Solar Decathlon
October 18, 2005
MIT – The World as the Palette
October 5, 2005
I/O Brush is a new drawing tool to explore colors, textures, and movements found in everyday materials by “picking up” and drawing with them. I/O Brush looks like a regular physical paintbrush but has a small video camera with lights and touch sensors embedded inside. Outside of the drawing canvas, the brush can pick up color, texture, and movement of a brushed surface. On the canvas, artists can draw with the special “ink” they just picked up from their immediate environment.
There are many paint/drawing programs on the market today that are designed especially for kids. These let kids do neat things, but kids usually end up playing only with the “preprogrammed” digital palette the software provides. The idea of I/O Brush is to let the kids build their own ink. They can take any colors, textures, and movements they want to experiment with from their own environment and paint with their personal and unique ink. Kids are not only exploring through construction of their personal art project, but they are also exploring through construction of their own tools (i.e., the palette/ink) to build their art project with.
The man who used math to make music
October 5, 2005
Exiled from Greece, Iannis Xenakis worked for the architect Le Corbusier before devoting the rest of his life to creating music as a kind of aural sculpture.
“Culture these days can be a burden for creative artists. There are so many accumulated memories, so much to be influenced by, so much to live up to. Not to be bothered by it needs a special kind of purity, innocence and single-minded passion.
The Greek/French composer Iannis Xenakis had all those things. His music hits you like a whirlwind, its hard, harsh melodies and granite-like chords coming direct from some fierce distant past. In the knowing world of new music, it seems magnificently out of place, a pure voice of nature.”
Professor Testifies in Evolution Debate
September 29, 2005
“As scientists go about their business, they follow a method,” Pennock said. “Intelligent design wants to reject that and so it doesn’t really fall within the purview of science.”
Pennock said intelligent design does not belong in a science class, but added that it could possibly be addressed in other types of courses.
