Tag Archives: Art

The Call to Climate Action

The science is in: climate change puts our entire civilization at risk, and scientists warn us that we only have 12 years to avoid a global catastrophe. Global warming has become the defining issue of our times, and it’s up to all of us to solve it.

And yet it seems most of us are still in a state of denial and are not doing enough to fight this climate crisis. A majority of Americans now think global warming is happening, but only 40% think that their own lives will be harmed by climate change, according to a recent Yale study.

Our main challenge is psychological: we are irrational creatures, swayed by our emotions, we don’t care much for facts, and our cognitive biases discount this urgent threat. Because we don’t feel the effects of global warming in our own lives, we assume it won’t happen to us and we don’t make the radical changes needed to turn this crisis around.

How can we help people overcome this psychological challenge and take climate action? Can creativity, playfulness and human connection make a difference?

Throughout 2018, I tried to answer those questions by organizing or participating in a series of art and activism events about climate change.

Here are a few that inspired me, because of the creative ways in which they engaged people to take climate action.

Earth Day 2018

I started this quest by co-producing Earth Day 2018 in Mill Valley last spring, hosting an afternoon of art, music and talks about protecting our environment, with hundreds of participants of all ages. Our community celebration featured the Art Float for Social Change, young singers like Emma Spike and the Twinkling Stars, musician Reed Fromer, informative speakers like Mark Squire and Crystal Chissel, young activists from the Marin School of Environmental Leadership, and environmental partners like Drawdown Marin and Sustainable San Rafael, to name but a few.

People told us they really enjoyed this event, its creative energy, and the combination of entertainment, information and community. Survey responses show they liked the art, music and meeting people the most, and also liked the partner tables and speakers. The majority of participants thought the event helped build a community of activists, promoted environmental causes, welcomed young people as citizens and helped each of us take action.

So this mix of art, information and personal connections seems really effective for stimulating personal and collective climate action. Kudos to our lead partners Eco Warriors of MVCAN, Good Earth, Tam Makers and Tamalpais High School for making this wonderful event possible!

Later in the year, I joined a number of other climate events that also broke new ground, each taking a slightly different stab at combining creativity, community and activism. Here are some of my observations, photos and videos of these promising innovations.

Art and Activism at the Climate March

Climate action took center stage in the Bay Area this September, as tens of thousands of people joined the inspiring Rise for Climate March in San Francisco, to coincide with California Governor Jerry Brown’s Global Climate Action Summit and thousands of affiliate events.

All around San Francisco’s City Hall, climate activists created some of the largest street murals ever made, covering five blocks of city streets with dozens of colorful scenes illustrating possible solutions to global warming and inspiring us to fight for climate justice.

Each mural was designed by a different community group, and painted on the ground in large 35-feet wide circles, with washable tempera paint. For example, the Sierra Club’s mural invited us to “Keep close to Nature’s heart”, while the UC Berkeley student mural asked that we bring on the light (“Fiat Lux”). See more mural photos in my Art and Climate Action album.

Everyone was welcome to join and it was a sight to behold. Participants ranged from veteran environmentalists to young activists, with very diverse backgrounds, coming together from all across California and beyond.

This wonderful blend of art, music and activism brought us closer together and engaged us to challenge our leaders to cut back on fossil fuels. Kudos to art director David Solnit and his team at 350.org for guiding the creation of these murals and many of the signs for this march — inspiring a diverse community of citizens of all ages by showing them how to make climate art.

Coal + Ice

A stimulating combination of art, science and politics took place at Coal + Ice, an amazing multimedia installation and event festival, held in September 2018 at the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in San Francisco.

Curated by Susan Meiselas and Jeroen de Vries, this large-scale exhibit visually traces the trajectory of climate change — from coal mines and the burning of fossil fuels to the melting Himalayan glaciers, rising sea level and extreme weather events — showing the costs of climate change through immersive images, videos and thought‐provoking events.

Coal + Ice featured the work of over 40 photographers and video artists, such as Gideon Mendel, who took moving photos of flood survivors in their homes, waist deep in water (see photo above). His “Drowning World” collection of submerged portraits explores the personal impact of climate change within a global context.

Clifford Ross’s monumental “Digital Wave 9” featured dramatic, computer-generated videos inspired by hurricane waves, displayed on two 18 x 18 foot LED walls. This pioneering artwork was mesmerizing and offered a powerful visual reflection on the impact of global warming (see video).

The Solutions Zone (shown above) displayed interactive exhibits about solving climate change, created by our friend Nancy Hechinger and the Humans Of Tomorrow design team at NYU ITP. Solutions on display included an algae globe that lights up when you breathe your CO2 into it, as well as solar silk and a playful waste recycling activity, all spread out in a bright room filled with natural light, plants, and optimism. View more photos and videos of our visit in my Coal + Ice album.

This amazing space was also used to host a wide range of events, including seminars, panels, symphony and opera. One event was an fascinating talk about Art, Activism, Activation on Wed. Sep. 5th, featuring conversations with artists and activists from #Dysturb, Magnum Foundation, and CultureStrike, discussing how art and culture can engage people to take climate action by reaching their hearts, not just their minds.

Another stimulating talk was the Long Conversation on September 9, featuring some really interesting speakers, such as Stewart Brand, Orville H. Schell, Peter Schwartz, Alexander Rose, Paul Hawken and many more leaders from the arts and sciences, discussing what our world may look like thousands of years from now.

Together, these Coal+Ice exhibits and events offered a stunning call for climate action, aiming to amplify the conversation about climate change, masterfully organized by the Asia Society. This visionary, multi-disciplinary production broke new ground in many ways, by touching our hearts and our minds to help us understand the scope of the problem and do something about it.

Youth-led Town Hall for Climate Action

Young activists from Generation Our Climate hosted an inspiring Town Hall for Climate Action in September 2018. They spoke passionately about the current state of our climate and the need for more environmental activism and education. I found them more effective in engaging us to take action than many adult speakers I have heard on this topic.

Watch this video of their full presentations, which I shot and edited so they could share their work with others — as well as develop their presentation skills.

These high school students have testified in front of state, county and city governments, urging them to adopt renewable energy policies and help consumers switch away from fossil fuels. Our own Mill Valley Mayor Stephanie Moulton-Peters has even asked them to consult on our city’s climate action plan.

Speakers included Nick Morgenstein, Milo Wetherall, Mimi Lawrence, Luci Paczkowski and Caroline Schurz, who study in different high schools in Marin — from San Domenico to Tam High and Branson. They were drawn together by shared concerns about climate change and a deep sense of responsibility for addressing this critical issue. Consider making a donation to support their work.

Their free town hall took place at the Mill Valley Community Center on Tuesday, Sep. 4, at 6pm, attracting a diverse group of citizens of all ages. View more photos in our ‘Generation Our Climate’ album, which also include pictures of their protest at the Climate March (see below).

Kudos to their mentors Daniel Heagerty and Donna Rogers Lawrence for coaching them, with multimedia support from yours truly. I volunteer for these young leaders because of their commitment to curb climate change, and to take responsibility for our world.

I think young activists can play a very important role in engaging people to take climate action. They usually speak from the heart about protecting their future, and can be quite effective in getting governments to support good environmental policies. They can also inspire other young people to join our cause — and nudge their own parents to change their ways. 🙂

Resilient Neighborhoods

Recently, I joined the wonderful climate action workshops led by Tamra Peters and her team at Resilient Neighborhoods in Marin County. I am really impressed by this unique program, which supports both individual and collective climate action, combining behavior change, practical information and team interaction in a playful way.

Their free workshops work a bit like Weight Watchers, helping people reduce their household’s carbon footprint by gradually changing their consumption habits and tracking their progress. And they add a creative twist: workshop participants get to work as a team, scoring points together, based on their combined reductions of CO2 emissions. Each workshop team picks a fun name like “Creekside De-Carbonators” (our team’s name), or “Gerstle Park Carbonnaughts” (Tamra’s team, see photo above). Teams from different workshops compete informally with each other for bragging rights about who reduced the most carbon and scored the most resilience points.

But the real winner is the public: altogether, over a thousand people have reduced over 6 million pounds of annual CO2 emissions in Marin. That’s enough to keep an acre of Arctic Sea ice from melting every year — or taking over 800 homes off the grid permanently!

Besides offering a very creative and effective on-ramp for people to take climate action, they now have a large group of trained activists who can coach others to do the same in our area. I hope we can help them scale this invaluable program, so more people can benefit from it.

In December, Tamra and her husband Bill Carney hosted a fun holiday party with community members in their lovely home (see above). We celebrated all their achievements with a wonderful group of environmentalists and activists, who are working hard to help solve climate change in our area. See more party photos in our Resilient Neighborhoods album.

The party also featured sing-alongs with the Freedom Singers, a political singing group led by my climate mentor Marilyn Price, with Greg Brockbank and Wayne Lechner. We joined our voices together to sing classic tunes for a better world, as well as original songs like ‘One Small Planet’ by Dave Fromer. This fun activity is another example of how art and music can engage people to take action, as you can see in these videos of other Freedom Singers performances, and in the Earth Day photo below.

Insights

After reviewing all these promising approaches to help people take climate action, I’ve observed a common thread that could be helpful to other groups seeking to fight global warming.

It seems that experiences that bring people together and engage them through creative, playful and rewarding activities can be more effective than the negative messaging of some ‘calvinist’ environmental organizations, who sometimes scare people with too many doom-and-gloom warnings, overwhelm them with too much information, or shame them with stern moral imperatives.

I think this negative messaging is one of the reasons that the environmental movement is having a hard time getting their point across, even if it’s factual, well-reasoned and clearly urgent. The typical disengaged citizen is likely to tune out and recoil in horror as soon as they hear about apocalyptic news or if they feel they are being forced to make personal sacrifices.

As a rule, human beings respond better to positive messages that make us feel good about improving our lives — rather than negative messages that make us feel threatened and overwhelmed by global warming. Most people want something positive to look forward to, like feeling appreciated, saving money, getting a job, or just doing something fun with others. When we see the positive benefits of climate action, we are more likely to do something about it.

So I propose these general guidelines for future community engagement programs. In today’s society, it’s better to use a carrot than a stick, and to reach people’s hearts, not just their minds. Solutions that make it easy for people to connect with each other through creative and community interactions are likely to get a lot more people to act, especially if we give them some form of reward when they do. More on this later. Onwards!

The Dreamer

The Dreamer is alive. My new illuminated sculpture summons the spirits of Albert Einstein and other free thinkers, speaking to us from across space and time. Their faces appear on a translucent mask through the magic of rear-projected video, which brings them to life as if they were right in front of you, as shown in the video above.

The Dreamer’s face keeps transforming, showing fleeting characters and images, evoking memories and ideas that can move us and transform our lives. My goal is to make us more aware of how characters like these can influence us and change the way we perceive the world around us.

The effect is surreal, and this art piece seems to be breaking new ground. Special thanks to my Pataphysical Studios friends Jean Bolte (a.k.a. Dr. Figurine) for first suggesting the use of talking head videos, to Geo Monley (a.k.a. Dr. Geo) for the gift of vacuum forming at Tam Makers, and to Freddy Hahne (a.k.a. Dr. Really) for requesting that we conjure up Dr. Einstein!

See more pictures in our Dreamer photo album.

Exhibits

This interactive art piece will be presented in different ways:

• as part of the Time Machine we’re building at Pataphysical Studios (see photos above)

• as a stand-alone exhibit in art shows and galleries

• in large street performance during public events

• in short videos on the web.

The Dreamer is inspired by radical puppetry, maker technology and modern art. It is also informed by our recent art projects: Art Float, Bamboodu Theater, Maker Art workshops and Ubu’s Dreams.

Development

The Dreamer is being developed at Tam Makers and Pataphysical Studios, our maker spaces in Mill Valley, where we are creating our first prototypes.

I’ve been prototyping The Dreamer for a few months now, and this interactive art project is coming along really well. I started by projecting photos against blank party masks, then creating clay sculptures of flattened faces, vacuum-forming them, and rear-projecting videos of talking heads inside our new translucent plastic masks.

See more photos in our Dreamer album.

We are just getting started on this project, so we don’t have final specs yet. We will add them here soon, after we’re done experimenting with our first prototypes. The small AAXA P2B projector we’re using seems to work best about 24″ away from a standard 6″ wide mask. And the mask’s illumination varies based on your viewing angle, so we may want to make it rotate a bit from left to right, using a motorized turntable, as shown below.

Next Steps

To show what the Dreamer is thinking, our next prototypes will display images of people and nature, sparking different moods, each represented by a different color, as shown below.

The Dreamer’s emotions can be shown with different colored lights, such as: red for anger, orange for fear, yellow for happiness, green for surprise, blue for sadness, purple for love, for example.

You can change the Dreamer’s worldview by pressing buttons to make him/her more happy or sad, angry or kind, fearful or curious (like social media emoticons). In response, the Dreamer’s head lights up with different colors and facial expressions, as these emotions are activated in his/her mind.

This kinetic sculpture can give us a glimpse at what goes on inside our heads, as images of our lives pass by, fleeting like clouds in the sky, colored by our moods. The Dreamer’s quiet face keeps transforming, responding to new images and emotions with images and sounds of its own.

As times goes by, we see the interplay of the forces that drive us: anger can turn into love, sadness into joy, fear into curiosity. And we can learn how changing our emotions can transform how we view the world.

We started by experimenting with medium-size heads (8-inch high), to develop the characters and their interactions. These versions will be shown in toy theatres (about 2 feet square).

Future versions could let us open the Dreamer’s head to see the characters that lurk inside and drive her emotions. These characters could be moved or replaced at will, to change the influence they have on the Dreamer. For those versions, we can adapt the customizable robot kits we developed in our Maker Art classes.

In the next phase, we could create larger versions of the Dreamer for street theater performances, in public settings such as marches or fairs. For those larger version, we could re-use the same trailer we built for the Art Float, which could support a large puppet as high as 8-feet tall.

We can create fun interactive experiences with the Dreamer as a focal point. In “Share Your Dream”, we would invite you to become the Dreamer for a moment, and project your own face inside its head. You would then tell us about your dream and we could record you on video.

The Dreamer invites us to better understand how our emotions make us perceive the world in different ways. It can show us how to replace our destructive emotions with a more positive outlook.

Learn more on our planning page: http://bit.ly/dreamer-plan

See more photos in our Dreamer album.

Research

In previous experiments conducted in summer 2016 by Fabrice Florin and Jean Bolte, we attempted to bring characters to life by projecting videos of human faces onto ‘life casts’. For these first tests, we projected some of Fabrice’s interviews with Jean’s daughter Natalina and our friend Mark Petrakis onto the David Bowie and Sean Connery life casts, as well as on a plain mannequin head and mask.

The results of these first tests were very encouraging, as you can see in this video and in these photos of our first session and second session.

We think we can apply this projection mapping technique to the Dreamer project by combining full face projections with images of what the characters are thinking. For the Time Machine, we can project re-enactions of historical figures, against masks or heads set in a dark box behind of the Time Machine’s porthole. Opening the porthole would reveal an animated face from the past or future, which would speak to you for a moment, across time and space.

Here are some of our observations from those first tests:

• this technique works well to bring characters to life

• it creates the illusion that you are seeing a real person

• aligning the faces from the videos with the life casts can be tricky

• we may need to hold the actor’s heads to keep them aligned while we shoot

• getting the eyes, nose and mouth to match may require adjusting the video as well

• some interesting expressions come out when the faces are not perfectly aligned

• people can be made to look older or younger, depending which cast you use

• when the face looks straight at the camera, you really feel that it is talking to you

• some facial expressions work really well, like shifting eyes left and right

• some interesting effects can be created by speeding up the footage, as in Max Headroom

Findings from these first experiments have informed the Dreamer’s development. Shifting from front-projected life casts to rear-projected translucent masks has opened up new ways to make it all work in a small space.

This article was updated on Dec. 27, to add a video and photos of our first working prototype.

The Time Machine

We are creating a Time Machine at ‘Pataphysical Studios, our art collective in Mill Valley, where surrealism meets the maker culture.

The ‘Pataphysical Time Machine invites you to travel through time and meet characters from the past, present and future. We hope to engage our guests in a fun interactive experience that combines art, multimedia, theater and technology.

This 3D fly through video illustrates the experience we are creating. We invite our guests to go through a short interactive ritual during their visit: walk around the exhibit, step into our magic portal, pick a time to visit, travel to that time, meet its characters and return back to the present.

Through this experience, we hope to enchant guests of all ages and cultures. We typically host time travel expeditions with small groups of up to six people at a time, lasting between 10 and 20 minutes. To insure we don’t disrupt the delicate fabric of time, we ask that our guests do not exit the machine during our time travel journeys. We usually return our guests safely back to the time they came in from. Time travel is not for the faint of heart! 🙂

Press the buttons on this time travel dashboard to jump to different periods, which are shown on the illuminated screen above.

Exhibit

Our Time Machine exhibit is inspired by steampunk and art movements from the early 20th century: Pataphysics, dada and surrealism.

Here are some of the artifacts we’re now building for our exhibit:

a mysterious, glimmering time capsule and cockpit
a violin-shaped dashboard with time travel buttons
an illuminated main screen to view scenes from distant times
animated figures of Anubis and the Creature from the Future Lagoon
frescoes of hieroglyphic characters from across the ages
crazy clocks spinning at random and singing about time
collages of time travel images and stories against the walls
mechanical iris portholes revealing mysterious apparitions

… and many more time travel artifacts!

To see our work in progress, view photos below, and our photo album for the Time Machine. To learn about other artifacts, visit our exhibit design spec for the physical structures. To learn more about the interactive experience, read our time travel design spec.

If you liked our ‘Pataphysical Slot Machine, we think this new art exhibit will transport you even further. Fire in the hole!

Animated figures of the ancient god Anubis and the Creature from the Future Lagoon are here to guide your journey through time.

To make our art come to life, we are now developing new media and technologies that will animate the exhibit with animated characters, lights, sounds, motion and videos of the different times you will travel to.

Media

Our growing video library already includes dozens of short clips for different time periods, to create the illusion of time travel.

This Belle Époque video takes you back in time to Paris at the start of the 20th century, when the arts and sciences flourished, along with a “joie de vivre” (joy of living) that is music to our ears.

This short video is just one of the scenes you can visit with the Time Machine, and its authenticity is confirmed by copious historical footage from a variety of sources. Other scenes in our prototype include videos of the Big Bang, Dinosaurs, Ancient Egypt, the French Revolution, A Trip to the Moon, Dada Cafe Voltaire, Trumpocalypse — and many more. Here are some of the other time scenes we‘re considering for the next version.

Meanwhile, our sounds library now includes many time travel soundtracks, as well as musical quotes about time (e.g. “Time!” by the Chambers Brothers, “Crying Time” by Ray Charles, etc.).

To learn about our multimedia plans, visit this media overview.

Technology

We will combine many different digital technologies to support the Time Machine experience: Arduino and Raspberry Pi for artifact devices, NodeRed for the central host, MQTT for the messaging protocol, EasyESP firmware and other tech.

Learn more in this infrastructure document, programming guide and technology overview.

Meet the team

About a dozen creators are building the Time Machine together. We’re artists, engineers, makers, performers, poets, organizers and multimedia innovators. Over the years, we have grown into a world-class troupe of interactive artists, who like to make things together and learn from each other. Most of us are members of Pataphysical Studios and listed in this community page.

We work in small creative teams to design and build the different parts of the Time Machine, combining interactive art with lights, sounds, motion, and videos of different times. Besides Pataphysical Studios, some of our fabrication work takes place at at Tam Makers, our community makerspace in Mill Valley, where we use a wide range of tools, from laser cutters to CNC routers and milling equipment.

Learn more on our planning page and project lists.

Join us

This is the most complex art project that our team has taken on, and we could use more help. We are now recruiting a few more creators to contribute to our community project, so we can complete it together in coming years.

If you would like to help build this interactive art experience with us, email us at info@pataphysics.us. We’re particularly interested in collaborators who you live in the Bay Area and can join our weekly work sessions in Mill Valley on Saturday afternoons. But if you live outside the Bay Area, we can also collaborate on a variety of tech and media projects. Let’s talk!

It’s a true pleasure to help new teams come together to design and build the various parts of our Time Machine. That’s what collective art is about. We can’t wait to see what it will look like in a year!

For more project updates, we invite you to subscribe to our mailing list — and/or follow us on Facebook. Learn more at pataphysics.us. We hope to see you soon, online or in person.

Vive la ‘pataphysique!

Fabrice Florin (a.k.a. Dr. Fabio)

On behalf of Pataphysical Studios

_____________________________________________

PHOTOS OF THE TIME MACHINE CREATION

To see more photos of our work in progress, visit our photo album for the Time Machine.

This page was republished from our Pataphysical Studios site.

Art Float for Social Change

The Art Float for Social Change approaches the judges at the Mill Valley Memorial Day Parade, where we won the ‘Best Community Spirit Award’. Photo by Dana Dworin.

Behold the Art Float for Social Change!

We created this unique parade float to engage more people to participate in democracy. It features a spinning earth, waving hands and an art carousel, pulled by a colorful dragon. Live performers on our podium invite you to sing along, vote and “be the change.”

The Art Float has inspired thousands of people to participate in community life, through its original display of art, music, and technology. This year, we presented it at Earth Day, the Mill Valley Memorial Day Parade (where we won the ‘Best Community Spirit Award’), the Fairfax Parade and the Fourth of July Parade in Corte Madera (where we won First Prize for Adult Motorized Floats). We hope to bring our traveling art show to other events in coming months.

As shown in this video, our Art Float delighted thousands of spectators at the Mill Valley Memorial Day Parade, with performances by Emma Spike and the Freedom Singers. Video by Luis Costa, Fabrice Florin and Marin Weatherspoon.

Over a hundred volunteers of all ages built the Art Float at Tam Makers, our makerspace in Mill Valley, with the support of Good Earth Natural Foods, the Mill Valley Community Action Network (MVCAN) and Tamalpais High School.

This community art project was led by artists Fabrice Florin and Geo Monley, along with our creative partners at Tam Makers, Pataphysical Studios and the Youth Poster Contest — and live performances by the Freedom Singers, Emma Spike and Cooper & Bounds, to name but a few.

The Art Float for Social Change performs in front of the judges at the Fairfax Parade. Photo by Dana Dworin.

To see the float in action, visit the Art Float Photos and Video page, with our favorite images from each event and development phase. For more photo coverage, visit our full albums for Fourth of July, the Fairfax Parade, Memorial Day, Earth Day and Art Float Creation.

A group picture of the Art Float cast, crew and supporters at the Mill Valley Memorial Day Parade. Photo by Suz Lipman.

Thank you!

Thanks to all our friends, neighbors, partners and community members who made this project possible!

Kudos to our float construction crew, led by David Barr, Pierina Dell’Avo, Chris Krueger, James Long, Chris Scofield, Pam and Stan Weatherspoon, to name but a few — they all worked tirelessly, above and beyond the call of duty, to bring you this experience. Tip of the hat as well to Howard Rheingold for creating the colorful Quetzy dragon, in collaboration with Fabrice Florin, Freddy Hahne, Jean Bolte, Phyllis Florin, Mark Petrakis and others at Pataphysical Studios.

Our parade cast and crew at the July Fourth Parade in Corte Madera (where we won First Prize for Adult Motorized Floats): Gary Appell, Ruthanne Ranz Appell, Greg Brockbank, Dana Dworin, Wayne Lechner, Teresa Marquez, Geo Monley, Tim Pozar, Marilyn Price, Grace Severtson and Emma Spike. Photo by Dana Dworin.

Many thanks to our talented performers Emma Spike, Sheri Cooper and Clancy Bounds, Reed Fromer, as well as Greg Brodbank, Wayne Lechner, Marilyn Price and all the Freedom Singers. We are also very grateful to our wonderful videographers Luis Costa, David Donnenfield, Bob Harlow, Tim Pozar, Kim Spencer and Marin Witherspoon, as well as our gracious photographers Dana Dworin, Vickisa Feinberg, Fabrice Florin, Suz Lipman, Howard Rheingold, Grace Severtson and Martha Ture.

Special thanks as well to our partners Jessica Hurtado at Good Earth, Eileen Fisher at MVCAN and Bruce Burtch at the Youth Poster Contest. We are deeply grateful to our event team Carol Korenbrot and Marilyn Price — and to our ‘art float widows’ Phyllis Florin and Meryl Rubenstein — for keeping us organized, happy and well fed. Last but not least, we wish to thank all our gracious parade organizers: Larry ‘The Hat’ Lautzker, Paul Moe and Erma Murphy (Mill Valley Memorial Day Parade), Cynthia Briggs (Fairfax Festival), Judy and all the nice folks at the Corte Madera Fourth of July Parade for hosting these important community events, year after year.

We really appreciate all your creativity, enthusiasm and generous support. We hope this community art project will inspire even more people to participate in democracy.

Learn more on our Art Float Photos and Videos page, planning page, slides and design spec, as well as in this Independent Journal article. For more info, email us at float@tammakers.org.

Be the change!

Fabrice Florin and Geo Monley

Co-founders/Teachers, Tam Makers
Team Leaders, Art Float for Social Change

This page was adapted from our project page on the Tam Makers site.

Earth Day 2018

We celebrated Earth Day with a wonderful afternoon of art, music and talks about protecting our environment. Hundreds of activists, artists, environmentalists and youth gathered to pay tribute to Mother Earth at Tamalpais High School’s Student Center in Mill Valley on April 22, 2018. For a quick overview of our community celebration, watch our video slideshow (shown above).

We started the day with the first public showing of our Art Float for Social Change. This unique parade float was created by Fabrice Florin and Geo Monley with over a hundred volunteers in the Tam Makers collective, to inspire more people to participate in democracy. Pictured here is young singer Emma Spike, who performed ‘Custodians’,her original composition about climate change.

A large globe spun over a circle of hands and a carousel of art, pulled by a colorful dragon. The feathered dragon was inspired by Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god of wisdom, and created by Howard Rheingold, Fabrice Florin and friends at Pataphysical Studios and Tam Makers (see photo below).

Activists of all ages stood on the decorated stage to share their ideas for a better world, including young singer Emma Spike (shown in the cover photo), Kayla Campbell, Mimi Lawrence, Eileen Fisher and more.

Many more painted original posters about the earth, which were featured on the float carousel. We are grateful to Bruce Burtch and his team at Youth Poster Contest (he is pictured below), for working with our volunteers Sarah Acker and Vanitha Sampath to coach young people in this art activity.

Dozens of environmental partners showed participants how we can all take action to reverse global warming — organizations like the Drawdown Marin (pictured above), Sierra Club, Resilient Neighborhoods and 350 Marin, to name but a few.

Our guest speakers were Mark Squire from Good Earth, Crystal Chissel from Project Drawdown, Marin Supervisor Damon Connolly and young local activists: they gave informative talks on a wide range of solutions to curb climate change.

Participants also learned to plant a veggie garden, ride an electric bike, while others registered to vote (we helped 5 teenagers pre-register to vote at this event) .

We ended the day with music performances by the charming Twinkling Stars of Singers Marin, led by Dana Cherry (pictured above), as well as young singer Emma Spike (see cover photo).

Music director Reed Fromer (pictured above) led moving sing-alongs with the Freedom Singers and Mill Valley Seniors for Peace (see photo below).

Earth Day 2008 brought together diverse groups of people who might not have connected otherwise: activists, artists, environmentalists, makers, children, teenagers, teachers and parents. We are particularly grateful to all the young activists who participated in our celebration, including Jackson Darby, Ben Kanter, Jillian Hickey and Elly Blatcher (pictured below with their ‘Don’t Bug Me’ exhibit) and their teacher Joanna Saunders from the Marin School of Environmental Leadership .

This community gathering was produced by Democracy Cafe, Eco Warriors of MVCAN and Tam Makers, with the generous support of Tamalpais High School, Mill Valley Community Action Network (MVCAN), Good Earth, Driver’s Market, Sloat Garden Supply and all our gracious partners, who are listed below.

Thanks to event organizers Fabrice Florin, Marilyn Price, Jennifer Tomkins, Geo Monley, Carol Korenbrot, Elspeth Martin, Grace Severtson, Laurie Riley — and all the wonderful volunteers who helped produce this inspiring event.

Special thanks to the photographers who took the pictures featured on this page: Bruce Burtch, Fabrice Florin, Bill Jensen, Howard Rheingold, Grace Severtson, Jenny Tomkins and Martha Ture (and to the videographers whose work will soon appear above: David Donnenfield, Tim Pozar, Bob Harlow and Chris Scofield). View more of their work on our Earth Day photo album.

We think making art, playing music and talking with people of all ages and backgrounds can build mutual understanding and get us all more engaged as citizens. Join your neighbors to make political art and music, and take action together to create a better world!

To see more images of our Art Float in action, visit our photo album on Flickr and/or our favorite photos on Facebook. To see how we are building it, take a look at our Art Float Creation photos. Once you see how much fun everyone is having on this project, sign up here and join us!

Join us on Memorial Day

You and your friends are welcome to march with our Art Float for Social Change at the Mill Valley Memorial Day Parade on May 28, 2018, 10am-1pm, with members of the Tam High community and the Mill Valley Community Action Network. Please RSVP here to save your spot.

Make a Donation

Would you like to help pay for the Art Float, so we can finish it this spring? Please make a donation on our Memorial Day page, even if you’re not coming to that event. Thank you!

Visit our Partners

Please visit our partner and sponsor sites, and sign up for their projects, if they appeal to you.

Organizers:

Sponsors:

Presenters:

Partners:

Update – Survey Results

After the event, we invited participants to give us feedback through an online survey that received 48 responses. People told us they really enjoyed this event, its creative energy, and the combination of entertainment, information and community.

Survey responses show they liked the art, music and meeting people the most, and also liked the partner tables and speakers. The majority of participants thought the event helped build a community of activists, promoted environmental causes, welcomed young people as citizens and helped each of us take action.

Democracy Cafe – Youth in Action

Sixty activists and artists of all ages gathered at our second Democracy Cafe, for a fun afternoon of art, music and politics. This free community event celebrated Youth in Action and took place at the O’Hanlon Center for the Arts in Mill Valley, on February 18, 2018.

We started by brainstorming ideas for a new art float, to be shown at public events in 2018. Participants suggested we build a large earth and a circle of caring hands, to symbolize social change.

The float will be created in the Tam High Wood Shop by students and adult makers led by Fabrice Florin and Geo Monley. Anyone who wants to help is invited to join the welcome meeting on March 1.

We then sang along with the Freedom Singers, led by Marilyn Price, in a medley of songs for a better world, including the two tunes heard in the video above, shot by Phyllis Florin: mexican folk song “De colores” and “Building Bridges”, a call to action by Wayne Lechner.

Young activists from ‘Generation: Our Climate‘ and 350 Bay Area spoke about their climate action campaigns: testifying with local and county governments to promote green energy policies, limit emissions from oil refineries and protest the new coal terminal in Oakland.

Speakers from ‘Generation: Our Climate’ included activists Caroline Schurz, Mimi Lawrence and Brendon Milan-Howells, along with their adult mentor Daniel Heagerty. Speakers from 350 Bay Area were Jada Delaney and Rosesanie Phan, both seniors at Oakland Tech High School, along with their youth organizer Carolyn Norr (you can learn about their campaign here).

To hear their speeches and performances, watch this cool 360° video by Gary Yost, with a panoramic coverage that gives a full experience, as if you were in the room with us. To look around, swipe the video (or view it with your smartphone in a Google Cardboard-style headset.)

Young singers/songwriters Matt Jaffe and Patrick Maley took turns playing personal and politically-minded songs. Poet klipschutz and musician Joel Hamilton performed an inspiring mix of poetry and jazz, with paintings by Eun Lee in the background. For highlights of their performances, watch our 360° video above.

We loved that so many young people came and joined their voices, hearts and minds with our community. Their enthusiasm and creativity are our best hope for building a better world. Many of our young guests were moved to take political action by the recent school shooting in Florida, and created signs against gun violence — inspired by the nationwide protests that took place that week, such as the Tam High Vigil pictured below (see more of our vigil photos).

Our next Democracy Cafe will take place on Sunday, March 18, from 2 to 5pm, when we will help people of all ages prepare signs and songs for March for Our Lives, a nationwide rally to end gun violence. See poster below. Please RSVP and get your free tickets here.

Democracy Cafe is a series of creative and civic events organized a growing community of activists and artists in Marin, led by Fabrice Florin. We think making art, playing music and talking with people of all ages and backgrounds can build mutual understanding and engage us to take meaningful political action together. Learn more.

View more photos of Democracy Cafe in our full photo album on Flickr — or selected photos on Facebook. Many thanks to photographers Dana Dworin, Fabrice Florin, Phyllis Florin, Suz Lipman and Craig Love for documenting our event. More photos and videos will be posted here in coming days.

Kudos to all our wonderful performers and presenters, as well as fellow organizers Danny Altman, Carol Korenbrot, Robert Mowry, Marilyn Price and Laurie Riley for making this event possible. And thanks to all the community members who joined our celebration — many were from MVCAN, our local political action group.

Join your neighbors to make political art and music — and keep democracy alive!

Democracy Cafe

Welcome to Democracy Cafe!

We host free art, music and civic events in Marin, to help people of all ages and backgrounds drive social change through creative expression. We offer a range of activities to build mutual understanding and engage us to take meaningful political action together.

We host free Democracy Cafes on the third Sunday of each month. Each event focuses on a different theme, such as Gun Violence or Climate Change. A typical event includes a variety of collaborative activities, such as sign-making, sing-alongs, speakers and group discussions. We are now done with our spring 2018 series, but plan to host more Democracy Cafes in fall 2018.

To learn about our latest events, read below — and sign up for our newsletter.

Earth Day Celebration

Hundreds of activists, artists and environmentalists came to celebrate Earth Day 2018, for a fun afternoon of art, music and talks about the environment at Tam High School in Mill Valley. This was our last Democracy Cafe event in spring 2018, produced in collaboration with Eco Warriors of MVCAN and Tam Makers, as well as all the gracious partners listed below.

We unveiled ourArt Float for Social Change, featuring a large globe spinning over a carousel of art, and pulled by a colorful dragon. Presenters of all ages stood on stage to share their ideas for a better world. Others painted original posters about the earth for the float carousel.

Speakers included Mark Squire from Good Earth, Crystal Chissel from Project Drawdown, Marin Supervisor Damon Connolly and young local activists: they talked about a wide range of solutions to curb climate change. Dozens of environmental partners like the Sierra Club, Resilient Neighborhoods and 350 Marin helped our guests take action to reverse global warming. Participants also learned to plant a veggie garden, ride an electric bike and get people ready to vote (we helped 5 teenagers pre-register to vote at this event) .

We ended the day with music performances by Twinkling Stars of Singers Marin, young singer Emma Spike, Reed Fromer, the Freedom Singers and Mill Valley Seniors for Peace.

This community gathering was produced by Democracy Cafe, Eco Warriors of MVCAN and Tam Makers, with the generous support of Tamalpais High School, Mill Valley Community Action Network, Good Earth, Driver’s Market, Sloat Garden Supply and all our gracious partners.

Learn more about our Earth Day celebration — and view Earth Day photos here.

Join us on Memorial Day

You and your friends are welcome to march with our Art Float for Social Change at the Mill Valley Memorial Day Parade on May 28, 2018, 10am-1pm, with our sponsors at Good Earth, the Mill Valley Community Action Network and Tam High School. Please RSVP here to save your spot.

Join your neighbors to make political art and music, and take action together to create a better world!

Democracy Cafe to End Gun Violence

Our last Democracy Cafe took place on Sunday, March 18, from 2 to 5pm, when our theme was: how can we end gun violence?

We helped people of all ages prepare signs for March for Our Lives, and are grateful to all the young people who came to express their views.

We sang along with the Freedom Singers on the sun deck of the beautiful O’Hanlon Center.

Marin Supervisor Kate Sears shared her views about gun reform and led a discussion on how we can take action to end gun violence.

We heard a moving performance by young singer/songwriter Emma Spike, student at Tam High School, including several original compositions about gun violence and hope.

Music director Reed Fromer led us into song with old classics about creating a better world.

This free public event took place on Sunday, March 18th from 2 to 5pm, at the O’Hanlon Center for the Arts in Mill Valley, 616 Throckmorton Avenue, Mill Valley, CA 94941.

We enjoyed meeting over 50 activists and artists of all ages for an inspiring afternoon of art, music and politics. We deeply appreciated their creativity, goodwill and intellectual curiosity, which encouraged other participants to find their voice and take action.

Here is our photo album for Democracy Cafe on Flickr, for your viewing pleasure. And here is the Independent Journal’s photo coverage of our event, shot by Sherry LaVars.

Special thanks to the volunteers so who graciously helped organize this event: Marilyn Price, Jenny Tomkins, Rebecca Brackman, David Barr and Robert Mowry. We’re also grateful to all the folks who couldn’t come, but who supported us to organize this unique civic engagement program. It’s a true pleasure working with you all!

We are inspired by all the young people who took political action to protest the recent school shooting in Florida, such as the Tam High Vigil pictured above (see more of our vigil photos). We want to support their cause and empower them to join their voices, hearts and minds for social change. Their dedication, passion and creativity are our best hope for building a better world.

Democracy Cafe 2 – Youth In Action

Sixty activists and artists of all ages gathered at our second Democracy Cafe, for a fun afternoon of art, music and politics. This free community event celebrated Youth in Action and took place at the O’Hanlon Center for the Arts in Mill Valley, on February 18, 2018.

We started by brainstorming ideas for a new art float, to be shown at public events in 2018. Participants suggested we build a large earth and a circle of caring hands, to symbolize social change.

The float will be created in the Tam High Wood Shop by students and adult makers led by Fabrice Florin and Geo Monley. Anyone who wants to help is invited to join the welcome meeting on March 1.

We love that so many young people joined their voices, hearts and minds with ours. Their dedication and creativity are our best hope for building a better world. Many thanks to all the presenters and community members who participated in this celebration — and to the gracious organizers, activity leaders and multimedia creators who made this very special event possible.

Learn more about this inspiring event.

This is a 360° video of Democracy Cafe. To look around, swipe the video as it plays.
Created by Gary Yost.

Democracy Cafe 1 – Women’s March

Our first Democracy Cafe took place at the O’Hanlon Center for the Arts in Mill Valley on January 14, 2018. A creative group of 50 activists and artists of all ages gathered to make signs, art and music for the upcoming Women’s March.

In just a few hours, we created dozens of inspiring signs, blue flags and Liberty figures. We also practiced protest songs with the Freedom Singers in the beautiful sculpture garden. To see scenes from the event, view our photo album or watch the video below.

Our first pilot exceeded all our expectations. Participants gave high ratings for this event, told us they had fun, made new friends, enjoyed making art and singing together, and felt more motivated to take political action. They felt well prepared for our Women’s March the following week. Most participants wanted to join our next events, and several offered to help organize them.

The event was covered by local and national journalists, who wrote these fine articles:
• Marin activists gear up for women’s marches, midterm elections
by Adrian Rodriguez, Marin Independent Journal
• Organizing The Resistance, One Meeting At A Time
by George Osterkamp, Dan Rather’s News & Guts

This enthusiastic feedback and this favorable press coverage suggests that we are on the right track with Democracy Cafe. To learn more about our first pilot, visit our event page.

Join Us!

If you would like to join future events or volunteer on our team, sign up for our Democracy Cafe mailing list.

Democracy Cafe is produced by a team of Marin activists and artists led by Fabrice Florin, with Danny Altman, Carol Korenbrot, Bruce Mowry, Marilyn Price, Laura Riley and many more. Our goal is to engage our communities to help change the world, by combining arts and politics through fun, hands-on and inspiring activities.

Thanks as well to all our wonderful participants, whose commitment to art and activism inspires us. And kudos to our gracious performers, crew and activity leaders: Jean Bolte, Jake Cohen, Mary Cosgrove, Dana Dworin, Matt Jaffe, Kurt Lipschuck, Wayne Lechner, Craig Love, Gareth Loy Patrick Maley and Gary Yost, to name but a few. We’re also grateful to Erma Murphy at the O’Hanlon for hosting our first events.

Many of us are part of the Mill Valley Community Action Network (MVCAN), our political action group in Marin. We’re delighted that so many MVCAN members are participating in this creative experiment.

Democracy Cafe shows great promise for energizing people through the transformative power of the arts, sparking our imaginations to solve problems and change the world together.

Join your neighbors to make political art — and keep democracy alive!

Photos by Fabrice Florin, Mary Cosgrove and Dana Dworin. Videos by Phyllis Florin, Craig Love and Gary Yost.

This page was updated on Feb. 21, to include more info about our first and second events.

Robot World

Create your own artistic robot! Learn how to make your robot move in a variety of ways, using a programmable Arduino board. Decorate your animated character, give it a story, and create a magical world for it to live in. All materials are included in this course: you can take your robot home when the class ends.

This Maker Art class for grades 4-5 took place at the Lycée Français in Sausalito. We met every Tuesday for 12 weeks, from 3:30 to 5pm, between September and December 2017.

Students developed new skills in playful ways: science, technology, engineering, art and math skills (STEAM), as well as creativity, problem-solving and communication skills.

Teachers were multimedia innovator Fabrice Florin and software designer Edward Janne.To learn more, view our photo album, course slides and student guide — and check our course page for updates.

For a quick overview, watch the short video below.

This short video of our Robot World class was created by Fabian at the Lycée Français. Merci!

Who is it for?

This program was for lower school children in grades 4 and 5 (ages 8-10). Four students participated in our afternoon class in Sausalito in fall 2017.

Where and when is it?

This class took place at Lycée Français in Sausalito, in the Innovation Lab (Room #340). The school entrance is 660 Coloma Street, Sausalito, CA 94945.

We met every Tuesday for 12 weeks, from September 12 to December 5, 2017, from 3:30pm to 5:00pm, at the Lycée Français in Sausalito.

Here was our course schedule:

Sep-12: Plan the robot world
Sep-19: Learn about robots
Sep-26: Build your robot 1
Oct-3: Build your robot 2
Oct-10: Program your robot 1
Oct-17: Program your robot 2
Oct-24: Break: No Class
Oct-31:Program your robot 2
Nov-7: Break: No Class
Nov-14: Finish your robot
Nov-21: Create the robot world
Nov-28: Rehearse your show
Dec-5: Shoot videos
Dec-12: Show & Tell

Can we see pictures from the classes?

Here are photos from our last “show and tell” class, when students performed a little play with their robots, based on their own original story: Devil Bot stole a secret recipe from Chef Bot, who runs the bakery where all the food is prepared in Food Ville. Police Bot and Swat Bot then chased the devil and locked him up, restoring peace in their little world, with “pizza for all.”

Here are some photos from our first classes.

You can see more pictures in our photo album.

What are students learning?

Students are creating their own robot and interactive art, in a playful way that makes learning more fun. Working collaboratively, they make their bots move, bringing characters to life and interacting with others in their new ‘robot world.’

This unique combination of art and technology helps them develop a range of new skills:

critical thinking and problem solving
Arduino, robotics and programming
science, technology, engineering, art and math skills (STEAM)
creative expression, communication & collaboration skills

Learn more in our course slides and student guide.

Do you also teach this class for adults?

Yes! We taught a Create a Robot class for adults and teens at Tam Makers in Mill Valley.

In just two evenings in September 2017, we showed students how to build their own artistic robot with Arduino, make it move around, shake its head and wave. And they got to take their animated creature home with you, to impress friends and family. 🙂 We may teach more adult classes in the future. Check out our classes page at Tam Makers.

What materials are included?

Each student received a robot kit, which they learned to assemble, control and program.

For this class, we created our own robot kit, using an Arduino Feather M0 for the robot, an Pro Micro for the remote, a custom chassis, plus three additional servos and more parts. Our robot kit was similar to commercial kits, but with a lot more features at a lower cost. This robot kit was decorated by the students to create an interesting animated character. Learn more about our robot kit in our student guide.

This robot kit supports these features:
• Roaming – the bot can move around under user control
• Moving – the bot can move some body parts (turn its head, wave its arms, using servos)
• Inputs – the bot has a variety of buttons (on/off button, buttons for different gestures, etc.)
• Remote – the bot can be controlled remotely (using a remote control or desktop app)
• Lights – the bot can have lights in its body (LEDs that blink, glow, or fade on and off)
• Sounds – the bot can play audio (using piezo buzzer to play simple beeps and tunes)
• Programming – the bot is easy to code (with visual programming tool like Snap4Arduino)
• Flexibility – the bot can be expanded (with extra parts to be ordered separately)
• Pricing – the bot is affordable (we’re aiming for a maximum of $75 per robot)

They programmed their robots with Snap4Arduino and made them move in different ways with servo motors. We used the school’s Macs to program the robots, using the Arduino software and Snap4Arduino, a visual programming tool. Arduino code was shared with parents when class ended, so they can help students to continue to program their robot at home.

What do the robots look like?

Students created some cool characters for their Robot World: Chef Bot, Devil Bot, Police Bot and Swat Bot

Each student received their own robot kit, which they learned to assemble, control and program. They built a chassis, wired up the Arduino electronics, made their own remote control, added a head and arms (laser cut based on their designs). Last but not least, they painted and decorated them to give them unique personalities. You can track their progress in our photo album.

The video above shows what our robots looked like in early stages of development. Our fun robots can roam around, shake their heads and flap their wings, at the touch of a button.

Below are a few photos of our first prototypes, made with laser-cut wood figures and servo motors (to see them in action, watch our video). We call them ‘Bambots’. This name is short for ‘Bamboodu Robot’: it is inspired by the fictional Bamboodu tribe we created for art projects like the Bamboodu Float and the Pataphysical Slot Machine.

Bambots like to shake their heads and flap their wings back and forth. The photos below show other prototypes of a Bambot Angel and an Bambot Dude, in different stages of construction.

For more pictures of this course, see our photo album.

What does the robot world look like?

We invited students to design a magical world for their robots, then build it and decorate it.

They imagined a future wonderland called FoodVille: a peaceful world filled with food, to insure a life of ‘everlasting fun.’ They created a colorful landscape centered around a volcano spilling out candy lava, with robot homes and a bright red soda fountain.

We asked students to decorate their robots so they looked like characters in that fantasy world. For a closer look, see our photo album for this course.

Who are the teachers?

Multimedia innovator Fabrice Florin and software designer Edward Janne taught this course.

Fabrice Florin

Fabrice is an art maker and social entrepreneur who creates unique experiences to inform and engage communities through digital and physical media. He has led the development of many pioneering products in education, news and entertainment, working with innovators such as Apple, Macromedia and Wikipedia. He is now a teacher and artist at Tam Makers in Mill Valley, where he teaches maker art to adults and kids. Learn more at fabriceflorin.com .

Edward Janne

Edward is a software developer and teacher at Tam Makers. He has an extensive background in interactive design and engineering. Prior to joining us, he was a technical animator at Bonfire Labs, a creative content agency. He also studied at the Academy of Art University and the University of San Francisco. Edward has taught several Maker Art classes with us, and will lead more classes for adults and teens at Tam Makers this fall.

How can I learn more?

To learn more, view our photo album, course slides and student guide — and check our course page for updates.

Also read this overview of our Maker Art classes, and visit our site for Tam Makers, our community makerspace in Mill Valley.

For more info, email Fabrice at fabriceflorin-at-gmail-dot-com.

Time Machine at the Lycée

Travel through time and meet characters from the past, present and future!

Our Maker Art class at the Lycée Français created a Time Machine with animated scenes and characters from the age of dinosaurs to the 50th century. This interactive art exhibit integrates physical and digital media, combining art, technology and storytelling.

Our 4th and 5th graders created their own scenes from the past, present or future, and brought them to life with motion, lights and sounds. Then also worked in teams to build interactive features to showcase their scenes: keypad, spinner and doors.

See also: video, slides, photos and design spec.

What does it look like?

Watch the video above to see the Time Machine in action. Some photos are also included below. See more in our slides.

Students

This program was designed for lower school children in grades 4 and 5 (ages 8-10). Nine students participated in this class: Tilo Allexandre, Esther Bomse, Theodore Carman, Louise Eddy, Nathanial Jenkins, Lena Jessen, Eugene Maeght, Yann Menard and Marshall Patron.

Here’s a survey report on what students thought of this class: they found it very good, liked learning about Arduino, and most would recommend this class to a friend.

What did students create?

Students created their own interactive ‘wonderboxes’ for these time periods:

Age of Dinosaurs
French Revolution
World War 2
World War 3
New York 2092
Alien Invasion
25th Century
50th Century

They brought their characters to life inside their cardboard ‘wonderboxes’ by making lights blink, sounds play and things move.

Working collaboratively, they also created these Arduino-powered features:

Dashboard with keypad
Spinner
Doors with lights

What did students learn?

Students learned to design a miniature world, build it with a variety of tools, animate it with electronics, and tell its story in presentations at the Lycée in Sausalito — and at Marinovators at the College of Marin on April 22 (see photos). We also showed them how to program the popular Arduino board to create a cool interactive art experience.

This unique combination of art and technology helped them develop a range of new skills:

critical and logical thinking;
science, technology, engineering and math skills;
electronics, circuits, lights, motors and soldering;
Arduino and computer programming;
creative expression and storytelling skills;
communication, collaboration and social skills.

See also: video, slides, photos and design spec.

Location

This class took place at Lycée Français in Sausalito, in the Innovation Lab (Room #340). The school entrance is 660 Coloma Street, Sausalito, CA 94945 (see Google Map).

Schedule

We met every Thursdays for 12 weeks, from January 5 to March 30, from 3:30pm to 5:00pm, at the Lycée Français in Sausalito.

Here is our course schedule:

Plan our time machine (Jan. 5, 2017)
Design the time machine (Jan. 12)
Create your time scene (Jan. 19)
Create a character (Jan. 26)
Light up your scene (Feb. 2)
Build your time machine (Feb. 9)
Create a feature (Feb. 16)
Paint your feature (March 2)
Program your feature (March 9)
Finish the time machine (March 16)
Write your story (March 23)
Show & Tell (March 30)

(There was no class on Feb. 23.)

Who were the teachers?

Multimedia innovators Fabrice Florin and Edward Janne taught this course, with the help of our Tam Makers community.

Fabrice Florin – Teacher

Fabrice is an art maker and social entrepreneur who creates unique experiences to inform and engage communities through digital and physical media. He has led the development of many pioneering products in education, news and entertainment, working with innovators such as Apple, Macromedia and Wikipedia. He is now a teacher and founder at Tam Makers in Mill Valley, where he teaches maker art to adults and teens.

Learn more at fabriceflorin.com .

Edward Janne – Associate Teacher

Edward is a software engineer, teacher and active member at Tam Makers. He has an extensive background in interactive design and engineering, and a personal interest in maker education. He is teaching other classes for adults and teens at Tam Makers this spring.

Learn more about Maker Art classes here: fabriceflorin.com/teaching-maker-art/

Fabrice and Edward are both part of Tam Makers, a new makerspace in Mill Valley, CA. To learn more, visit our site at tammakers.org .

Ubu’s Dreams

Ubu’s Dreams is a shadow puppet show featuring Père Ubu and surreal characters from his unconscious. This play was created by Mark Petrakis and Fabrice Florin, with Edward Janne, Dan Cantrell, Phyllis Florin, Jean Bolte and our friends at Pataphysical Studios.

We premiered Ubu’s Dreams at the Canessa Gallery in North Beach, San Francisco on November 3, 5 and 12, 2016. Watch the video here. The show was part of the ‘Pataphysics of Dada exhibit for the Dada World Faire hosted by City Lights Books.

What’s it about?

Ubu’s Dreams stars Père Ubu, the protagonist of Alfred Jarry’s plays at the turn of the 19th century. This shadow puppet show features many surreal characters from his unconscious: big faces, talking ravens, exploding cows and other creatures from the wild ubu-beyond.

Ubu’s Dreams explores new ways of telling stories with shadows, combining laser-cut wood figures, mechanical automata, a rich musical soundtrack as well as video and multimedia scenery. This 12-minute show consists of three separate plays with music interludes.

Watch the video below. For more details about this first show, check out this scripts page.

Where was it shown?

We premiered Ubu’s Dreams on November 3rd, 5th and 12th, 2016, 6-8pm, during our ’Pataphysics of Dada exhibit at the Canessa Gallery in North Beach, for the Dada World Faire.

We may perform Ubu’s Dreams again in 2017. Please contact us at info@pataphysics.us with any questions or suggestions of possible venues for our next show.

In the meantime, you can watch the video of our first performance here on Vimeo.

And here is our photo album from recent shows, including the ‘making of’ Ubu’s Dreams.

How are the characters made?

The shadow puppets in Ubu’s Dreams are made of wooden figures and shapes created in Adobe Illustrator and laser cut onto ⅛” birch plywood. We animate these puppets by hand from behind the screen, holding them on thin vertical sticks planted on animation stands. A few of the characters have moving parts, such as arms or mouths — and some of the parts light up.

We plan to bring some of these figures to life by making them move with small motors. We’re also experimenting with spotlights and other forms of automation. Some long-term aspirations for this experiment are outlined in this Theatre Mécanique blog post.

What does the show look like?

Here are photos for each scene in the show.

See more pictures in this photo album — including the ‘making of’ Ubu’s Dreams.

What is going on behind the screen?

Here are photos of the performers and their puppets.

How does it work?

This shadow puppet show takes place inside the Magic Theater, a mobile stage for interactive storytelling we created for this project.

The Magic Theater is based on a wooden cart with a PVC framework. It includes a powerful projector over the performers’ heads, which illuminate the top of the screen, so the show can be seen even in a crowded room.