Sometimes you make a thing to understand a thing.

I spent the past week building a new version of Power Ground Water to teach a 1-day workshop with SFPC this June. Che-Wei has been heads down on a whole bunch of projects. Lots of electronics. One of them with a group of people from around the world that relates to music and artists.

Wednesday we gave a short talk at SVA alongside two other speakers, Carlos Matias and Khyati Trehan. It was fun to meet them both and hear about their work and thoughts and processes.

Carlos spoke directly to students about AI and speed and focus and thoughts on entering a transformed world.

Khyati very generously showed her work and processes. One experiment she showed was inspired by reading Ted Chiang's short story "A story of your life" (which became the movie Arrival). After, she got curious to understand how that story, and stories generally work, so she built a tool to break stories into a set of clearly defined elements. After a deeper dive into her other work, it's pretty obvious that understanding, whether it's a scientific principle or some technological innovation is an impetus for her creative output. I really resonate with this way of working.

All the speakers, except for us at the very end, wove some thoughts about using AI to support our creative practices. We've mentioned this before, how now feels like a time to be building tools. A tool doesn't necessarily have to be a thing to help you make a thing. It can also be a way to help you understand a thing.

500 x 500 pixels. Contribute to Pocket Fiche, last chance!

We’re looking for people to contribute to a micron-scale gold and sapphire plated slide, printed using the same technology used to make microchips. It’s kind of like an earth-bound version of the voyager golden record, but more messy and open to anyone.

The print is happening very soon, and we have space to fill on the slide. To participate, you will create one (or several) 0.5 x 0.5mm 500 x 500 pixel bitmap(s). The field of view for the pan-able microscope we built to view this slide is 0.5 mm.

Participation is free! Email t@cwandt.com and we’ll send you a link to upload your bitmap. If you’d like more than 1 parcel, tell us how many you want so we can send you several links.

Read more about Pocket Fiche here.

This project is a collaboration with our friend Miles who is working to make the tools and technology of building microchips more widely accessible.

Our first stop on Saturday was to see Paul Klee at Jewish museum. Great show. Great museum.

Then we walked a few blocks to see Tom Sachs "Furniture" at Salon 94. I liked the neon orange shims and also seeing Laura's power cord hanging next to Virginia's.

gnarrr.

Che-Wei's sister's 2026 Annual Week View Calendar.

We made some folding Little Scissors with our friends at gnuhr. They will launch one day in the not too far future and if you'd like to know when that is : Notify on launch.

Heading test

testing testing