Proposal for A Color Box

A Color Box
Proposal by Gabriel Mott
color box blog

Two years ago I took a color class with Dick Nelson that completely changed my sense of color. As I made discoveries about how and why certain combinations of colors created brilliant luminosity, I was astounded and wanted to share this experience with everybody.

Description:
A Color Box is a portable room about 8 feet cubed. Using a computer, a projector, a Wii game system and a screen, a person walking into the room will be able to interact with a color grid projected on the screen. By touching a color swatch, the entire room will change to that color.

Intention:
Inspire and educate people about color through scale and interactivity.

Experience:
You walk into a room and all you see is a grid of color on the wall. When you move your hands over the grid, the room changes color to match the color you touched.

Surrounded by color in a room that instantly changes based on your behavior is startling. When you are faced with how your perception of color changes based on your surroundings, your mind opens.

Installation:
SOURCE Interactive Arts Festival Maui Hawaii February 2009. This event is a four day gathering sort of like a mini Burning Man for Maui Hawaii. Approximately 500 people will attend.

Concept:
The swatches of color projected on the wall do not change color, only the background changes color. However, the individual swatches will seem to change color. This is an effect of our eyes called simultaneous contrast. Additional effects that will enlighten the user are halation (the brilliance and luminosity achieved with specific combinations and steps of mixed color).

Budget/Materials: $3000
All materials will be purchased used or at reduced cost where possible
Wii gaming System: $300.
4000 lumin Projector: $1400
8’ x 8’ screen: $200
Laptop computer: $400
Frosted Plexiglas: $400
Construction materials (hinges, locks, screws, paint): $300

The primary wall will be made of a screen (8'x8') projected upon from the backside. The screen will be filled with imagery similar to the color website I created called colorisrelative.com.

The interaction will be possible by reverse engineering a Wii gaming system. Johnny Lee at the Ted Conference explains how to do this.

Future:
A Color Box will be reusable and mobile. Following SOURCE, A Color Box will be available to show at other festivals and schools.

I need your help to make this happen. Visit the demo page for A Color Box to donate.

Thank you!
Gabe

.: : . .Dehumidifier. . . .

I live in Hai'ku.

This is one of the wettest climates one can live in. We are in the jungle. We keep telling people that and they think we mean we live in trees.

Some out here do live in trees or dug into the side of a hill. But most of us, we have houses, regular homes with roofs, doors, and windows. We even have appliances. But we do live in the jungle.

I have a King bed, carpet, a gas kitchen, a back porch surrounded by green of every shade, a stream behind the house and a bathroom with two shower heads--- the house and the location are amazing.

Except it's dank. Everything is dank. In upcountry Maui, when you are on the hilltops, or perched somehow to receive sun, it all dries out in the daytime. But in Haiku, on Holokai Rd., it can rain for weeks and never get sun. We are in the valley-- better known as a gulch- where the earth resembles a digestive system, everything is decomposing.

If I leave the refrigerator open for a few minutes, water drips from the seams. Anything in the closet that doesn't get washed every week starts to get digested by tiny earthen filaments floating in from the jungle outside my windows. My favorite photographs of my birthday last year and my nieces are molding.

Yesterday, someone mentioned to me that their friend had gotten mold in their lungs. They had to move to Kihei where it's dry. My roommate Jessica works with Malik, one of the leading nutrition and Chinese medicine specialists, who told her when she moved in that she couldn't stay. As I went to bed, the smell of mold crept up from my sheets and pillows. I sprinkled an essential oil of pine on the bed and went to sleep determined to be done with this.

So today, I fixed the dryer upstairs and I bought a dehumidifier.

Everything is different.

The dehumidifier has been on since 4pm (8 hours) and I have emptied about 100 pints of water. My thumbs are bleeding from wrench and metal scratches from installing the dryer. Right now the dehumidifier is in the closet, shooting hot air through the dank clothes.

I am realizing how completely sensitive I am to my environment.

I have lived here for 11 months. I moved in when the rainy season was just ending. That is what I was told. Now, I am told that the rainy season is just beginning.

My questions are:

• Why haven't I gotten mold in my lungs? How would I know if I did?
  
• If I haven't, at what point is this all mind over matter?
  
• Why have I been fine for 11 months? Am I just running the dehumidifier out of fear?
• What else have I been neglecting?
  

I've looked for a dehumidifier on craigslist for 3 months, starting when my new housemates, Jen and Jessica, moved into the house upstairs, and we started a cleanse for a month. Today, I finally went to Lowes (much better than Home Depot) and purchased the remaining dryer component and the dehumidifier.

Plants sprouting mushrooms
My room has been dank for months
I live in Haiku

Cleanse and Rejuvenate: Day 22

Getting close to the finish line.
Tomorrow is all water. No supplements. No lemon. No nothing.
It's been raining everyday out here in Haiku. I was thinking of heading to Hana and getting a hotel for the night, but I don't want to be out there in the rain. Instead, I'll head to one of my favorite beaches out in La Perouse Bay for a day of quiet. I'll bring my tent and sleeping bag and attempt to camp.
The beach I'm headed to is serene. Maybe I'll get lucky and call in some dolphins.

All water. I'll pack some Inca Berries and maybe some apples and nuts for Thursday morning.
I'm looking forward to a latte in a couple of days.

Cleanse and Rejuvenate: Day 17 (something positive)

I don't mean to be a grouch about it. I feel great. I just don't feel like totally amazing and uber clear and like super man.

So what have I learned that you might find useful?

1. Yams. Sweet Potatoes man. Super good for you. In fact, they contain protein, vitamins, minerals, tons of good stuff-- they contain enough to live on alone. Not that you would, but if you are not into yams, get into em. AND they are tasty.
   
2. Olive oil is AMAZING for you-- but I knew that-- BUT DON'T ALWAYS HEAT OLIVE OIL. Heating oils makes oils bad-- artery clogging bad, free radical bad. And the solution is easy, heat your veggies in a pan with water or bake them and then pour the olive oil onto it. Olive oil is the only oil that actually reduces the bad fat in your body.
   
3. Soak your nuts. (insert Beavis and Butthead chuckle here). When you soak almonds in water overnight they turn out pretty good. And they have turned slightly into a sprout. Sprouts are good for you. This one I have heard over and over and it resonates with my intuition-- sprouting food is like eating a little spark of life energy. In the morning, just drain them and add them to cereal, snack em...
   
4. Best Sweetener: Maple Syrup. It's got lots of minerals and stuff. Just don't use processed sugar. Processed sugar strips the goods out of you.
   
5. Salt and sodium do not cause heart disease. OK, this one, I bet is well contested by the medical community. According to my raw food class, table salt is responsible for high blood pressure. Sea Salt and Himalayan salt are healthy alternatives. Clearly there is something right here-- we need salt to live.
   
6. Recipe for Healthy Tasty Salsa: throw into a food processor-- 4 tomatoes, small onion, garlic clove, small jalepeno, dash of apple cider vinegar, bunch of cilantro... blend for a couple of seconds. Add some avocado up in that mix. Mmmmmm. Yum.
   
7. Wheat is kind of bad, sprouted wheat is WAY better. Sprouted grain breads are available at any food store. Ezekial 4:9 is my favorite and they make a good cereal too that is sprouted.

I've tried to convince my roommate Jessica, who is the Teacher Assistant, that Malik needs to have a blog. I'm sure his info would be much better.

Cleanse and Rejuvenate: Day 17

No alcohol, no coffee, no heated oils, no dairy, no meat, no wheat, no smoke.

The gist of the cleanse our house is on through Chinese herbalist Malik of the Dragon's Den in Makawao, HI is a lot of "no's".

The first week focused on cleansing the liver, followed by the kidneys and we have just entered the lungs. We've also had a number of days of just raw-- nothing cooked.

The benefit of a raw diet is explained as such: raw foods generally contain enzymes in their natural state that aid in their digestion.

I've been cheating on the no tobacco, but otherwise have been hardcore. At this point, I am completing the cleanse for the same reason I climbed to the top of Mt. Whitney-- The satisfaction of completion, to get to the finish line. To say I did it, I did it fully, so I don't have to do it again.

Do you sense a little edge? Perhaps I'm edgy.

Day 23 is all water. The last day is integration-- fruits, veggies.

I'm appreciating that I like balance, I like meat, I like a drink...

Enigma of the Mill

If you have visited Maui, at some point, when you were crossing from the Kihei side to the Hana side, you probably cut through the sugar mill on Pu'unene Rd. Or should I say Poo Poo Nay Nay. Anyone who lives here in Maui knows the awful stench of sewage that the cane fields around the Sugar Mill sometimes reek of. Beyond the smell, the entire operation is strange. The second engima to me is this: How can this land can still afford to grow cane when the real estate market all around is skyrocketing property values? Every season the cane fields are burnt down sending smoke and ash snow across the island. The mill itself stands in almost the geographical center of Maui, alone among cane fields, the rusted factory looms with its smoke tower exhaust as a relic of a bygone era . Today we often forget that our own cars' engines are machines of gears, cranks, hoses and pistons. In the movie "Enigma of the Mill" now showing at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center, Tom Sewell takes us inside the mill. The movie has the feel of Blade Runner and Mad Max. The machinery is awesome. What I think is so powerful about this work is this: there truly is so much that is going on under the hood. There are people here, putting together metal in ways that don't require I know computer science to understand. Its a kid's dream of big trucks and things that go. The Enigma of the Mill never explains why the cane stinks so much, or how they get away with the awful burning, in fact it doesn't explain much, it just opens the hood and we get to see a powerful and beautiful display that reveals: there is no magic happening here, it's just big cranks and gears kept running by men. And that is what is magic about it.