The Mozilla Labs* DemoParty is an upcoming online competition to foster artful development and exploration of Open Web technologies, taking inspiration from the classic DemoScene.

On March 30th 2011, 7pm, Tobias Leingruber** from Mozilla Labs and F.A.T. will present this project together with 2 special guests (TBA), and dive with us into the DemoScene culture and Open Web technology. Join us for a fun evening and free Pizza + Beer!

*Mozilla Labs is a virtual lab where people come together to create, experiment, and play with new Web innovations and technologies.
Crazy ideas and inspirations are encouraged as we all explore and experiment with brand new ideas in whole new ways. Mozilla Labs is about inspiring and harnessing the intelligence, wisdom, and energy of the Mozilla community; let’s imagine the future of the Web, and then let’s build it together.

**Tobias Leingruber (@tbx) is an artist and communication designer, researching in viral media, popular culture, amateur aesthetics and the future of the web.
As an advocate for openness and freedom online he has worked with many artists and organisations including the F.A.T. Lab, Artzilla.org and Mozilla. Best known for Pirates of the Amazon, Skate the Web and his latest work FB Resistance, he has exhibited work worldwide and has been covered by the NY Times, LA Times, Wired, Spiegel, 3sat(TV) and Liberation.fr.

The Madagascar Institute is an awesome art/build/make/catch-on-fire space and we’re about to move a lot closer to them. This video made by the Motherboard team is a great introduction to them. Make sure to check out their classes!

We’re at the end of our 2 year lease at NYCResistor. We’ve grown out of our space. Classes are almost always full, the heat isn’t on on the weekends, and the walls are stacked high with projects. It’s been time to move for a while and now it’s official. We’ve signed the papers and given notice and we’re moving to an awesome new space.

The new space is really awesome. It’s about 10 blocks away from our current location and two blocks from the Atlantic Street station which is convenient for pretty much every train ever. It is almost 3x the space with two main rooms and a bunch of smaller rooms. There is a place for a kitchen although there is no kitchen in that place. We will have our own bathroom. The laser gets its own room. There is a loft already there and an archway. There is a stage with lots of room for presentations and probably an audience of 100-150. The ceilings are tin. There will be more room for more awesome.

The downsides are that there is no passenger elevator (only a very old freight elevator) and that the space needs a lot of work to get to be the cozy space we want it to be. There aren’t concrete floors like our current space, but there is a fire escape and sprinklers in the event of an emergency which is an upgrade from our current space. We get to control the heat, but we have to pay for it.

We’re excited about the possibilities and freaked out by the amount of money it is going to cost us to move so stay tuned for a fund-raising post. Over all, we’re thrilled to make more space for more hacking in 2010! We have to be out of our current place by the first of March, so expect the last two weeks of February to be a little busy in terms of our schedule. If you’ve got questions, drop them in the comments and we’ll try and answer them!

MakerBot grew out of the friendships forged at NYCResistor and is going to be in the best art show of the 21st century. It’s called Bits ‘N Pieces and it’ll be at Material Connexion starting on Thursday.

DATES: November 4 – December 4, 2009
HOURS: Monday – Friday, 9am – 6pm
LOCATION: Material ConneXion 60 Madison Avenue, 2nd Floor New York, NY 10010 T. 212-842-2050
NEAREST SUBWAYS: #6 at 28th and Park / NRW at 28th and Broadway.

Bits ‘n Pieces is a traveling exhibition of work by international designers, architects, computer scientists, and material and technology researchers. It will showcase projects still in their development stage, as well as furniture, architecture, jewelry, graphic design and products that anticipate the next phase of the digital revolution, focusing on how society is imbued with, shaped by and shapes technology. This new era will be marked by increased awareness about, and accessibility of, continuously advancing technologies and materials and the changes that we will be making in our lives through them will be not just formal but structural, not merely aesthetic but substantive, changing how we actually think about, design and build our objects and space. What will life look like based on changes that are sometimes visible to the public and sometimes invisible?

Read on for the conceptual essay. (It’s good) Continue reading »

Noisebridge, a hackerspace in San Francisco, is awesome. It’s a very open and wonderfully chaotic space. I have been co-hacking from here while in town and it’s got a fantastic vibe. This picture shows about half of the space. Behind me are two classrooms, a kitchen, a server room, bathroom and more rooms being built out. They have one rule: “be excellent to each other.”

I took a bunch of pictures. Check them all out!