Mikael Fernstrom

>This evening we watched an old VHS reel, Hrafninn flýgur, to get inspired for my Horzontal Rain piece. While the story is quite theatrical or epic, it is still a very nice film in terms of showing where Icelandic culture is coming from, its people and conflicts.

>After getting yet another thingie, the YPbPr to RGB transcoder, I finally got my AppleTV working. I’m still missing a SCART cable, but I’ve borrowed one from the DVD for the moment. It works, it’s neat. Now the only missing thing is content, i.e. video. It’s great being able to share and stream music and photos from 5 other computers. One disadvantage is that you can’t get Web Radio, as far as I’ve tried, on the thing.
So remedy the lack of content, I’ll have to define a few clever Final Year Projects to convert all kinds of video content to MPEG so that it can be imported into iTunes and played.
I still haven’t tested if it’ll do surround sound. I think I have all the formats enabled on the sound system…

>According to some sources, the IDC is being privatized!

>Yesterday, I got my AppleTV box. As I wanted to connect it to the home cinema system, I thought I’d be OK using the RGB output. I then discovered that the RGB output is actually YPbPr, so I’ve now bought extra cables, ordered a SyncBlaster RGB to Component video Transcoder from Keene Electronics in the UK.
Apple needs to update their documentation!
A postive discovery while going through all possible troubleshooting from Apple was that AppleTV at least uses a simple form of Auditory Display to indicate what it’s doing while going through all its possible screen resolutions and synch options. The AppleTV box goes PING every time it changes screen settings and finally PING-PING when it has completed the cycle and restarts.

>It was with delight I received bread and tech‘s note about suborderly‘s arrival on blogger. I hope that we can further develop the concepts of art and anarchytecture!

>So, finally it’s here again. The Equinox. Or, as we should call it, Vårblot. In the image below, you can see us dancing around the garden naked, while drinking and chanting (at midnight 😉

>I’ve started to write a piece of music/performance for the ConGas concert in Reykjavik. I’m using a set of natural sounds – wind, rain, geysers, birds, etc., that I re-synthesize and make controllable from Tyndall WIMU-motes through PD. The reason for the title is that horizontal rain is one thing that Ireland and Iceland have in common.

>This weekend, the four horses are gone from the field down from our garden. Great! Despite the gloomy gray weather, with rain and wind, we had a lovely spring walk down the field. It’s mucky. After all rain, and four horses trampling around the fields for months, it’s more muck than turf.
The first few buds are turning into leaves on the trees. There’s hope again.

>…is a great city. It’s probably great any time of the year. Went for a pre-project/proposal meeting. I was lucky – had most of Friday off. Went to IRCAM and Centre Pompidou. There’s hope for humantity….

>While in York last week, I eventually found an olde friend in The Olde Starre Inne… the extraordinary good and excellent Old Peculier. It’s a wonderful brew, but slightly dangerous. Three pints will definitely put most people to deep sleep… (or perhaps it was four?). As you can see in the image below, both I and the camera had difficulties focusing.