For Transmediale 2010 F.A.T. members met in Berlin and produced a series of projects dedicated to the topic of the week: FUCK GOOGLE. In addition to free software, browser addons, live streams, communiques and on-site workshops, F.A.T. Lab built a fake Google Street View car and conquered the city of Berlin! All FG projects!

Now it’s your turn! Go out there and see what it’s like to be Google!

Download the instructions in a PDF here!

Step 1:  Find the correct car:

Do some research on Google images and pick the exact car model used by Google in your city. Contact your local car rental. If the car doesn’t come with one, rent or buy the specific roof-rack for that car.

Original Google Street View car Germany (2006 – 2008, last seen in Berlin Oct. 2009)

Fake Google Street View car by F.A.T. Lab during Transmediale Berlin 2010

Step 2: Materials:

(x1)  PVC tubing 11 cm diam. – 140 cm (main pole)
(x2)  wooden boards 100 x 16 x 2,5 cm (base)
(x1)  wooden board 130 x 30 x 2,5 cm (base)
(x2)  wooden poles 3 cm diam. – 130 cm (diagonals)
(x2)  wooden poles 2 cm diam. – 100 cm (lower diagonals)
(x2) wooden board 55 x 55 x 1 cm (octagon)
(x2) wooden board 40 x 30 x 1 cm (center box)
(x2) wooden board 40 x 23 x 1 cm (center box)
(x2) wooden board 28 x 230 x 1 cm (center box)
(x6) big sheets of 2mm card board(x16) L-brackets
(x1) container craft glue
(x1) hot glue gun
(x1) roll of double-sided tape
(x1) 50 meter roll of white duct tape
(x1) can of black paint
(x1) paint brush
(x3) black spray paint
(x2) white spray paint
(x1) big sheet of black reflective vinyl
(x10) M8 x 50 bolts
(x10) M8 nuts
(x50) selection of wood screws
(8 m)  steel cable
(x8) cable crimps
(x4) cable tensioners
(x8) eye hooks
(x2) Google street view signs
(x1) roof rack

Step 3: Plan overview:

Feel free to make adjustments to the dimensions and go into more detail than we did. As you can see, our camera-top came out a little bigger than the original one. The laser scanners (white boxes) were adjusted to size but came out too big in relation to the rest.

Step 4: Center box & tube

1. Mount the center box and saw a hole 11cm in diameter in the center.
2. Slip it over the tube and attach it with L-brackets and screws.
3. Cut 2 octagons from the 55 x 55 cm wood boards.
4. Mount the base octagon on top of the tube with L-brackets.
5. Paint/spray all black.

Step 5: Octagon (no cameras inside!)

1. Cut the inner and outer octagon walls from the cardboard.
2. Paint both sides of the strips black.
3. Glue 4 pieces of wood (23 cm) to the inner ring.
4. Screw and glue the inner ring on the base.
5. Hide the inside with a cylinder of black vinyl.
6. Screw and glue the top octagon.
7. Clamp the outer ring on.
8. Mount the finished octagon on the main tube with L-brackets.

Step 6: Laser scanners & control unit

1. Build the laser scanner boxes from cardboard.
2. Use white tape or paint to cover them.
3. Bend a piece of cardboard in the window and cover it with black vinyl.
4. Mount the 3 boxes to the center box (directions!)
5. Build the control unit, paint it yellow, and screw it to the rear side of the center box.

Step 7: Mount main pole on base unit

1. Mount the main pole to the base with L-brackets.
2. Attach rods to the ring on the tube and screw them in the base.
3. Stabilize with flight cables on all 4 corners of the center box to the base.
4. Add lower diagonals, dish and stand for optical enhancement.

Step 8: Mount the fake camera top onto the car:

1. Screw 4 holes (8mm in diameter) in each bar of the roof rack.
2. Drill the corresponding holes in the wooden base.
3. Mount the camera top with nuts and bolts to the roof rack
4. Make sure the roof rack is mounted and sits tight.

Drive carefully and have fun in the city!!!

More pics on fuckflickr here, here and here !

Posted by Aram Bartholl on Feb 15.10 to berlin, DIY, fuckgoogle, google, howto, streetview, tm10   

A labor-saving device for graffiti artists. An assistive tool or telematic proxy for taggers working in harsh environments. Long-needed relief for graffiti artists with RSI. Or simply, pure research into as-yet-untrammeled intersections of automation and architecture. We give you: the ROBOTAGGER, an industrial robot arm programmed with GML, the new “Graffiti Markup Language” created by Evan Roth and pals at the FAT Lab.

This quick project came together over the past weekend in CMU’s Digital Fabrication Laboratory (dFAB), directed by my pal, Professor Jeremy Ficca. Inspired by a tweet from Evan Roth, one of the co-creators of GML, we reckoned it would be easy to transcode GML into a file format suitable for robotic CAD/CAM machining. The result is a small Processing utility that converts GML into DXF and CSV (you can download the GML-to-DXF source code here). After tinkering around for a while we developed a pipeline for converting the GML/DXF strokes from 000000book.com into machining paths for the dFAB’s ABB IRB-4400, an eight foot tall industrial robot arm. One of our first tags, which you can see in the video, was made from GML produced by TEMPT ONE (Tony Quan), a graffiti writer with Lou Gehrig’s disease who produced the GML recording with the FAT Lab’s well-known EyeWriter software. Although there’s been a lot of data loss and translation along the way, it’s not completely unreasonable to think of the Robotagger as a prosthesis for Tony. I hope we can pursue this possibility a little further.

Speaking of future directions, there are lots of interesting research topics latent here in automated calligraphy. We were astonished to realize just how important the force-feedback of pressure is to the visual quality of the drawings. (The first 20 seconds of the video shows what I mean in an extreme way – we shattered a marker and sent ink everywhere when our estimate of the Z-plane turned out to be off by a quarter-inch. Looks like we need to get that force-measuring software extension that ABB sells.) Going forward, we’re interested in exploring robotic performances of higher-dimensional gesture data, such as that produced by Wacom tablets, which provides high-resolution information about the pressure, azimuth and elevation (yaw and pitch) of the tagger’s stylus. Watch this space — I’ll be developing some tools to help the next version of GML encode this information.

The Robotagger is a collaboration of Jeremy Ficca’s dFAB at CMU; the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon, which I direct; and the FAT Lab’s GML initiative. We used the Sharpie Magnum and the wonderful 2-inch Montana Hardcore markers, which (AFAIK) are the largest magic markers in commercial production. (And of course, for the deep history of prior work blending graffiti and automation, don’t forget to check out the spraycan-enabled Graffiti Writer robot [1998-2000] by the Institute for Applied Autonomy, and Jürg Lehni’s wall-spraying Hektor robot [2002].) [Extra link: RoboTagger on Youtube]

Posted by golan on Jan 13.10 to fi5e, graffiti, howto   

Why is it that so many arts organizations claiming to “support the arts” never seem to have any “support” for the artists? Don Draper offers us some advice on how to negotiate with arts organizations.

I’ll mail out a free book and stickers to anyone that BCC’s me (evan[at]fffff.at) on a negotiation email with an arts organization in which you use the phrase, “this is my profession, what do you want me to do?” Extra gold star if you use the phrase “I think you wouldn’t be in the presidential suite right now if you worked for free.”* (Feel free to use the images below as attachments.) Don Draper’em!

* Must be actual artist fee negotiation email with real arts organization. All information will be kept confidential.

Posted by Evan Roth on Nov 25.09 to art, dondraper, dondraperem, funding, howto, madmen   

In a desperate moment on a monday night at Zurich airport .
Type F “Schuko” + CEE 7/16

Aram Bartholl 2009

Posted by Aram Bartholl on Sep 21.09 to AramBartholl, howto, speedproject, video   

Welcome to installment #2 of how to ship digital art for free. At issue: how to transport a large computer that is too big for carry on luggage and too delicate for checked luggage.

Step #1:
Obtain an oversize shopping bag and cut it down to match the exact dimensions of your computer case. Line with cardboard for padding.

Step #2:
Place computer inside the bag and casually toss small items on top.

Step #3:
Take the airline issued carry on tag from your properly sized item and place it on your oversize item.

Step #4:
Avoid sweating, limping or leaning awkwardly to one side when walking by security…. it should look light. Once you pass the initial security check point (the ones that look at your ticket and passport) then the x-ray process is no problem.

See yall in Paris!

Posted by Evan Roth on Jun 23.09 to howto, travel   

A million thanks to my studio colleague Holger who made this transaction possible!

Posted by Aram Bartholl on Jun 10.09 to AramBartholl, how to, howto, movie   

I KNEW IT HAD TO BE GARAGEBAND – WHY PAY FOR STUDIO TIME WHEN YOU COULD BE RANTING OR SHOPPING? JUST GET A FFFFFAT KID TO SHOW YOU HOW IT’S DONE.

CHILDREN ARE THE FUTURE: FFFFFAT KIDS

Posted by bennett4$enate on May 15.09 to autotune, howto, kanye, KANYEWEBST, kids, video   

Graffiti Research Lab Vienna branch brings us the Powerthief, “an alternative powersourcer for those wanting to bring their electronic equipment to use outside.” Complete with source code.

Posted by Evan Roth on Mar 10.09 to grl, grlv, hack, how2, howto, instructables, power, vienna   

Kids know everything. Between this and Nerf Mods, I think we might have a series going.

Posted by bennett4$enate on Mar 05.09 to candy, DIY, hood, howto, kids   

It took me a few years to warm up to this one, but eventually my dad finally talked me into it, and I never looked back. Kind of like Brusells sprouts.


Happy Thanksgiving y’all.

Posted by bennett4$enate on Nov 26.08 to eat, food, howto, thanksgiving, turkey