Updates

  • Arboreal Ant Sensor: Main Project Summer 2014

    Arboreal Ant Sensor: Main Project Summer 2014

    Background: Funding After a couple years of trying to pitch lofty, abstract concepts for funding from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, I changed up my strategy with great success! I went from rejected proposals such as “Give me money so we can do large scale exploratory performances with crazy technology in the jungle so that…

  • Transcontinental Hiking / Hack Announcement

    Transcontinental Hiking / Hack Announcement

    We are recruiting field biologists for the upcoming Transcontinental Hiking / Hack. This will be a 9 day hiking workshop through the Panamanian forest going from the Atlantic to the Pacific taking place from June 26-July 5 2014. The primary goals of the project are to: Design technology for studying animal behavior in situ. Conduct…

  • Living Lightning Project Featured at MLA 2014

    Living Lightning Project Featured at MLA 2014

    http://dtc-wsuv.org/wp/mla14-critical-making/ “Living Lightning” was selected as a Critical Making project to be discussed at Chicago’s Modern Language Association 2014  conference.  

  • Leaf 5 Lover

    Leaf 5 Lover

    In wrapping up my 2013 field season, I challenged my partner Peter Marting to express his research as a performative love story. In just a week, we managed to put together a 30-minute play featuring dozens of actors and audience collaborators, costumes, and an 18 foot long Leaf Cutter ant puppet. FULL VIDEO DOCUMENTATION COMING…

  • Music: Biopoesis and Ego Solvent

    Music: Biopoesis and Ego Solvent

    I have never been really good at music, but I have always been compelled towards it. I remembered hating being forced into band in 6th grade. Music did not make much sense to me. You were given a list of absolute commands, and then judged upon how well you could become a robot that repeats…

  • Big BCI Day: Part II – Glowing Night

    Big BCI Day: Part II – Glowing Night

    Daan and I make it back to the main labs on the island to meet with Courtney. I chat with her about her research with Leaf cutter ants and computer vision. We were supposed to meet in the lab, but suddenly before my arrival, the ants decided to get moving, and she had to hurry…

  • Big BCI Day: Part I – Traps

    Big BCI Day: Part I – Traps

    Up at 5am to fix some quick electronics for the firefly costumes. Print off Posters for peter’s performance, hang them up. Grab my gear and hike to boat to hopefully catch the 7:15 for BCI.   Meet Daan there who takes me on a whirlwind tour of the island. First I shadow her methods in…

  • Embedded Design

    Embedded Design

    Dad takes off from Panama, and I head to the weird zone between the city and Gamboa along the canal to get my final shot in my Rabies series. Had to erase part of my prescription and write in a new date because I think the nurse had gotten it wrong. It’s a tiny bit…

  • Mining for the Greater Gold

    Mining for the Greater Gold

    Barrett Klein, the model-making wizard and insect insominator has arrived back in Gamboa. We have all been eagerly anticipating his return, as this will kick off a new interesting experiment: parallel sleep study between an invertebrate and a vertebrate. The vertebrate will most likely be a bat, since the bat lab is one half of…