In the Rain

"In the Rain" is kind of what I feel today...blue; well I guess all days can't be blue skies. Anyway, photographing this piece triggered a new experience for me. It was the first time I picked up my camera and thought on the spot, while my eye was searching through the viewfinder, that I would digitally alter what I was seeing later on. Boy, that was a jolt. Even though I had been working with computer enhancements, this was the first time I thought in those terms before the fact. I visualized removing unwanted items that were in my field of vision like wires, telephone poles and the occasional wet newspaper. Several hours later I did just that and then I put it through Painter's grain effects, and finally through several of Photoshop's filter effects to get the impressionistic effect you see.

I have the privilege of being a guest artist in Ted Warnell's wonderful gallery "A Room Without Walls ." Ted has deemed it cool to do 'on the fly' long distance linking to my work. If you visit his guest 'wing' you'll experience my art originating in San Francisco. It will then routed through Calgary, Canada and thence to you. In HTML parlance, this is known as a remote link. Ted has rallied his art colleagues from around the world to assist in the success of this experiment.

From Ted Warnell:

"I am testing a remote link to another artist's web site at my gallery. We are trying to determine how this might work at different times and from different places in the world.

If you can find the time, please visit my gallery site URL below, go to the Guest Wing and into the first Virtual Guest Room, Robert Altman. .

The images in this room are being delivered from Mr. Altman's web site server in California, USA -- or are they? This is what we need to know.

If you can do this and let me know what time (your local time) you did it, and what happened, e.g., did all four images come in ok? -- then I would be most grateful."

And the responses:

"Hi, I visited Altman's gallery in your site.
It took 85 seconds to view all the images.
I had no particular problem there!
bye-bye, gaku" (Japan)

"No problem, Ted. I made the visit and all seemed to work as it should.
It was 9:30 EST here in Philadelphia.
The four images came in at what appeared o be normal time.
Kind'a neat!..."Phil...

"I checked out your site at about 10.30 am Toronto time.
The only contact I could find to Altman was a link that showed as a 'mailto.'
You've got some submarines to pay for, eh, you lucky canuckian." Lloyd Erlick

"Greetings from the future!- tomorrow will be sunny and warm!
The images loaded quickly and without fuss -
approximately 900 bytes/sec the four took just over 1.5 minutes." Ian White, Dept. Art and Design, James Cook, University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia

"Everything's working fine. Fantastic stuff from Robert Altman!!! I
especially like the design of his Netscape 2 page, it's a peach! :-)
Message timed at 23.30 UK time 23/2/96. I could try at other times if you want? Any more tests etc, let me know." Rob Hain Scotland, UK

Howard Rheingold spoke Friday night offering his take on 'Designing the Global Village' to an overflowing audience at San Francisco State University. I like Howard Rheingold. I knew I would. I've been reading his Internet column in the Examiner and I was happy that he was even more entertaining in person. Later Eric Oesterle , who wants me to share that I left my trusty digital camera behind and missed it terribly, scooted off to the Anon Salon, a multimedia soiréee which offered wonderful live Zydeco music, a wildly eclectic environment hosting a terrific blend of people.

Several people have mentioned that I did not publish last week. I am grateful that people are tuning in and feel something is missing when a new column does not appear. I shall try and post material on a weekly basis, but this will not be not a hard and fast rule.

And so... on to the next adventure.