystem, The Daily What

As a follow up on my previous post, I’d like to show you how the door for Pork Pie Hatters looks all installed on its building. After many hours, repeated calls to the contracting dispatching depot, bribes, and stress everything’s settled. Now there’s a beautiful, stylish, and above all functional door on the front of that business.

The door is a custom solid ash apothecary style door. It’s got a light stain and is sealed with several coats of flooring grade urethane. I’m hoping that it’ll deepen and develop character after the years of abuse NY will have to offer. I’m also hoping the oiled bronze hardware I chose will tarnish and develop as more and more people handle it.

You can check out photos of the door, the shop, and what everything looks like in situ on flickr.

I went to the Gemini and Scorpio Masquerade Macabre this year, which is an event stuffed with artists, arealists, musicians, and the kind of people who make life worth living. I had a lovely chance encounter with Eva Galperin, saw a few dozen intense costumes, helped Danielle Hills of Gilding Primal Instinct wrangle her display, and hobnobbed with the creators of Baritarian Boy.

Since it was scheduled to be such a fancy gala I thought it was time to dress up as something wonderful. I used to go all out for Halloween costumes, but have ended up spending more time on other folks’ costumes than my own lately. Well, I couldn’t think of anything more wonderful than Amanda Palmer, so voila. I’ve got to thank Numi for providing the wig, makeup, and most of the wardrobe for this one. I mostly picked out clothing and kvetched as my eyebrows were being painted on.

During the whole affair I came to realize how much work it must take to be AFP. I mean, aside from practicing, and making the rounds with the press, and keeping up with fans, the sheer time spent on eyebrows over the years must total in the hundreds of hours. Though, it’s probably something that gets easier with time. I wouldn’t be surprised if she can throw eyebrows on in the car on the way to a gig. Also, my mouth got tired from trying to make the correct kind of passionate demon face that is so signature to Amanda’s image. Feel free to add comments about how you’re surprised I got into the film industry with such a glaring handicap.

Photos are just starting to trickle in from Masq. Macabre. You can find some on Puppy’s Blog and Time Out NY.

Bonus:

I was playing “Point of it All” on the piano as these shots were being taken (also by Numi). I think it’d be a good song to cover on the Anywhere Organ. Something to think about as I prep for its next performance in just a few weeks.

It’s interesting seeing friends from long ago reaching that age where they become the people that they’re going to be for the rest of their lives. I’m seeing people unfold, becoming adventurers, business owners, makers, builders, and thinkers. It’s exciting.

To wit, a high school friend, Sean O’Toole has opened a hat store on the Lower East Side of Manhattan: Pork Pie Hatters. Having come from a haberdashing household, he’s well suited to owning his own hat shop. Upon reconnecting with him after a few years completely out of touch, I discovered he was in want of a maker.

Sean commissioned me to design a custom door for his shop complete with old world apothecary style signage.  I was happy to oblige. After some tense negotiations with various door sellers, some shipping delays, and a foray down hand sign lettering the finished product is strapped to the top of my car and awaiting delivery Friday. I’m excited to see it on the shop.

I ended up going with vinyl lettering for the final signage, but you can see a time lapse of me painting the letters myself below. I wasn’t entirely happy with the results, so they had to go. It was fun trying, though. Video after the jump…

A few weeks ago I traveled down to a conference put on by the DOD called STAR-TIDES with Willow Bl00 on behalf of Geeks With Out Bounds. Ostensibly the purpose of the conference is to mesh NGO’s with government based relief organizations and share information and designs under a more open source and open access ethic. You can read more about the event on their about page, though their language a little dense. There were a few distinct groups that attended, and I think they each came out with a different picture on the purpose of the event.

The conference ended up having three broad categories of participants: vendors hoping to catch government buyers for their tech (many of them showing products that had direct military applications with plausible uses for relief), government agencies getting a handle on the field of NGO open source tech, and hackers. As you might be able to gather I was incredibly enamored by the hackers that showed up.

One thing that disappointed me was the way “open source” was used as a catchall phrase for everything. The term was brandished as a solution to all possible problems that could be painted on any technology or idea carte blanche. It was often used interchangeably with “crowdsource” and “public domain” which made me suspicious that it had been picked up as buzzword du jour rather than a conscious goal.

I believe in building tools and frameworks that are openly shared. I believe in releasing all possible details on a design so that the knowledge contained within enriches the environment in which you’re designing. I believe that open access to ideas pulls in a tide that raises all boats. What I wanted to see was people with code to share, schematics to download, and databases to pull from. I was hoping to talk with a relief organization that actually had a Thingiverse account. Instead there were more promises and assurances than results. I suppose the best way forward is to have an organization that’s willing to publish their data openly, and hold their hand through the process of releasing it and building a support network of auditors who can review their data, build on it, hack together improvements, and keep the project alive in the public domain. I think that organizations have seen projects like Makerbot develop, know the advantages being open holds, but don’t have the agility or fortitude to commit to the philosophy yet.

Let’s get to the hackers. I first met the Synergy Strike Force, an intimidatingly talented and driven group of hacker humanitarians who specialize in below-the-radar relief. They most recently spent time in Afghanistan adding to the Open Street Maps project with crowdsourced GPS data, providing support and education for AIDS sufferers in Jalalabad, and helping set up a Fab Lab. I wrote about them in detail on the GWOB blog.

I also had the chance to talk with Eric Rasmussen, who is a bit of a legend in his own right. He is a teacher, hacker, and programmer of the first order and it was fairly thrilled to share some conversation with him. Hopefully we’ll be collaborating on something soon. I’d relish the opportunity.

I’ll be posting updates on the results of STAR-TIDES, what we gathered from it, and where to go from there. Keep an eye on GWOB for details. You can check out a selection of photos from the event on my Flickr.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

Pork Pie Hatters, a fantastic hat shop in NYC, asked me to design them a custom door and here's the result. This is a solid ash apothecary style door with actual hand applied gold leaf.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

Pork Pie Hatters, a fantastic hat shop in NYC, asked me to design them a custom door and here's the result. This is a solid ash apothecary style door with actual hand applied gold leaf.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

Pork Pie Hatters, a fantastic hat shop in NYC, asked me to design them a custom door and here's the result. This is a solid ash apothecary style door with actual hand applied gold leaf.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

Pork Pie Hatters, a fantastic hat shop in NYC, asked me to design them a custom door and here's the result. This is a solid ash apothecary style door with actual hand applied gold leaf.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

Pork Pie Hatters, a fantastic hat shop in NYC, asked me to design them a custom door and here's the result. This is a solid ash apothecary style door with actual hand applied gold leaf.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

Giant Eye posted a photo:

Giant Eye posted a photo:

Pork Pie Hatters, a fantastic hat shop in NYC, asked me to design them a custom door and here's the result. This is a solid ash apothecary style door with actual hand applied gold leaf.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

Pork Pie Hatters, a fantastic hat shop in NYC, asked me to design them a custom door and here's the result. This is a solid ash apothecary style door with actual hand applied gold leaf.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

Here's a full view of the panorama I built for my Transmet Art Book submission. I was elated to see that they featured it as a 2 page spread.

You can find some more details out at my site.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

After some tinkering and experiments we have a brand new prototype for the Anywhere Organ. This version includes details pulled from ornamental organ facades and fretwork. Now I've got to rig up the electronics to see how it sounds.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

After some tinkering and experiments we have a brand new prototype for the Anywhere Organ. This version includes details pulled from ornamental organ facades and fretwork. Now I've got to rig up the electronics to see how it sounds.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

After some tinkering and experiments we have a brand new prototype for the Anywhere Organ. This version includes details pulled from ornamental organ facades and fretwork. Now I've got to rig up the electronics to see how it sounds.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

After some tinkering and experiments we have a brand new prototype for the Anywhere Organ. This version includes details pulled from ornamental organ facades and fretwork. Now I've got to rig up the electronics to see how it sounds.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

After some tinkering and experiments we have a brand new prototype for the Anywhere Organ. This version includes details pulled from ornamental organ facades and fretwork. Now I've got to rig up the electronics to see how it sounds.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

After some tinkering and experiments we have a brand new prototype for the Anywhere Organ. This version includes details pulled from ornamental organ facades and fretwork. Now I've got to rig up the electronics to see how it sounds.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

After some tinkering and experiments we have a brand new prototype for the Anywhere Organ. This version includes details pulled from ornamental organ facades and fretwork. Now I've got to rig up the electronics to see how it sounds.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

After some tinkering and experiments we have a brand new prototype for the Anywhere Organ. This version includes details pulled from ornamental organ facades and fretwork. Now I've got to rig up the electronics to see how it sounds.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

After some tinkering and experiments we have a brand new prototype for the Anywhere Organ. This version includes details pulled from ornamental organ facades and fretwork. Now I've got to rig up the electronics to see how it sounds.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

After some tinkering and experiments we have a brand new prototype for the Anywhere Organ. This version includes details pulled from ornamental organ facades and fretwork. Now I've got to rig up the electronics to see how it sounds.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

After some tinkering and experiments we have a brand new prototype for the Anywhere Organ. This version includes details pulled from ornamental organ facades and fretwork. Now I've got to rig up the electronics to see how it sounds.

Giant Eye posted a photo:

You'll know what time it is when you turn your wrist and gaze at these cufflinks: time to rock. The seasons will bend to your will, the tides will turn at your command, and classic 80's rock will never give way to introverted 90's grunge.

From Sleek & Destroy sleekanddestroy.com

Giant Eye posted a photo:

Now you and Jeff Goldblum can have one more thing in common. Check out these sleek acrylic laser cut Velociraptor Cufflinks at my new store: Sleek and Destroy.

From Sleek & Destroy sleekanddestroy.com

Giant Eye posted a photo:

What a virtuous convivial bon vivant. His virile visage vests vigor in vaunted vocations.

You should pick yourself up some Anonymous cufflinks at my new store: Sleek and Destroy.

From Sleek & Destroy sleekanddestroy.com