Playing With The Word Wall

Word Wall At The Compound Café Closeup

Auggie Playing With The Word Wall

Ian Talking With Ralph

Playing With The Word Wall

The Compound Café Ian Explaining The Wall

Luara at The Compound Café

Compound Café Guests

Word Wall at Compound Café

Word Wall at Compound Café – Talking To Eli

The Compound Café

Auggie Playing With Toy Laptop In Front Of The Word Wall

Ian In Front Of The Word Wall

fish

(The subtitle of this post is “Look, I Do Exist Outside Of The Internet!”, but of course, since you’re seeing this on the internet, no proof has really been garnered.)

Top Half Angled

Top Half Close Up Straight On

Top Half Wired

Top Half Closer Angled

Button Assembly Close Up

Top Half Wiring In Hall

Top Half Wiring

Just wanted to let you all know about an art brunch coming up on Sunday (I had this in my mind as Saturday, but that’s not the case). It’s a brunch at a group of Seattle artists’ property on Beacon, and some of them wanted to do a series of non-standard art fundraiser events. I put my name in the hat, and this third brunch date August 14th from 11am-3pm honors/supports me and will be helping me to offset part of the costs for my Word Wall.

I’ve been working hard on this project for the last long while and it’s finally getting to the point that the lights will be lit up! I’ll bring the wall in its’ current state. Hopefully it will be interactive, but I think that it will at least be flashing words at random by that time.

If you are interested, email TheCompoundCafe@gmail.com to reserve a spot, and most importantly, make sure there will be enough food for you when you arrive! I’m not posting the original email about the event as I don’t want to share the address to anyone and everyone on the internet. You can get more information from myself or from TheCompoundCafe@gmail.com.

I went to the previous one, had some great food, got to listen to some of Cristina Orbé’s music, as well as got to talk with a variety of people who make and/or love art. Feel free to let your art-loving and your technology loving friends know about this!

Thanks, and hope to see you there! Ian

Sun Through Words “am too”

Testing LED Strips (Current as of August 2nd)

Sun Through Letters “m to”

Ian Eating a Banana (Had to take a break at some point)

Sun On Edges of “e”

Word Raiser

Upper Box Buttons Fitted, Front View

Ben Marking Words

Upper Box Buttons Fitted, Rear View

With Bolts and Most Acrylic

Upper Box Buttons Fitted, Rear Angle View

Word Wall Progress from Ian Page-Echols on Vimeo.

Drilling & tapping the waterjet cut front panels, cutting and drilling the buttons (which will lie beneath the cut letters), and initial LED light testing on a piece of art I’m doing called the Word Wall.

Music:
The Fall of Humanity (With He Can Jog)
by Deceptikon
on the album Mythology Of The Metropolis

Thanks:
Breona Gutschmidt – Word play
Ben Flaster – LED & confabulation
Clay Roach – “Hinge” button scheme
Nils Christian – Shop space & box building
Ignition Northwest – Partial grant & deadline

This is the aluminum fresh from the waterjet company. Looks amazing!

Now to drill and tap around 500 holes, then attach the buttons to each sprung bolt and wire them up, and create the LED boards and wire them up. I was thinking this would be something like 2000 solder points, but I think it’s more like 2500. I’ll make sure to count.

I should have placed something in the photos for scale, but just know that the panels are 6′ x 3′, and will be placed one over the other to make a 6 foot by 6 foot wall.

I almost made a grave newbie error with the font sizing. It turns out the original photos I took of me pressing my lcd display were showing at “actual size” and they were maybe 100 or even 150 dpi. I just printed another test to make sure the buttons would still work, since I had made them a bit smaller than that original test and the words were too small to comfortably press. Most people would have to squeeze their fingers in to press the buttons.

So, I had to make the font quite a bit larger in order to make the buttons pressable again. This completely changes the look. It’s now much more word heavy. But I’m ok with that. It’s very much a Word Wall now, as the words are more prominent than they were compared to the panel.

You’ll notice that there is a seam in the center. I added this so that the wall will now be made up of two sections. The full object was going to weight in at around 200 lbs and be 6′ x 6′. Making it that way would just be asking for trouble. So now it’s two sections, each around 100 lbs and 6′ x 3′. A bonus to this (that I really like) is that I can now set the halves next to each other as well, making a 12′ x 3′ wall. This might make the project fit into different venues.

Now I just have to add the holes for every word and I can send in the file.