Apparently When we decided to ‘tweet’ it caused The End of Days.

is this a bad sign?

Aicher’s LC chaps me as well- I am quite the lazy typist and will either ride the CAPS lock or just not bother with the big’ns.

Incidentally, Aicher’s lowercase bugs the hell out of me, but not as much as his ridiculous paragraph divisions. Or lack thereof.

The all lowercase gambit actually comes from Herbert Bayer of the Bauhaus. If you’re not aware of his work, you should look it up. I think you’d like some of it. In his later years after fleeing Germany, he worked in Colorado (I believe) and designed, among many things, the World Geo-Graphic Atlas. It rips.

twitter.com/obstructures

Lowercase? Guess I have been reading too much Aicher. Still capitalizing properly at least so I have not completely lost my mind.

Chair is an evolution of the Stasi prototype, although I doubt it will be covered in a camo tarp. It’s not strong enough without a substructure- and then it would just be decoration as I do not plan to have cushions on this one. It warrants a discussion about seat material. I hope to get the structure down to 1/4” bar stock to make it lighter. Probably go stainless as well. In the spirit of introducing new projects to all I instigated this discussion on NOW! from here on out anyone interested in the project can discuss via email and eventually SKYPE.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen you type in lowercase.

I’ll try to get my ideas for the Signage project into some decent sketches — in the event we have time to discuss multiple projects. Which is doubtful, all things considered.

Am I right in thinking these chair drawings are an extension of the Stasi?

YEP- a study in form and dimension. I about have it. Its the connections and structure for seating surface that I need to work out. I will bring drawings to CHICAGO this weekend to discuss.

Rippin’ mailbox, Matt. Are the chair sketches different proportional studies? At first glance they look to be very similar in terms of connections and such.

CUSTOM MAILBOX FOR THE HH3 LASER CUT FROM STAINLESS

ABOUT TO UPDATE THE FURNITURE SECTION TO INCLUDE ALL OF THE OSB NOTCHED PROJECTS. WOULDN’T MIND ATTEMPTING TO MAKE HIGHER QUALITY VERSIONS FROM PLYWOOD.

New chair design to discuss.

4am run to the Tri-cities area to deliver guitar to buyer after his car suffered a catastrophic radiator failure. Looks like our guitars come with roadside assistance.

The quest for the Bloody Cock has begun.

Miseroo

LÉ TEX

Steer or queer?

Obstructuroo is on. Bitches.

PALLET SHELTER TRANSPLANTED TO PARKRIDGE COMMUNITY GARDEN (AUGMENTED BY ARCH425’09)

HH3 DWELLING ALMOST COMPLETE. AWAITING FINAL INSPECTION FOR OCCUPANCY.

MACHINING IS DONE!

Interesting read on collective decision making.

FYI: The new CMS is pretty sluggish right now. Bear with me as I’m working on it.

It’s been too long coming, but I have a NEW and IMPROVED content management system in the works. Hopefully it will make adding content to the site a bit more intuitive, and less of a trauma. You can dick around with the new system here: NEW CMS.

Anything you do to this system will NOT affect the current site.

NEW FEATURES:

Click directly on any white text to edit it. (not implemented yet for project names, but will be in the future)

The order of projects, images, and text can be changed by dragging and dropping them.

Now you can delete or change shit after you’ve uploaded it.

If you happen to completely tear shit up, let me know and I’ll roll back the testing content.

I’m home this afternoon, and tomorrow afternoon if we want to Skype. Tonight I’m at dinner with Barb’s family.

An arty one.

Images from ITC experiment 1. No known anomolies, but interesting images nonetheless.

ARE YOU SURE ITS NOT A PENGUIN?

It’s a loon, my friend.

NATE- type for BARB looks good- what is the meaning of the DUCK, or is it a PENGUIN?

If you’re having trouble downloading the FTP links in Firefox 3 (getting a message about your Security Zone Policy), take a look here.

PROPOSAL FOR TRASH OBSTACLES-

HERE

I know you guys don’t do much with lettering, but I’m working on a mark for Barb’s greeting card business, if anyone has any comments/criticism.

PDF is here.

Mankind produces allot of trash.

Out waste is placed in a receptacle, and disappears to far of lands only to end up in hidden rubbish heaps. It is no longer our immediate problem once it is placed in the bin.

We do not have to deal with the actual trash, but the indirect consequences of our waste in a way that does not allow us to make the connection between cause and effect. We are drowning in the consequences of our wasteful lifestyle. Indirectly our garbage is an obstruction to our progress, our environment, and our lives.

This festival could potentially have 80,000 attendees this summer. That is potentially a hell of allot of trash. This waste will be handled by others once it leaves the user’s hands, be it simply trashed or recycled, one no longer has to deal with it. OBSTRUCTURES seeks to create something from this trash.

What if for three days the attendees were forced to deal with their waste? What if the trash became a physical obstruction? Walls blocking circulation, and views- plastic bottles flattened and covering massive areas of ground- mazes of six foot high stacked paper products- a life size “Jenga” game of compacted refuse.

Can we turn obstructions in useful structures? Can the same walls that hold us back be re-configured to create seating, shelter, and space?

OBSTRUCTURES seeks to blur the boundaries between obstruction and structure, observer and participator- gathering, cataloging and assembling massive amounts of material waste and converting it into modular units. OBSTRUCTURES will create obstacles from these units as if one’s trash has come back in a bigger and badder form to confront society. The attendees will either be contained by the walls we create of they can choose to reconfigure or break them down to turn obstruction into structure.

Our site will consist of a central staging ground made from garbage collected from nearby areas and erected before the festival begins. From this point our team will branch out and collect waste only to return to the staging area to convert it into more course masonry objects to be stacked and connected. OBSTRUCTURES will develop a catalog of moves using appropriate and low-tech connections to combine common types of garbage into more manageable units htrough a sort of ad-hoc compaction process into orthogonal structural shapes.

OBSTRUCTURES will then branch out creating mobile installations opportunistically and at will. Our site will be the entire festival, and our endeavors will only be limited by the amount of waste produced.

Our goal is to force the attendee to interact with their garbage, in the hopes of forging a new relationship between mankind and waste.

Nate sucks

A few months ago, I mentioned the possibility of moving this site to a new host. I’ve been in conversation with a potential hosting service, and it looks like we may be moving soon. I apologize for not getting this sorted before we launched.

I’ve been with our current host for a couple of years, and have no problem with them — but I’d like to start using a host that’s 100% carbon neutral. As far as I know, the host we’re on now has no immediate plans to move in that direction.

What this means to you guys: for Dave and Shane, probably nothing. For Matt and Joe: you’ll have to move your email messages over to the the new server once it’s up. This isn’t difficult, and I’ll walk you through it. I’m planning on having a month of overlap between the 2 hosts. This will give me time to move files, and set up the new server. And give you guys time to move emails. Web service should be uninterrupted throughout.

The host I’m looking at is GoodAvocado if you want to check them out. And if you have any questions/concerns, please let me know.

When you click a link, is the page trying to load? I don’t recall what the loading graphic is in Mac FF, but it’ll be a spinning something or other, or text down in the bottom left of your window, in that status bar.

If it’s trying to load, my guess is that either you’re on a slow network (this happens to me at NEIU), or there may be some issue with the Javascript being parsed in your browser.

If it’s totally dead, with no attempt to load a page, let me know. Because I don’t know why that would happen, and I’ll have to look into it.

Count me in for the installation. I should be able to come down to TN for set up. I’d be happy to discuss of email, skype, etc. Maybe I can get down to Knoxville for a work session or two as well.

I have been invited to construct an installation (time and space) for this years massive music festival in southern TN (it will remain nameless in this forum). The budget is good, and it will happen june 11-14, with a few days of set up time before the event. I can have a team of 5-6. The installation must be “interactive”- we are to assume no power, just an open field and potentially 80,000 or more people will be exposed to it. Let me know if any of you are interested, or if you want to at least toss around ideas.

I’ve been having some trouble on the site- half the time I click on something, nothing happens. After about 10 more clicks sometimes I get a response, but in most cases I must refresh. Anyone else having issues?

Uh, another slight web-based fuck-up. On the NOW! page, links to the FTP site (ftp:// addresses) should only work for co-op members who are currently logged into the site. Other links (http:// addresses) should work for everyone, logged in or not.

I noticed today that all links were dead for visitors not logged-in. If you notice that links are still snafu, please let me know.

Thanks, and apologies for the continued annoyance.

Thanks. Did you say the lasercutter at UT can cut wood? How thick? If it’ll do a 1/4”, I can send you a CAD file that will create a stomachion and a tangram out of any piece of wood that’s 3 times as long as it is wide. Cutting that bitch on a table saw was a nightmare—I’m lucky to still have all my digits.

NATE- THE TOY IS EXCELLENT. I WANT TO PLAY WITH IT.

Actually, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference which site you use to add content. So don’t worry if you added content to the dev site. And if anyone needs access to the dev URL, let me know and I can add your IP.

I’m noticing that dev.obstructures.org and tw.eightyproof.com(!?) are both getting a lot of hits for some reason. As of today, I’m redirecting everyone except my IP to www.obstructures.org. If you’re giving out a URL to folks, please give them the www.obstructures.org address. Also, if you’re adding new content, please be sure you’re adding it to the www address, not the dev. Though this should be impossible now that all IPs are blocked.

My apologies if I didn’t make this clear. Thanks.

New project for young’ns.

Lemme know what you think. (i.e. changes to text, images, get this fucking thing off the site, etc.)

DRYWALL-SCAPE ARCH-425 INSTALLATION. THE BENCH IS MADE FROM DRYWALL!

Eh, just so you know, the email notification in the NOW! entry is slightly broken. Nor does it send to everyone’s ‘updated’ email addresses.

There were some issues with Internet Explorer earlier today. I hope you guys don’t associate with lazy douchebags who still use IE. But I think they’re fixed now anyway. I don’t think IE can experience all the dragging/resizing bullshit however. I’ll try to find a way to cobble/hack that together shortly. Of course, let me know if anything else needs fixing.

IT’S GREAT TO BE LIVE. CAN WE CELEBRATE 04/14 AS “WWW-DAY” NEXT YEAR? WE CAN PLAY DARTS OR SOMETHING- MAYBE EVEN HAVE SOME SNACKS AND SOFT DRINKS.

I PAINTED TODAY. I ADDED CONTENT.

TABLE

I PAINTED TODAY. I ADDED CONTENT.

TABLE

ACTUAL RECORD WILL BE ACTUAL SOON.

HERE WE GO AGAIN. DRY WALL IS UP. NO PICS OF THAT YET- ITS JUST WHITE STUFF ANYWAYS.

Sorry Matt. Image upload was fuct. It’s fixed now.

Damn

Is the image upload broken?

ALL MOST COMPLETE. STUCCO IS DONE, FRAMING IS COMPLETE. DRYWALL AND FINAL HVAC ARE UNDERWAY.

I think the image size is 300 x 250. Are your images getting cropped — or just resized?

Time to quit smoking.

WHAT IS THE MAXIMUM SIZE IMAGE FOR THESE NOW POSTINGS- I SEE THAT SOME OF MINE ARE GETTING CROPPED.

Excellent.

PALLET SHELTER PROTOTYPE UNDER CONSTRUCTION IN JOE’S BACKYARD.

YES, IT HAPPENS TO ME AS WELL- WHICH IS NO PROBLEM. IT MAKES IT CLEAR THAT ITS A LINK FOR THOSE WHO ARE NOT IN THE KNOW.

Got it. Thanks, Matt. I noticed that the HTML tags show up in the email from the NOW entry. Does this happen to you too? If so, I’ll fix it. If not, then it’s my own email settings.

NATE- HERE ARE IMAGES AND TEXT FOR THE MANEUVERS SECTION.

MANEUVERS

ITS FOR A CANOPY.

PROJECTING BEAM. DON’T WORRY IT HAS A PURPOSE.

DOUBLE-SPAN DECK IN PLACE

Bollocks. I think my last Now entry got sent to everyone’s TW account. Sorry for the junk emails — just want to see of this works.

Most of the fuck-ups you may have seen in IE6 should be fixed. The ‘grab bar’ that resizes images in the portfolio section is still a little jacked. And I changed the link to the Home page that was in Now, Personnel, and Maneuvers. If you notice anything else, please let me know.

I love standards compliance.

STEEL HAS ARRIVED

ITS AN IMAGE OF A BRILLIANT STRUCTURE IN FLIMS SWITZERLAND BY VALERIO OLGIATI. I AM NOT SURE IF THIS IS A CONSTRUCTION SHOT OR JUST MAINTENANCE. ITS CALLED “THE YELLOW HOUSE”- ITS NOT ACTUALLY YELLOW NOW, BUT IT USED TO BE. ITS NOT A HOUSE EITHER, BUT IT IS IN FACT THE FIRST PICTURE I HAD AVAILABLE ON MY DESKTOP FOR JOE’S “HOW TO POST A NOW ENTRY IMAGE TUTORIAL”

What is that?

JOE AND I WORK HARD

ROUND LOGO?

AND THE BLOCKS KEEP PILING UP.

3

Msg 2

CELL

Hmm.

4TH DAY OF LAYING UP BLOCKS.

Cell test

OBSTRUCTURES is an “anti-diciplinary” design practice that seeks to blur and overlap architectural, graphic and industrial design through the creation and execution of moves, or “maneuvers” that apply to various scales approaches, and disciplines within the group.

Foobar

One more pile.

More garbage

Garbage. ==================================================================

Does this cron job work?

Sent to nowfeed@obstructures.org from my cell phone.

My bad. I fucked up the order of the Now! history. Won’t happen again.

//FRANKSINATRADESIGNANDASS// IS DEFINITELY MY FAVORITE. SO I LOGGED ON TO THE FTP, COULDN’T MAKE SENSE OF ANY OF THAT HTML GIBBERISH. I’LL NEED A TUTORIAL, MAYBE VIA SKYPE LATER THIS WEEK WHEN THERE IS TIME.

IN OTHER NEWS, HH3 IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION- BLOCK WILL BE COMPLETELY ERECTED BY THE END OF THIS WEEK.

THE NEW YEAR IS UPON US. SEEK AND DESTROY.

Bio Image error is fixed. Sorry for the sloppy code.

BIO IMAGE POSTING GIVING ME ERROR MESSAGE

NOW.

No, right now it goes to the obstructures.org emails.

SO IF I CHECK THE BOX “NOTIFY OBSTRUCTURES” WILL IT SEND THEM A MESSAGE TO THE TACTICALWORKS.US EMAILS?

That rips. I think I’ll be home Wednesday during the day, but I’ll be teaching that night. Friday I should be home during the day as well. And Tuesday/Thursday evening. If you want to Skype.

Thank god for content. Hopefully we’ll have a container for it that isn’t hopelessly broken.

IT IS 06:54 AM AND I AM PUMPING CONTENT.

‘more quotes’

Crapper John

Where's my effing ID number?

working again?

three

damn

two

one