Mark-it-ting’s power to paradoxically (and effectively) communicate via erasure was popularly demonstrated yesterday by several websites that “blacked out” their content as a means to protest SOPA/PIPA. (If you aren’t already familiar with these bills currently being considered by the U.S. Congress, please familiarize yourself. Or if you’re too lazy, just take our word for it: they suck. If passed, your favorite websites would disappear.)

But despite the negative connotation these sites’ “self-imposed censorship[s]” imply, we’re impressed by the flexibility of Mark-it-ting to work its magic in many contexts, in many ways. We’re also a little flattered given our prescience .

Here’s to the power of Mark-it-ting, the most effective way to add via subtraction!

Confused what to do with all those ill-fitting t-shirts with boring logos you receive en masse at conventions and other schwag-heavy events? Please, send them to us. Since we love recycling so much and hate buying unnecessary materials, we’ll détourn any free thing we can get our hands on, from airline placement mats to t-shirts.

Here’s some images from a recent spate of resuscitating previously unwearable shirts into one-of-a-kind, hand screen-printed, Sharism objets d’art.

Simply blot out the previous, unwanted logo and add your own.

Bam! A new shirt.

What looks like a messy white-out job turns out to be the coolest shirt in your closet.

Seriously, send us your shirts and we’ll send back a few revitalized with the Sharism and Fabricatorz logo as a thank you for giving life to otherwise dead and forgotten cotton.

I recently spoke at TTI Vanguard’s NEXTGEN conference in Miami. Totally great experience to talk to some very high level folks about the work we are doing as Fabricatorz on the Qi Hardware and Milkymist Video Synthesizer project. Here are my slides. The first set I did on my laptop, and the second set I *performed* using the Milkymist! In 2012, I will try to use the Milkymist for any performances (no more presentations!).

I should note that the presentation title reflects popular interest in some of my topics, and not the specific words I would choose to represent what we are working on. In particular, we are staying away from using the words FREE, OPEN, COPYLEFT now in favor of Sharing, hence Sharism. Also, the word Hardware is a bit problematic because of what it conjures up for computer nerds as this an already manufactured piece of hardware, like the 400K iphones foxconn is churning out a day. We take it to mean more like the glass or metal that is part of a final product. To consider the Milkymist or our projects FROM CHINA is not completely accurate. While I spend a lot of time in China, the Milkymist in particular is manufactured mostly in Taiwan.

Oh well, words are words are words! Check out the slides below and please share. They are ✳ (shared by) me, aka: ✳ Fabricatorz.

(Click here for the SVG presentation or the SVG with outlines)

(Click here for the SVG presentation or the SVG with outlines)

Ask me about the event the next time you see me; I have some great stories to tell since this event was supposed to be mostly private during the conference.

In a more public showing, Yi from Qi Hardware is presenting about the Milkymist tonite (中文 at Xinchejian, the Shanghai-based hackerspace we held the first Sharism Presents Shanghai.

Don’t forget to Buy a Milkymist One for yourself or your friendz