Christina Day’s Blog

This graphic novel by Nick Abadzis mixes strenuously researched fact and compelling fiction to tell the story of Laika, the doomed canine victim of the Sputnik II Russian space program. Premier Khruschev forced the program was forced upon the Sputnik I team of scientists and engineers in the wake of Sputnik I’s success. The team had only one month to completely fabricate a spacecraft capable of sustaining, for a limited time,  the life of a dog that would be trained for the one-way voyage into space. Abadzis interviewed members of the team responsible for selecting and training the dog and began to unravel the truth behind the Sputnik II propaganda stunt, and discover an allegory for the communist regime in Russia, and its relationship with its citizens.  Fact meets fiction when Abadzis composes a touching history of abuse and betrayal for the sweet-natured Laika, who had at last found a kind home with the Sputnik trainers, only to be selected as the sacrificial poster-child for the Cosmonaut program, in hopes of establishing Russia as a dominant force in the hearts and minds of capitalist nations. Although the mission was declared a success by Khruschev, the reality is that Laika died after merely 4 hours in space, due to a malfunction in the shuttle’s climate control system. Basically, the interior of the shuttle reached over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and Laika died of stress and overheating. It was apparent that Khruschev never intended to devote the resources to make the craft fully functional and the malfunction was a result of having to create a whole spacecraft in 30 days time.

Abadzis brings Laika to life, and I found myself very attached to the little dog, and, being a dog-owner myself, it was heartbreaking to witness the depiction of this little animal dying all alone in space, floating in the void. In a bitterly beautiful representation, Laika and Sputnik II disintegrate in the atmosphere and return to earth as a series of shooting stars.

The book ends solomnly and appropriatly with a quote by Oleg Gazenko, the director of Laika’s training program:

“Work with animals is a source of suffering to all of us. We treat them like babies who cannot speak. The more time passes, the more I’m sorry about it. We shouldn’t have done it… We did not learn enough from this mission to justify the death of the dog.”

So I never finished my Cheshire Cat painting, but I have a good excuse. My friend and awesome photographer Jonny Carrol wanted to remove the IR filter from his Canon Digital Rebel 300D. Using this great tutorial, I underwent one of my most nerve-racking projects to date. Here is a photo-montage.

Workspace setup!

Back casing and LCD screen mount removed, ribbon cables unplugged and protective case desoldered and removed.

Circuitboard removed, about to remove the CMOS chip. Yikes!

The delicate CMOS unit before I took it apart and removed the IR filter (the purple glass thing).

Carefully dissecting the CMOS unit, removing the plastic frame and gaskets that house the IR filter.

The naked CMOS chip. This is what gathers the light in the camera and translates it into digital data, kind of like undeveloped film.

My sophisticated system for gluing the new glass into its housing. It was scary since one drop of glue on the new glass, and Id have to start all over!

Success! Time to clean it up with isopropal alcohol and a microfiber cloth and put her all back together!

All back together again...except for the grounding plate...looks like i skipped a step and will have to pull the glass holding off again, uuugh. Luckily its an easy fix.

Sweet, last step before just reconnecting/resoldering everything. Added a small .1mm spacer to compensate for the difference in thickness between the old filter and new glass. This will ensure that autofocus will still work.

And that about wraps it up. After that last step, it was all smooth sailing with the reassembly. Id post pics but its just the same steps in reverse and would be very boring. Fun project, look forward to trying similar projects in the future. I will also update when I receive pictures taken with the camera post-mod so you can compare the results!

Conceptart.org hosts a series of weekly ‘contests’ including ‘Character of the Week’, where each week they post criteria for a new ‘character’ which the artists in the community do an interpretation of, climaxing in a voting session at the end of the week where the best piece is labeled the winner. There arent any prizes, but it builds your portfolio and gives you projects to work on, as well as expands your reputation within the art community.

That said, this week’s theme was to make an interpretation of the Cheshire Cat and/or the Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. It is due Sunday the 18th, so hopefully I can finish it up in time.