Author Archive for morganni23

Shawn Seipler, Founder of Clean the World

Shawn Seipler was once at a hotel in Minneapolis when the question struck him, “What do they do with the soap when I’m done with it?” When he asked the front desk, he was told they just throw the soap away. He saw how wasteful of a practice it was, and began to mentally brew potential solutions. Soon (once he was back at home in Florida), he created a makeshift work station in his garage, and had his family helping him to melt, sanitize, and reform bars of soap. Shawn was able to collect bars from several hotels around Orlando, and his first completed batch was 2,000 recycled bars strong. Shawn was able to bring himself and them to an impoverished area of Haiti. When he arrived at the church where he would hand them out, a crowd five times the size of his soap supply was waiting for him. Before this point, Shawn was aware of the great need that Haitian people had for hygiene supplies, but upon learning of how many of them died every day of disease, and seeing how grateful they were to receive soap, he knew his social enterprise had to continue. Shawn founded Clean the World in 2009, and since then the organization has expanded the scale of its operation, now donating to 115 countries (including homeless shelters in the US), it has diverted more than 28 million pounds of waste from landfills and donated over 87 million bars of soap. It has also expanded its range to include recycling the plastic of small liquid soap bottles.

The process of recycling the soap used by Clean the World is the same in its fundamentals as what Shawn Seipler used initially in his garage. Though at first his team was using potato peelers, meat grinders, and cookers, the work done by the industrial-quality equipment they now possess is doing the same things at a larger scale. The modern process is as follows: First, the bars are extruded into pellets and ground so that all foreign particles are removed. Then, the soap is sterilized by heating. Next, there is another round of pelleting and grinding to eliminate any potential remaining particles. Lastly, the soap is turned back into fresh bars. Clean the World now has recycling centers all over the earth, helping to prevent waste and provide for those in need.

 

My Sources:

FAQ – Clean the World

The afterlife of hotel soap | CNN

How Used Hotel Soap Could ‘Clean the World’ | Inc.com

Shawn Seipler doing his part to ‘Clean the World’ – Kenosha.com

Richard D. James (Aphex Twin), A Musician Pushing the Limits of Synthesized Sound

Richard next to the obtuse glyph that is his logo.

Richard D. James, who is more famous under the name Aphex Twin, is an avant garde electronic musician who plays with sound by means and to ends that few other artists can or will strive for. He has been releasing music officially since 1991, and has released six studio albums, among various compilations, extended plays (EPs) and singles. If the title of his album Selected Ambient Works 85-92 is to be believed, then Richard was making music at the age of fourteen. He did not set out wishing to become famous and make the world hear his sound, but instead made his art to satisfy his own musical itch. Even as he worked as a DJ, dishing out his and others’ tracks for raving crowds, he was resistant to officially releasing his music.

Aphex Twin does not purchase a new piece of equipment and head straight into using it in a song. For him there is not a need to seek out the right tool for the job, but rather to craft it. The things that he makes his synthesizers, modulators, sequencers, and amplifiers do cannot be accomplished without modifications, bodges, and sometimes total reconstructions. If Richard judged a tool in his possession as one he could not make use of in its current form, it would be pulled apart to have its sliders, jacks, and switches reassigned until nothing under the hood was the way it looked in the manual. Only then would it be a fit asset in his eclectic arsenal.

The Twin creates music that is jarring and fast paced, such as Bucephalus Bouncing Ball and afx237v7. He also creates slow and somber songs. Aisatsana [102] and A Stone in Focus come to mind. The former of that pair is a piano piece, something oddly approachable for a discography such as his but well at home in the album Syro from which it is sourced. Richard D. does not make songs with lyrics, but instead allows for the emotions in his pieces to come through on their own terms.

Make the weirdest art you can bring yourself to make. If your heart’s in it, people might recognize it, but who needs people anyway? Make art for you. Tear your tools apart and stick them back together until they can bring about the vision you seek. Make a sound nobody has heard before, then play it a hundred different ways over seven minutes. Be the beeping, pulsing, and droning you want to hear in the world.

Cary Huang, a Mind Behind Battle for Dream Island

Cary K Huang is a creator whose journey started sooner that most would expect. Cary, in collaboration with his twin brother Michael, created an animated web series called Battle for Dream Island. Their first entry in this series, “BFDI 1a: Take the Plunge”  was released to YouTube, beginning the story of the original twenty living objects and the host and establishing that the contestants would battle to win a beautiful island. It did not receive a wide viewership at first, as it was through the steady persistence of their uploads that their audience would grow. Cary and Michael were twelve when the first episode was released on the first day of 2010, and over the course of exactly two years and twenty-four episodes totaling nearly four hours of animation, they gained more than a thousand subscribers.

The fans of Battle for Dream Island and a similar YouTube show known as Inanimate Insanity would come to be called the Object Show Community. This online community, as is the case with others like it on the net, produces large amounts of fan made content. Some may consider the OSC, especially as it exists today, to be a self-sustaining vortex of inspiration, animation, and creativity. 

The brothers’ journey in online animation had a good early chapter. It was followed by several false starts in the form of sequel seasons that did not get far off the ground. Through most of his time in high school and college education at Stanford, Cary was too busy to focus on animation. During this time, he was able to experiment with code in some interesting projects. It was not until a flurry of new episodes releasing in 2017 and 2018 that Battle for Dream Island was ready to return, this time with a far larger production team and renewed art style. Following a hiatus that can be attributed to a lack of time at the end of Cary’s college career, Battle for BFDI (aka. BFB) was able to release episodes regularly until it reached its conclusion. 

The BFDI team is still active today, and is currently producing the prequel season Battle for Dream Island Again and the sequel season The Power of Two simultaneously. Each new animated episode receives millions of views. Though the world and the scope of their creation has expanded greatly, Cary and Michael’s original vision from when they were twelve years old still persists in their modern efforts.

Matthew Shifrin, A Blind Artist Increasing the Accessibility of Lego

Matthew Shifrin sitting at a table with several completed Lego sets. He has ginger hair and sunglasses on.

Matthew Shifrin with some of his Lego creations

Matthew Shifrin is a remarkable figure who has been a positive force in the world despite his lack of something that most people take for granted. Though he was born blind and is only 26, he has already written several musicals and acted in a film. He can speak four languages and is learning another two currently, as well as sing and play the accordion. He created Braille for the Yiddish language. Though he has built himself quite the portfolio of accomplishments, the innovation I am here to discuss was not solely his invention.

On Matthew’s thirteenth birthday, he received a Prince of Persia Lego set from his friend Lilya Finkel. With the set came a binder Lilya made containing hand typed braille instructions. These allowed Matthew to build the set despite his inability to perceive the standard instructions. Before this point, he had played with Lego, but he mostly kept to the Bionicle line. He had a lot of fun following the braille guide to put his set together. Matthew and Lilya would proceed to translate more instructions and standardize a method of communicating exactly what blocks to put where. Here is a sample of what these guides come out sounding like.

     9.1. Place a red 1×2 plate, vertically and centered horizontally,

     on the front two pieces from the previous step. 

     9.2. Place an orange 1×1 plate behind the previous piece. 

In 2017, Lilya Finkel passed away from cancer. Matthew has continued the project in her absence, working with other blind and sighted folks to create accessible instructions in greater numbers. The work is done by pairs of people, a sighted translator and a blind or partially sighted tester. They have currently translated one hundred and eighty four sets, and are constantly putting out more. The largest set they have conquered is the Tower Bridge, at a grand 4295 pieces. The tactile experience of feeling every surface of a Lego sculpture can be very enriching for blind children who cannot otherwise experience the world as we would. You could tell a blind child that the roof of their home slants downward at a gentle angle, but that concept becomes far more realized when they can pore over a model of a home and feel it for themselves. Matthew Shifrin was able to speak directly with members of the Creative Play Lab at the Lego Group, and in 2019 they piloted official audio and braille instructions for four sets. There have since been dozens of official blind-accessible Lego instructions released.

I find the story of Matthew inspirational because it demonstrates that through hardship, through perceived limitations, we can become greater than the people others may judge us to be. In addition, Lilya Finkel demonstrated the traits of an excellent friend, and served others the way Jesus tells us to serve: Generously, thoughtfully, and lovingly. 

 

My Sources:

bricksfortheblind.org

Seeing LEGO Differently

Lego Group to Pilot Lego Audio and Braille Instructions

Billie Eilish, a Genre-Defying Musician

Billie Eilish holding several awards

Billie Eilish wearing one of her odd outfits and holding a trio of trophies.

Billie Eilish began her career in music when she was only fourteen years old, making a splash with the single Ocean Eyes. It was uploaded to SoundCloud to be listened to for free by anyone, and within only a few weeks it had accrued a million plays. Billie Eilish, whose full name is Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell, rejects many of the standards for what a billboard topping artist can look and sound like. Eilish has a unique sense of style, frequently matching baggy and brightly colored and patterned clothes with large and eccentric jewelry. She is inspired by Pop, Industrial, EDM, and Jazz, among other music genres. The result is something timeless and innovative, what some call a whole new genre. Much of her songs and lyrics which are now trending internationally were first written in her home in collaboration with her brother. (He releases music separately as part of a band called The Slightlys.)

Billie Eilish is a very creative person. Eilish speaks in an interview with Noisey about how she gets many ideas from her strange dreams. She was homeschooled, enjoying horseback riding, dance, and singing. In her youth, she was a fan of Anime, specifically the movie Spirited Away. Billie Eilish has an impressive record when it comes to acclaim, trophies, and awards. She has had her music appear in 13 Reasons Why and Barbie (2023). She is the youngest person to win the Best Pop Vocal Album, Best New Artist, Song of the Year, and Record of the Year awards at the Grammy’s. Though her career has been highly successful, it has not been a very long one. As of yet, Eilish has only released three studio albums over eight years of music making. She’s just twenty-two years old currently, and has the potential to be a mainstay in the Pop music world, continuing to bring new, dark combinations of sound onto the billboard charts. She can be an example to us all that if you pursue your ideas (no matter how strange) with enough passion and vision, you can find an audience. Put yourself out there, and share your ideas!

 

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HmFgsLjpnM

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/4/18/18412282/who-is-billie-eilish-explained-coachella-2019

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Billie-Eilish

Kane Parsons, a Filmmaker Fresh out of High School

A pair of images, one showing Kane Parsons, a young man. The other showing the original Backrooms image of a hall with its musty old carpet and aging wallpaper.

Kane Parsons and the original Backrooms photograph.

Kane Parsons is an online filmmaker and visual effects artist who has received viral attention for his horror short films. His most popular work is a series called The Backrooms. Parsons, who goes by Kane Pixels online, released the first installment in his Backrooms series when he was sixteen years old. The nine minute short film which was uploaded to YouTube in 2022 takes place in an unnatural, lonely setting. The protagonist wanders endless, maze-like yellow hallways rendered in vivid detail with the 3D animation software Blender. This protagonist, whose handheld camera serves as our viewpoint for the film, entered this strange world by falling straight through the solid ground beneath him and into a place disconnected from our reality. In the days following the suspenseful short’s release, it would become highly popular in several online spaces. It was inspired by a post on a message board from 2019, one which described the original concept of the endless Backrooms, and featured the iconic photograph most associated with the uncanny dimension. The series expanded on the concepts first established in that post, and would only receive more notoriety as it went on, trending with each new entry in its ongoing narrative. As Kane Parsons continued to thoughtfully produce the visuals of the films, he grew more and more ambitious. The digital sets only became larger and more detailed, and later entries would use advanced motion capture techniques to make characters’ movements as realistic as possible.

All of the impressive work that Parsons was doing got him the attention of more than just online horror fans. The independent movie studio A24 has chosen to adapt his series into a feature film. Kane Parsons will direct the film, and it is to be written by Robert Patino, a producer and writer whose previous work includes the HBO series Westworld. While simultaneously completing high school, Parsons was able to build a unique online identity and inspire others with his fresh take on the found footage horror subgenre. He is quoted by ABC News as saying, “I just love doing this, I somehow almost never burn out. And I think that’s partially because of how much people love this series. It just feels like everything I do has value.”

I can say personally that the stories Kane Pixels has created have fascinated and transfixed me. I am reminded, as I climb to the third floor of a furniture store, of those windowless carpeted halls. I find myself wondering, “What would I do if I found myself in an infinite IKEA, or an endless airport?” The success of The Backrooms has shown me that if an idea intrigues me and has the sticking power to hold in my brain, it is likely that other people will have similar reactions to it. If I can unearth a novel idea and put in the time and effort to build upon it, I can make something people will care about.

 

Sources:

https://www.wired.com/story/what-are-the-backrooms/

https://abcnews.go.com/US/backrooms-horror-storytelling-online/story?id=92623707

https://deadline.com/2023/02/the-backrooms-a24-developing-feature-based-on-viral-horror-shorts-1235249413/

https://www.youtube.com/@kanepixels