A trailer put together by John Behrens of Omega Recoil and Brad Cooper showcasing some of the industrial art coming out of Oakland, including 2pir. Also showcased is Omega Recoil, The Golden Mean, Electrobite, and the Golden Zeppelini (oilpunk.com), and Boreus Hyemalis (graywrxfabblog.blogspot.com/​)

And yes, all this stuff is available for events!

As many of our photographer friends know all too well, 2pir is notoriously hard to photograph. While we were in Denmark, Smukfest undertook the challenge of not only photographing 2pir, but photographing all of it! The result is this amazing 360 degree panorama of 2pir taken from the viewpoint of the dancer on the platform.

NIMBY is having a funraiser on Saturday, October 16th! We’ll be there, running 2pir fresh from it’s journey back across the sea from Denmark. A number of other sights, sounds, and experiences will be there as well, including Extra Action Marching Band, CoRE, and the Boiler Bar. Also in attendance will be 4pyre², trying to one-up us with their 3 dimensional equations. I predict a friendly “flame war” between them and us.

The party starts at 9pm and the cover starts at $16 (if you can afford to donate more, please do!) More info can be found at the Facebook event page.

Saturday, October 16th
NIMBY
8410 Amelia Street (off 85th)
Oakland, CA

It’s been almost two months since Smukfest and still no update on the blog. Wondering why? It’s because everyone has been incredibly busy with Syzygryd, Burning Man, and the aftermath of the annual excursion. But for those wondering how 2pir and Smukfest went: It was awesome.

2pir ran so well raised 10 feet in the air that we’re looking into how to do this for every run. It really changes the dynamic of the piece and not only makes it easier to run but more fun for the participants as well. Just like our normal 2pir runs, we let anyone from the audience up on the stage to dance and play with the fire. What was a little bit different this run was that we had actually scheduled and rehearsed performances. We had a belly dancer as well as several break dancers who impressed the crowd before we opened it up to the general audience. We even managed to incorporate the Top Gun Theme. And of course the crew had way too much fun themselves, whether it was Mustache Night, suiting up in the Faraday suits, letting kids play with fire, freezing tanks, or digging around in Danish scrap yards.

Another difference from our normal runs was that we shared the spotlight with two other pieces. We alternated between 2pir, Omega Recoil and Boreus Hyemalis over the course of the night, blowing the Danes’ minds with Zap, Burn, and Crush. All in all it was a great run. And now 2pir is back in storage, waiting for the next run.

For a bunch of pictures and videos check out:
Ed’s Flickr Set
Tom’s Flickr Set

Getting ready to fly 2pir

We just got pictures of the 2pir build-out happening in Denmark for this year’s Smukfest. This run we’ll attempt something 2pir has never done before: make it fly. The fine Danes over in Skanderborg are putting together the platform that will raise all of 2pir (both flame effects and performers) 3 meters off the ground. So far it’s looking pretty awesome. Check out all the pics below:

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Omega Recoil: Denmark container load from oscar champagne on Vimeo.

After almost 6 months of rebuilding 2pir, testing, doing paperwork, and way too much time at NIMBY, 2pir is on it’s way to Denmark for Smukfest 2010! As you can see above, we spent the last Saturday afternoon stuffing everything into a shipping container for the journey across the ocean.

In the container with 2pir is Omega Recoil‘s Tesla Coil, and Therm‘s brand spanking new robot. Last year we put DDI on a boat. This year we’re putting 2pir in the air. The flame effects and the platform are going to be 3 meters in the air with festival goers milling about underneath them. We’re going to take the beach at Denmark and show the Danes more fire and electricity than they’ve seen in a long time.

And relatedly, Jonathan also has some interesting reflections on fire art over on his blog.

As usual, we’ve been working on improving 2pir. A while back Ian and Nicole came up with the idea of taking it out to the playa to run for the 4th of July, which provided an excellent opportunity to fix up some lingering issues. There was some last minute scrambling to get things in working order, but we managed to haul it out to the Black Rock Desert. On Friday, we set everything up and started to test, but the new ignition system wasn’t working as expected. We downgraded to super-janky igniters (i.e. wicks soaked in lamp oil.) They weren’t nearly as pretty as the nichrome wire, but they worked for a couple of hours as we played late into the night. Saturday was much more successful. We reverted to a refined version of our igniters from the Maker Faire, which ended up being the best ignition system so far for 2pir. We invited several people to spin fire, flags, or swing whatever they wanted around as we pumped music out of our sound system. Those who chose to jump on the platform and perform had a blast, and were quite entertaining for everyone standing around the perimeter.

Evan took some great pictures
Ed got a couple of videos

2pir was a hit at Maker Faire. We had person after person asking us when we were going to start running all day long. And had crowds gathering off and on all night long. We really started running around 8pm and our 500lbs of propane lasted just the right amount of time until shutdown at 10pm. We were able to give several people a chance on the platform and enjoyed how everyone interacted with the sensors and fire in their own way. Some highlights of the evening? The mother who swung her kid around, Jake swinging Kai (and everyone else) around, the girl with the umbrella and boots, and of course tons of kids including one with an appropriate shirt.

That’s not to say we weren’t without the normal hiccups that go along with every performance. Igniter issues, wind, and what may be a dead sensor caused some delays. If you were one of the ones that sat and waited for us to sort things out, thank you for sticking it out!

For those keeping track of how 2pir ran (since it’s a growing and changing piece), this time we ran with only the high flame effects, brand new (awesome) sensors, a brand new Soekris board running our perl script on Debian, a retro-fitted lowered platform, our brand new water pump, and of course lots of the good old propane.

If you missed us at Maker Faire, we’re sorry. It only made sense to have us run Saturday evening. But don’t worry, we’re hoping that Interpretive Arson will be back next year to blow your minds. A huge thanks to Maker Faire for being one of the easiest events to work with and giving us the opportunity to be a part of it.

A couple different blogs/newsites/etc mentioned 2pir:
Wired
c|net
geek gestalt

And of course lots of pictures and videos:
Daniel Garcia (photos)
Ed Hunsinger (photos & video)

If you have pictures, videos, or a link to an article about 2pir, please let us know so we can add it to the list.