Up at 08:00. Freshened up and had a bite to eat before heading down to the Kumquat at 09:30. Worked on some email and a rather lengthy blog entry. Eda was supposed to meet me to talk about a kaleidoscope project she was going to start. She finally called at 11:15 to tell me that she wouldn't be able to make it. Wrapped up and headed back to the house.
Everyone was up and hanging out in the kitchen. Michael informed us that Alphan Vardarli, an İstanbul artist who was interested in working with us would be by around noon. Cleaned up and got my G5 out and set up temporarily with my tabletop perched precariously on top of my flight case. Alphan turned up a little bit later with a number of sketch books, a DVD and some HI8 footage to share with us. For the past two years he has been filling sketchbooks with calligraphic drawings made to music. His DVD and footage showed overhead views of him working to Replıkas, a Turkish rock band. The work had some very nice moments but overall showed its youth. Michael recommended that Alphan come and take our VJ course. He seemed interested but balked a little when he heard how much it would cost. Taking the course was thrown out as a sort pre-requisite to a true collaboration with the three of us. We all expressed interest in working with Alphan in the future. We all had different ideas on tweaks that might improve the work. Michael wanted to set up a motorized paper roll to replace the sketchbook format. I thought the work would be more interesting done with brush and ink or a brush pen. Some of the work done with large markers was very lush, but the thin marker work really showed the limitations of the medium.
A visit from Turkish artist Alphan Vardarli.
Michael took Renee out for lunch. fALk and I headed out to get groceries. Had a lunch of cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, brown bread and goat cheese. Hooked fALk's G5 up to my Cinema Display to make sure that his rig was still working. Everything checked out fine except for the Artificial Eye logo which seemed to have had it's pupil removed. fALk fiddled around with it for a bit before deciding that he would have to rebuild it. The four of us then headed out to see if we could find plastic crates at Bauhaus (think Home Depot). Had a long slow drive over to the Asian side of the city. Things picked up after we paid the 3 YTL toll at the far side of the bridge. We overshot Bauhaus. Think we would have gone on for quite a ways if I hadn't noticed that we were passing a shopping with a store called Bauhaus in it. Noticed a computer shop as we were getting off the highway. Finally pulled into the Bauhaus parking lot after navigating a series of small unmarked roads. Bauhaus was enormous. The prices were nothing special, but there was about every kind of home improvement item you could want or care to think about. We found the exact boxes that Michael had in mind. They were a good price at 4.20 YTL. Picked up a five-shelf metal mesh case for my room. Headed over to find the Vatan computer store. It had an even more obfuscated entrance. Prices seemed just a bit higher than those in the US or Germany. fALk was in need of a monitor, but opted not to pick one up. Looked around at mice, laser printers, UPSs, cell phones and searched in vain for a plain router. Ended up with three ethernet cables.
Heading to the Asian side of Istanbul. The other end of the bridge is on continental Asia. Looking down on Ortaköy and the Bosphorus.
On our way to Bauhaus (think Home Depot). Vatan means father in Turkish.
Had a long drive back in equally thick traffic. Got everything upstairs and began to assemble our desks. Secured the collapsable boxes with zip ties and stacked them three high at each end of the tabletop. I left one end of each of my top boxes open so I could store some small stuff in them but still be able to access them without having to pull the top off to get to the boxes.
Michael setting up some of the collapsable plastic boxes that would form table legs for our desks. The group rearranging the office.
Willow left to join Ali for an evening of theater. Headed down toward the Kumquat to get some dinner with Michael, Renee and fALk around 20:30. fALk left with Renee when we finished in order to work on the Artificial Eye logo. Michael and I stayed at the Kumquat and got our online fix. Fulya came by a bit later with a story about her roommate calling her freaked out that the lock on the main entry to their building had been rekeyed. Fulya wasn't sure if she would sure if she would be able to get into her house. Played around with her phone for a bit. She thought it had bluetooth, but it only had Infrared and GPRS. None of the new Powerbooks have IR ports so I offered to see if we could get it to talk to one of the computers back a the house. We all headed out a bit later. When we got home fALk was a bit freaked out that one frame of his 1K render of the Eye logo for print was going to take a week on his computer. Spent the next hour trying to get mental ray satellite installed, configured and running. Finally got it all hooked up but got black tiles back from my computer. Spent the next while going through each of the computers that appeared to have an IR port to try and get them to talk to Fulya's phone. No joy with any of them. Fulya decided she would see if she could get into her apartment. I walked her over to her house. One of her neighbors was up and hanging out at his window. He was kind enough to let her in. Went back home and talked with Michael until 02:00.
Everyone was up and hanging out in the kitchen. Michael informed us that Alphan Vardarli, an İstanbul artist who was interested in working with us would be by around noon. Cleaned up and got my G5 out and set up temporarily with my tabletop perched precariously on top of my flight case. Alphan turned up a little bit later with a number of sketch books, a DVD and some HI8 footage to share with us. For the past two years he has been filling sketchbooks with calligraphic drawings made to music. His DVD and footage showed overhead views of him working to Replıkas, a Turkish rock band. The work had some very nice moments but overall showed its youth. Michael recommended that Alphan come and take our VJ course. He seemed interested but balked a little when he heard how much it would cost. Taking the course was thrown out as a sort pre-requisite to a true collaboration with the three of us. We all expressed interest in working with Alphan in the future. We all had different ideas on tweaks that might improve the work. Michael wanted to set up a motorized paper roll to replace the sketchbook format. I thought the work would be more interesting done with brush and ink or a brush pen. Some of the work done with large markers was very lush, but the thin marker work really showed the limitations of the medium.
A visit from Turkish artist Alphan Vardarli.
Michael took Renee out for lunch. fALk and I headed out to get groceries. Had a lunch of cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, brown bread and goat cheese. Hooked fALk's G5 up to my Cinema Display to make sure that his rig was still working. Everything checked out fine except for the Artificial Eye logo which seemed to have had it's pupil removed. fALk fiddled around with it for a bit before deciding that he would have to rebuild it. The four of us then headed out to see if we could find plastic crates at Bauhaus (think Home Depot). Had a long slow drive over to the Asian side of the city. Things picked up after we paid the 3 YTL toll at the far side of the bridge. We overshot Bauhaus. Think we would have gone on for quite a ways if I hadn't noticed that we were passing a shopping with a store called Bauhaus in it. Noticed a computer shop as we were getting off the highway. Finally pulled into the Bauhaus parking lot after navigating a series of small unmarked roads. Bauhaus was enormous. The prices were nothing special, but there was about every kind of home improvement item you could want or care to think about. We found the exact boxes that Michael had in mind. They were a good price at 4.20 YTL. Picked up a five-shelf metal mesh case for my room. Headed over to find the Vatan computer store. It had an even more obfuscated entrance. Prices seemed just a bit higher than those in the US or Germany. fALk was in need of a monitor, but opted not to pick one up. Looked around at mice, laser printers, UPSs, cell phones and searched in vain for a plain router. Ended up with three ethernet cables.
Heading to the Asian side of Istanbul. The other end of the bridge is on continental Asia. Looking down on Ortaköy and the Bosphorus.
On our way to Bauhaus (think Home Depot). Vatan means father in Turkish.
Had a long drive back in equally thick traffic. Got everything upstairs and began to assemble our desks. Secured the collapsable boxes with zip ties and stacked them three high at each end of the tabletop. I left one end of each of my top boxes open so I could store some small stuff in them but still be able to access them without having to pull the top off to get to the boxes.
Michael setting up some of the collapsable plastic boxes that would form table legs for our desks. The group rearranging the office.
Willow left to join Ali for an evening of theater. Headed down toward the Kumquat to get some dinner with Michael, Renee and fALk around 20:30. fALk left with Renee when we finished in order to work on the Artificial Eye logo. Michael and I stayed at the Kumquat and got our online fix. Fulya came by a bit later with a story about her roommate calling her freaked out that the lock on the main entry to their building had been rekeyed. Fulya wasn't sure if she would sure if she would be able to get into her house. Played around with her phone for a bit. She thought it had bluetooth, but it only had Infrared and GPRS. None of the new Powerbooks have IR ports so I offered to see if we could get it to talk to one of the computers back a the house. We all headed out a bit later. When we got home fALk was a bit freaked out that one frame of his 1K render of the Eye logo for print was going to take a week on his computer. Spent the next hour trying to get mental ray satellite installed, configured and running. Finally got it all hooked up but got black tiles back from my computer. Spent the next while going through each of the computers that appeared to have an IR port to try and get them to talk to Fulya's phone. No joy with any of them. Fulya decided she would see if she could get into her apartment. I walked her over to her house. One of her neighbors was up and hanging out at his window. He was kind enough to let her in. Went back home and talked with Michael until 02:00.
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