vVvA log

The flying anvil made it to boston yesterday. After several talks with the airport employees and the security people i checked in the anvil. The employees thought i was in austin for a rodeo that was going on during the weekend and that i was fixing horseshoes. I told them that was the case. No problems were reported during the flight. However the bag where the anvil was traveling suffered a little injury in one of the sides. It seems like at some point somebody dropped the bag and caused a little hole on the side.

did i say before i didnt like thee cold weather? did i ever mention the allergic reaction i got to the temperatures below zero? did i say how sensitive was my health during the first year in new england? true, the weather is very cold here in cambridge and boston. and as a matter of fact i am allergic to the cold. if i am not covering with layers and scarfs i get a cold very easy. for instance, if i go out during the night without proper layers of colothing, next day my throat hearts, is dry, and makes me cough. so i have to be very careful always with these freezer temperatures. i dont even like them. they are not pleasant at all. and here, in the middle of the white snowy world i re-discovered how much i am a tropical animal.
however, i gotta say, honestly, now that the snow has melt, that i miss the frozen charles. the river transformation into a carpet, into a block of ice, white and cold as ice in a bucket. the frozen river is an amazing screen for sunsets and dawns, and when it was in the process of breaking it created marvellous patterns of broken pieces of ice. as broken pieces of a mirror. ice blocks very textured and with fantastic reflective capabilities. beautilful screens and containers of sun light. i loved them, and i will miss those landscapes. the shore of the charles near to boston, right next to the salt and pepper bridge is a great spot for contemplating and taking pictures and films of this phenomena. your scale with change after some minutes of looking through the broken blocks of eyes and the white surface that extends through the east.

important to notice my project of droping an anvil in the frozen river during future winters. i am very curious about the sound it will create. must be at night, very quite. maybe around 4am.

the short version of the story is that i am composing a musical piece for one anvil and 5 heads. each head has a solenoid inside that hammers the anvil. one solenoid comes from the third eye of a robot, other solenoid comes from the ear of a baby, other from the nose of pinocchio, other from the eye of an angry man, and other from the brain of a cat. the heads and the anvil altogether are the first sculpture i have built. it is a kinetic sculpture and a musical instrument as well. i have been working on it since one month ago in collaboration with my friend the sculptor aj liberto. the experience of dealing with physical computing and 3d forms has been rewarding. i am happy with the results. i am glad also with how the concept of this piece came out from my research on the comic uses of sound. this sculpture, “anvil head,” is a complement to my masters thesis “the new sounds of the slap-of-the-stick.” in fact, the sound of this sculpture is a new sound of the slap-of-the-stick.