Blair Neal

Today's adventures in pen plotting - making a procedural woodcut cloud generator for pen plotting clouds

More Kinect 360’s spotted in the wild again. Check out this amazing wiring job at a large Manhattan museum 😂

Sharing a new project - a creative tech timeline: laserpilot.github.io/creative-tec... The history of this space is captured in many different places, but some of the information disappears or gets lost. This isn't meant to be complete, but more of a conversation starter. Additions welcome!

Spotted an Xbox 360 Kinect still in use in the wild

I've had backups of a hyperstudio "game" i made in 1997 for forever but havent been able to open them. The other night I had claude fix the files so I could open them in a macOS9 emulator and I was not prepared for the level of peak 13yr old nerd I was about to witness.

Taking requests for weird AV equipment to make out of polymer clay. This is my first attempt at a little midi synth

Not sure who needs to see this, but if you ever need a MacOS quicklook extension for non-standard video codecs - I just discovered this and this repo does the job well: github.com/Oil3/QLCodec

If anyone in NY-10 hasnt voted in the primary today - please vote for @bradlander.bsky.social and oust that phony Dan Goldman

IMDB but for creative tech project credits "oh shit, you were tech director bystander #3 on that project? that role was life changing"

Facts in Tomodachi Life @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social

I made a fake experiential agency site, processing over a decade of working in real ones. Case studies are fictional, but feel too real at the same time. palatable.work

Photochromic dye and UV laser projector experiments continue - now on a much larger canvas

These cowards should have owned their choice and made their URL takeawhizz.biz - you don’t merely get a whizz, you take one

Plotting some of my generative trees from a tool I’ve been working on. Lots to do but I like what I’m getting so far!

6-ish weeks off and on of progress working with Claude Code to make a tool to make pen plottable trees/svgs. Tried like 3 or 4 different approaches and ive finally landed on manual branch placement and auto twig/leaf placement

Now on to some generative pipes…

Braaaaids! 🧟‍♂️ BRAAAIDS! 🧟‍♂️

That feeling when someone sends you an Alibaba Express link they found because they think the trusted hardware you recommended is too expensive

The fun kind of pen testing

Still dipping into some time to mess with generative braids - tried a new technique of having the strands "break" to simulate a highlight and i love how it is looking even more natural in spots. fixing those tight foldover curves is my white whale though...

Hell yeah @bradlander.bsky.social - excited to see he’s running for congress in my district youtu.be/qmoyCPtPSTw?... (Obligatory fuck my current rep, @repdangoldman.bsky.social )

Pen plotter results of some of the generative braid work I was doing a week ago. Still have some work to do to make it feel more organic but I’m encouraged by the results so far #plotter #penplotter

Trying to vibe code a generative braid that i can eventually pen plot has been quite a journey in trying to break down the problem well enough for AI to get what I'm trying to do. I've still got a little ways to go to fix edge cases, but im very pleased with what i've got so far.

Another great move from the Adams team, our embarassing mayor who can't be out of office soon enough. Sidenote - is $100 considered a decent bribe? was it jsut like a balled up pile of 20's, 5's and 1's? what were they trying to cover up with so little money? an ill timed fart?

Great ad timing on this DC tourism ad in your app @nytimes.com food! History! Raids!

Shout out to that time in 2016 where i chopped up images of a Where's Waldo book and had @genekogan.bsky.social 's amazing ofxTSNE sort them by similarity to make a hellish Where's Waldo

Wow - someone in my neighborhood doing a real deep clean this morning

Used Claude Code/Gemini to help me make a CEF browser->Spout2 simple app for Windows that ill release soon. Going to do the same for Syphon on MacOS because why not. There were old implementations of this, but most were abandoned. Let me know if this sounds useful!

Damn - Gemini Code Assist CLI is really not performing well on most coding tasks. So many syntax errors and oddball solutions. I like it as a big picture view/project manager when im out of tokens on Claude Code, but I've barely had success with it implementing working code

Awesome projection technique i havent seen done this cleanly before, or only really with LCD's with polarizers removed: www.nendo.jp/en/works/unc... - they remove the polarizers from LCD projectors and then put circular polarizers on the umbrella. so nice

A regular reminder to please donate what you can/join as a member to CAN - it is a vital resource for the global media arts community and is such a special space.

Response to the photochromic+UV laser has been awesome - thanks for everyone's support. I didn't get to share this bonkers bit of footage where the laser and camera shutter sync up briefly and it looks like the image is just drawing itself for a moment. (extra footage here youtu.be/xEo0MRYg4SY )

Omg eat shit, Cuomo. This is so exciting - congrats Mamdani!

Wow - taking a look at my ancient "How to keep an installation up 4evr" guide in 2025 with an AI lens and asking it if it can update everything and automate some stuff. New installation tools incoming soon i guess?? (link to old guide for those unfamiliar github.com/laserpilot/I... )

Sharing some WIP footage for a new experiment that uses photochromic pigment and a custom UV laser projector. The images fade over time, allowing for an evolving canvas. More info here ablairneal.com/project/forg...

A reporter from The City had overheard one agent say to another minutes before Lander’s arrest, “Do you want to arrest the Comptroller?” www.thecity.nyc/2025/06/17/b...

Successful test composite fft plot of Ok Computer (blue=bass/green=mid/red=high). Super fun comparing whole albums like this - now just need to make the time text bigger and the plots less tedious to make