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The Edge of Imagination Station is a stop motion animation lab designed for mobility.  It manifested itself out of a conversation in San Marcos, TX about a way to get the general public to participate in art which led to a prototype and its eventual first model in December 2008.  Since then the station has been actively touring offering workshops, classes or impromptu “creative incidents” at numerous classrooms, exhibits, and art/music festivals.  It has been utilized in venues such as Artpace, the McNay Museum, Intel, Festival Hill Institute, and the Waldorf School, and has been active around Austin, TX during events such as Plutopia, The East Austin Studio Tour, N.M.A.S.S. ( New Media Art and Sound Summit), and the Austin Mini Maker Faire. The station has also been used to conduct workshops with groups such as Totally Cool, Totally Art, Art from the streets, Blue Sky Abilities and El Centro Cultural De San Marcos who strive to bring art to underserved populations.

The original design was and is a 4’ x 8’ steel and wood construction built to hold (3) point and shoot cameras, accompanying lights, a sign, and a flat screen TV.  Though it was designed for mobility, workshops on a daily basis proved it could be more efficient.  This gave way to the “pods” which have been under research and development over the last year and a half.  The way in which we make the videos has also undergone some changes over the years.  We saw room for development as the lab which was dependent on still cameras and post production did not give the level of immediacy we were looking for.  That’s when things got digital.  We brought in a local video game developer began to develop software that children and adults could use that would allow you to create, playback, and save your work in minutes.  Our newest version allows users to create an audio track to go along with their video.  Over the years participants both students and strangers have played a key role in helping us develop this project.

Currently we are working on an ever increasingly mobile unit ready to enter the public’s hands complete with mobile app.  We want people to be creative whenever they want to and we want to facilitate that as much as we can so we are also designing the website to be place where YOU can post YOUR videos and share them with OUR online community.