Walk in the park, look at the sky: collected thoughts, processes and observations made during the course of making things

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18.06.21 A philosopher argues that an AI can’t be an artist
A philosopher argues that an AI can’t be an artist Interesting long read about the role of AI in creativity.
11.06.21 Oscar Niemeyer: Brazil's king of curves
Oscar Niemeyer: Brazil's king of curves Great piece on Oscar Niemeyer.
04.06.21 Einstein: Revolution in time and space
Einstein: Revolution in time and space Recently discovered The Forum on the BBC world service and it is full to the brim with wonderful…
05.05.21 Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ is not just a radical kind of art. It’s a philoso…
Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ is not just a radical kind of art. It’s a philosophical dialetheia: a contradiction that is true Goes nicely with my…
30.04.21 In Our Time – The Physics of Reality
In Our Time – The Physics of Reality Melvyn Bragg examines the attempt to reconcile Quantum Theory and classical physics.
27.03.21 The Dawesome Robots and Space Toy Collection
From a young age I've always loved science-fiction and especially robots, first brought on after seeing Forbidden Planet for the first…
08.03.21 Attack of the Vintage Toy Robots! Justin Pinchot on Japan’s Coolest Postwar E…
Attack of the Vintage Toy Robots! Justin Pinchot on Japan’s Coolest Postwar Export | Collectors Weekly As a big fan of vintage robots, live t…
12.02.21 Arcade Machine Dreams
Arcade Machine Dreams is my second collection on NiftyGateway and is very much an ode to the video games I loved as a teenager. Growing up…
07.02.21 茶筒の開化堂 | Kaikado Tea Caddies
茶筒の開化堂 | Kaikado Tea Caddies I first came across these last year, but I’ve only just manage to get my hands on one. We drink a pot of fresh tea every mor…
03.02.21 Stanley Kubrick boxes
Stanley Kubrick boxes I’ve always been a sucker for wire stitched boxes, but didn’t realise the famed Kubrick box is still being made by the…
06.12.20 Creating a Custom Mantra Renderer Preset in Houdini
Over the years I've always tried to make some of the more utilitarian processes as efficient as possible, so I can spend more time creating…
06.12.20 That Was The Week That Was – 6th December 2020
This week was all about the release of a dream project I had been working on for some weeks. Back in July, Jim Coudal, co-founder,…
03.12.20 Houdini Quicktip - Camera Culling
Houdini Quicktip - Camera Culling Really great technique for optimising renders.
30.11.20 A Technique to Reveal Points Over Time in Houdini
I recently had a need to reveal a series of points over time, but in a random way. There's no doubt a myriad of ways to do this in Houdini,…
29.11.20 That Was The Week That Was – 29th November 2020
This week I found myself filled with equal parts excitement and nervousness. On the Wednesday was my debut drop on NiftyGateway – an NFT A…
29.11.20 Moxie Marlinspike Has a Plan to Reclaim Our Privacy | The New Yorker
Moxie Marlinspike Has a Plan to Reclaim Our Privacy | The New Yorker Fascinating piece about the founder of Signal.
22.11.20 That Was The Week That Was – 22nd November 2020
After buying a Beomaster 1900 from Ebay to replace my Beomaster 1500, I realised a few days later that several of the bulbs – the ones for b…
16.11.20 Scaling Packed Primitives with Vex in Houdini
Making a note of this handy code snippet I found on https://forums.odforce.net/topic/23353-scaling-packed-objects-with-vex/ for scaling P…
15.11.20 GETTING STARTED WITH HQUEUE
GETTING STARTED WITH HQUEUE Need to get this setup on my own system.
15.11.20 How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System | The New Yorker
How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System | The New Yorker Fascinating article in The New Yorker about how the Coronavirus works and how…
05.11.20 Touch is a language we cannot afford to forget | Aeon Essays
Touch is a language we cannot afford to forget | Aeon Essays Fascinating read within the context of the COVID pandemic.
04.11.20 Jacob Jensen, a design icon - Design heritage | B&O
Jacob Jensen, a design icon - Design heritage | B&O I’m lucky to have a few Jensen designed objects including a phone, alarm clock, a B…
02.11.20 If ever we need beautiful stationery, the time is now.
If ever we need beautiful stationery, the time is now. I have a box of the Capri note cards and envelopes from Pineider, and they are…
31.10.20 Modal Jazz Explained - Improvisation and Harmony
Modal Jazz Explained - Improvisation and Harmony This is a great explanation of the difference between tonal jazz and modal jazz.
22.10.20 WIP: New series of typographic works using city population density data
Work-in-progress of upcoming series of typographic based works, using population density for various world cities.
21.10.20 Art of Cybersecurity at Art Futura 2020
As part of the Bright Festival_Connect running in Leipzig, my Art of Cybersecurity work will be shown within the Future Graphics program of…
20.10.20 Creating a symbolic link to another file or directory
In the process of rendering a large number of files in Houdini I often need to use the 16TB external drive rather than my Mac’s internal d…
19.10.20 Inspiration shoud always be a fuzzy thing
Right now the work I’m making is often monochromatic, exploring light and shadow, composition and contrast within a greyscale palette. This i…
19.10.20 How many Caran d’Ache 849s are too many?
The Caran d’Ache 849 is one of my favourite pens. It’s slightly smaller than most, making it a great pen to carry with you and the hex…
19.10.20 Kenya Hara – White
One of my favourite books on design (though it’s more than that) is Kenya Hara’s Designing Design. Now I’ve added his 100 Whites to my Hara…