The Technical Side of the Hitchhikers Art Project
by David Charles - 7/25/2006
Read all about the Hitchhikers in the Valley of Heart's Delight Art Project here if you haven't already done so.
Without Mario Wolczko who knows where the famous five hitchhikers would have ended up! As it is, thanks to his engineering skills you can follow their progress on a GPS tracking map. A lot of work went into that.
Mario Wolczko, Sun Systems engineer and Julie Newdoll’s husband who solved all the GPS tracking problems and made it possible for you to follow the progress of the famous five hitchhikers on their travels. Here he is in his workshop with Lee de Forest and William Shockley behind, waiting to have GPS phones inserted into their guts before they are launched onto the roads of Silicon Valley.
Without the technology that goes into every Fine Art Registry tag, Jim Pallas’ sharing scheme might also run aground with some greedy person wanting more than their fair share. The tag means that even if someone decides to steal one of the guys, they won’t be able to sell it and get away with it so their efforts will be in vain.
Julie Newdoll learned a lot about technology and art going together and the fact that it takes a full time engineer to make one of these projects work.
Perhaps the most interesting and unexpected input was what caught Mario Wolczko’s interest in the project and helped keep him willing to put in hours and hours to make it work (he referred to the project as a second job for him–he’d get home from work and start on the hitchhikers!). His comments:
“I like this project because it honors some of the (mostly unsung) inventors and engineers whose breakthroughs and business skills made Silicon Valley possible. Ask the person in the street for a name they associate with Silicon Valley today, and it will most likely be a businessman: Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, maybe; I bet quite a few people will name Bill Gates, even though Redmond is nearly a thousand miles away. Ask again, what is the dominant industry of Silicon Valley, and they'll most likely answers ‘computers’ or ‘software’. But the Valley's ‘core competence’ is electronics, and the pioneers we celebrate as hitchhikers were electronic engineers. Each, in his own way, helped shape what the Valley does, and how it does it.”
Meanwhile the first two hitchhikers are making progress on their routes and the remaining three are waiting to be set free in Silicon Valley itself so that they can also make it to their destination in time.
And the ISEA ZeroOne Festival approaches…
| Hewlett & Packard — Hitch Hikers |
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Hitchhikers William Hewlett and David Packard getting ready to set forth in the valley which owes much to their enterprise, seen here atop the famous garage where they started their small business. |
Fine Art Registry tag on the back of the Hewlett and Packard hitchhikers help protect them from going astray and is an integral part of Jim Pallas’ sharing scheme. |
| The idea is to get the hitchhikers to their destinations and Jim Pallas has put a lot of thought (and years of experience) into persuading those who pick them up to actually deliver them. This is the first time he has used Fine Art Registry tags on his hitchhikers. |
| William Shockley & Lee de Forest — Hitch Hikers |
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William Shockley surrounded by his baggage, ready to take to the roads of Silicon Valley and be placed at the mercy of passing motorists. |
Lee de Forest, dressed for the cooler months, in his hitchhiking position and soon to be “let loose” to make his way to the learning center named after him at the Perham Foundation Electronics Museum at the San Jose Historical Museum in Kelley Park. |
 Shockley’s FAR registration details are also written into the wood indelibly. |
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