Hybrid Media Systems _ Art Center MFA Blog

Living Magazine Cover & Spread – Outside Magazine from Alexx Henry on Vimeo.

A line needs to be drawn in the sand for the values of static media. The expectation and belief that that dynamic content is the wave of the future needs to be reconsidered. Motion pictures are great incredible informative and interesting and have changed the way we see and respond to the world, but do we want every bit of content the we engage with to be moving or worse reactive. Media content has variety and in my opinion more value should be placed on the ability of somethings to be still and other things to move.

The expectation that readers of Outside will want to want motion images assumes that the current model of photography is incomplete to the user and what is the answer, a screen. A world of screens is not one that I hope will exist.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

Engaging users with an interaction is a difficult process. I am attempting to engage users in natural mapped interactions through iconography the associats a particular action of touch. Natural mapping is a term for the proper and natural arrangements for the relations between controls and their movements to the outcome from such action into the world. Like that of a door knob or a book.The real function of natural mappings is to reduce the need for any information from a user’s memory to perform a task. This term is widely used in the areas of human-computer interaction (HCI) and interactive design discussed in Donald Norman’s book : The design of Everyday Things.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

Through out my experimentation with conductive inks and screen printing, I have started to try and engage the user in interaction with the tangible printed artifact. Paper and ephemeral material is inherently tangible and physical you can bend it, tear it, crinkle it, touch it plus it has a texture a quality and a materiality very unique to its form. Unique to the conductive inks is there ability to engage a user. The current experiment is a test to see if certain form structures are inherently engage-able.  With out any signage does a user know to touch the paper and interact with the strips.  This experiment utilizes the nature the higher contact equals a brighter light.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

“It’s just stuff on a piece of paper, or canvas” – Tony Zepeda.

My Printmaking teacher Tony Zepeda likes to explain that ink, paint, chemicals, materials etc is all just stuff the interest is where that stuff makes meaning. The artist and designers role is to use the materiality, ink, image, typography, and meaning space.

Ink is just stuff, it can become a paint, or a printer ink, or a screenprinting ink, or a pen ink, or a drawing ink the final form outcome is less import than the fact that it possesses a new and unique quality that before in making and design inks have otherwise not and that is the ability to conduct and be linked and connected to its technological brethren.

The intent of using and experimenting with conductive materials and inks was not to create a new ink, rather it is giving me the space and advantage of working with stuff to might make new meaning where other wise there hasn’t been. I see the potential of thinking about paper and the ink that gives it meaning a larger breath of influence. Paper has been divided from its digital counterpart but what if we starting to mold them together?

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

Screen printing has a unique affordance involved in the making process, since ink is pulled through a screen rather that placed or sprayed by a machine printer, the maker can decided to layer aspects of the composition. Depending on the opacity of the ink used during the printing process, the blending of layers allows for designers/printmakers to utilize the ability to make a 2 color composition a 3 color through blending and overlapping.

In my experiments with conductive ink for screen printing, it made me think of the possibility of having the conductive aspect of my experiments only work when they are layered or overlapping? could my inks when layered have a chemical connection that would render it conductive.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

An exploration of materials that are potentially conductive. A sketch book of process and notes that indicate the use, screen print possibility, cost, and aesthetic quality of the material plus whether or not it can conduct electricity. An on-going exploration into mixing conductive powders and materials with inks, paints and glues that could be used for paint or be pulled through a screen. Initial material choices was dictated by whether or not I thought it might have some conductive aspects. I essentially started with shiny and metallic inks, paints, and glues in the hope that some of them would possess conductive qualities. The process has helped me have a greater understanding of the electric qualities of materials and also the aspects of experimenting to make new hybrid inks.

I have found that powdered graphite will conduct electricity but is a variable resistor so a concentration of powder in ink at the right amounts is essential to making it work. Also I have been debunked by copper and silver powders mixed with gesso or clear base screenprinting ink.

These experiments drive at the idea that designers understand the world through making so my experiments in making conductive ink have given me an understanding of conductive material and its potential use in media especially print media.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

Conductive Ink

A series of experiments documented in my process is my attempt to make, learn, and understand conductive inks and electronic circuitry. Through exploration in a number on materials from graphite to gold leafing, I have started to gain an understanding of the principles of conductivity. My assumptions that things that are shiny should conduct has been refuted and my background in science understanding and learning has been challenged.

This series of experiments was made successful through mixing graphite drawing powder and clear acrylic gesso for painting canvas.  The concentration in the graphite is as a high enough percentage that the electric current from the 9 volt battery is not dispated over the span. Graphite ink is being used as a test model to help me move my usage for paper that has a computational affordance.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

A electrical conductor is a material which contains movable electric charges. In metallic conductors, such as copper or aluminum, the movable charged particles are electrons. Positive charges may also be mobile in the form of atoms in a lattice that are missing electrons (known as holes), or in the form of ions, such as in the electrolyte of a battery.

All conductors contain electric charges which will move when an electric potential difference (measured in volts) is applied across separate points on the material. This flow of charge (measured in amperes) is what is meant by electric current. In most materials, the direct current is proportional to the voltage (as determined by Ohm’s law), provided the temperature remains constant and the material remains in the same shape and state.

Most familiar conductors are metallic. Copper is the most common material used for electrical wiring. Silver is the best conductor, but is expensive. Gold is used for high-quality surface-to-surface contacts. However, there are also many non-metallic conductors, including graphite, solutions of salts, and all plasmas. See electrical conduction for more information on the physical mechanism for charge flow in materials.

Non-conducting materials lack mobile charges, and so resist the flow of electric current, generating heat. In fact, all non-superconducting materials offer some resistance and warm up when a current flows. Thus, proper design of an electrical conductor takes into account the temperature that the conductor needs to be able to endure without damage, as well as the quantity of electrical current. The motion of charges also creates an electromagnetic field around the conductor that exerts a mechanical radial squeezing force on the conductor. A conductor of a given material and volume (length × cross-sectional area) has no real limit to the current it can carry without being destroyed as long as the heat generated by the resistive loss is removed and the conductor can withstand the radial forces. This effect is especially critical in printed circuits, where conductors are relatively small and close together, and inside an enclosure: the heat produced, if not properly removed, can cause fusing (melting) of the tracks.

Since all non-superconducting conductors have some resistance, and all insulators will carry some current, there is no theoretical dividing line between conductors and insulators. However, there is a large gap between the conductance of materials that will carry a useful current at working voltages and those that will carry a negligible current for the purpose in hand, so the categories of insulator and conductor do have practical utility.

Thermal and electrical conductivity often go together For instance, most metals are both electrical and thermal conductors. However, some materials are practical electrical conductors without being good thermal conductors.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook