The people that have driven or even experienced in some way the EV1 and RAV4 want to buy these vehicles if they were only given the chance. After seeing my only EV1 in the wild and hearing shredding tire noise and no engine as the car left the stop light I was sitting at I also wanted one. That’s all it took. That’s your commercial. I had the biggest smile on my face. I would have bought any car that did something similar, but there was nothing available.

Go grab one of the couple EV1s that you guys have floating around by test tracks or wherever. Sit in the car. Turn it on. Take a few laps around the track. Go off GM grounds and get a coffee or a shake in the car and sit outside drinking your beverage. Listen to the comments of the people that ask about the car. Don’t discount people’s opinions about the car or GM’s actions, even if they’re negative. They aren’t directed towards you or anyone you know, they are directed at the frustration they have at being told they can’t buy the car you’re driving. They want in. Think about yourself being the proud owner of the car and hearing the amazed people talking about it and asking where they can get one. Think about the possible numbers if this many people in a tiny random sampling are interested in the car. Is there actually a market for this? Let your mind think of some of the basic things that could be done to produce the car more cheaply and think about how much money those simple changes would save. Go back to GM, and have a closed door meeting with some engineers and ask them each for their five easy money-saving ideas for producing something like this. Is it actually feasible?

Don’t belittle your vote.

Electronic voting is an important issue in this country. This project is a comment on some of the possible downfalls of the technology. It displays imagery of politics interspersed with war, to portray the importance of our decisions when it comes time to vote. There is a section of the screen showing lie detector rolls (probably for earthquakes, actually), this section gets colored progressively more and more depending on how high each of the votes goes. A large number of people feel that the truth can be colored by who is in power, and this is my nod to that idea.

The first showing of the project was 2005.03.26 at a “Bring Your Own Art” show located at the old Sandpoint naval base in Seattle, anti-curated by SOAP.

The basis of this iteration of the project was an industrial 27″ television turned on it’s side (literally). On top was a box with three buttons. Inside of the display was a laptop and circuitry for the buttons. The circuitry for the buttons was simply the circuit and cabling from an old USB keyboard, hacked apart and three buttons wired up instead of a matrix for a normal keyboard.
The software utilized was Isadora, by Troikatronix

From watching the actions of the guests and contributors at the event, I have come up with some changes to the display of the buttons and the onscreen imagery. This will most likely go up in a somewhat different framing in a Capitol Hill bar in a little while. A large percentage of viewers assumed that the imagery displayed was a video loop and so did not attempt to interact with the installation. A large percentage of people who understood that it was interactive expected something to happen right away when they voted, which wasn’t the case when I set the machine up. Part of the way through the night, I changed the setup to allow for more interaction. I still consider this to be a work in progress.

Related Links:
Electronic Voting Page
Verified Voting
Rebecca Mercuri, Ph.D.’s Electronic Voting papers and articles
Black Box Voting
Electronic Frontier Foundation’s E-voting page

Unrelated Links:
All this talk about “black boxes” made me think of the band Black Box Recorder

Project Description:

V8 Media raises awareness of important events happening in our world. V8 Media seeks footage of important world events, focusing on war and peace, and democracy vs. corporations. If there are images, audio and/or footage of an event that are contrary to or far exceeding the coverage given by corporate media, V8 Media wants to show it. Any topics will be considered. Raw footage is preferred over edited content.

The initial project is a multimedia vehicle. This vehicle will be touring Seattle, WA and will be visiting other areas of the country based on invitation or current events in question. The exterior of the car will feature lcd panels, a projector, as well as cameras, buttons, dials, and microphones for audience participation. There will be the ability to switch between inputs and the ability to mix audio on the fly from the various sources.

Donation funds will be accepted through PayPal, the Amazon Honor System, or in person. When giving funds, please comment on what you like as well as what you think should be added or changed. The vehicle will also be able to be rented out for use as an attraction for events.For questions or footage submissions, please email v8media@gmail.com

(This project is dead for now. I am keeping it on the site as I still really like the idea and will try to make it happen in the future as funds and time allow.)