Pictures and Captions 2.13 - 3.29

In February I helped out with Benton-C and Chris Jordan on another One Step Beyond party at the Natural History Museum.



Lots of fun toys to play with.



I was lucky enough to go G33k Xmas.



I ended up with the Discman.



Mountains of memory.



In March I helped Andy Wolf with the audio portion of his thesis installation. We discussed ideas and types of gear needed to do certain things. I modified this beautiful old ham radio microphone with lots of buttons to just be simple microphone without buttons.



I also taught Andy to solder



and we made a really nice 3 headed content mic. I am excited to check out the final piece this Tuesday when I see the starving artists canned food drive. Its up till the 3rd so be sure to check it out!



I etched some Weird Sound Generator circuits in Brooklyn for the Alchemy installation. This is the first time Colin or I have ever etched a PCB to be used for its actual intended purpose.



The set up, before.



The set up, after.



Finished!



And this is my desk.



The drilling machine pictured here is Colin as he drills around a 100 tiny little holes into the 3 boards. Making these boards is the most professional thing Colin and I have done so far.



I had my first solo visuals show at the Alfa Art Gallery March 12th. All these photos were taken by Natalie Trainor, who also curated and organized the show. This band is Sugar Glyder from NC.



2 projector set up.



RGB



Sadly my camera died just as Terminal Reynaldo was getting started. They are great. I am going to be helping them film a music video in April.



I met Bjork! I arrived 2 hours early to an electronics workshop in SOHO and decided to kill time at my favorite cafe/used book store Housing Works. Then Bjork shows up with her daughter and does an impromptu ipod dj set. It was magical. Anything you would imagine to be on Bjorks ipod is probably on Bjorks ipod.



RGB LED WRK SHP at Bug Labs.




I made this happen



Went to Build It Green NYC and got all this lumber and a delivery for 35.00 total! The 2nd beam from the left came from a huge old ship and has spherical indentations in it. Hopefully we will start building rooms soon. I hear that walls and privacy are really cool things to have in an apartment.



Started work on the new Etch-A-Skletch a few days ago. 36 wires go to 36 points on the device.



Finished the case tonight. 36 wires go to 36 terminal strip connections. The hands have 18 contacts each and will be wired to the other side of the terminal strips.



The inside.



Close up.

All caught up...much more to come! Stay tuned.

NASA and Other Important Programs

Firstly,

Nasa FundRager
Newark, NJ



These are the images from my proposal when Space Camp was developing into the awesome night it turned out to be:




Here are some of the photos of the resulting suit:
(Reid can I get the ones from your camera?)



These pictures are from LNY and Jamie Bruno.

Reid and Eric Barry Drasin did awesome visuals!



More information about NASA and photos from the event can be seen at the NASA Website!

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Secondly,

A formal apology goes out to the blog. I have been idle. When it rains, it pours and when there is a drought, life dies... I have been livin' at my mom's house, which is on the market. It has made for one of the worst situations as far as personal space and setting up any sort of ongoing work. The space suit was constantly being shoved into and out of a box: (one of the reasons the backpack was deflated by showtime.)

Anyway, I am just getting settled again after returning from Korea and the Fall 2008 Screaming Females tour. I will be moving back into New Brunswick and setting up shop. The ensuing glory of circuit bent instruments and music will be awesome.
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Thirdly,

In the meantime Reid and I are in two NYC shows:

The New York Electroacoustic Music Festival

and

BENT FEST!

I am excited for both of them and we will be posting stuff about those later!
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Finally,

Here is a picture of a performance I did on top of a public restroom in Hongdae Park, Seoul. I must say it was pretty good but not as loud as I hoped. (There is only so much you can do with a battery powered amp.) A few friends started firespinning below me and I broke into Casio Beat DJing.

El Colin - using the Swording Beacon, Awesomeator, and a Bent SK-1.

In the Ultra Zone!

Here is a quick run down of the crazyness that has been of late:

Colin got onto a Tiger Claw Records compilation called Do Not Bend 2. Check it out here. Download it here
yaay Colin!

We got the Alchemy installation into the New York Electroacoustic Music Festival which runs from Apr 2-4. I have a strong feeling I will spend another birthday soldering...and drinking beer...

We also applied the Alchemy installation to Bent Fest 2009 **fingers crossed**

The NASA show was truly a fantastic party, thanks to everyone who came out supported!!! Video will be posted in a week or so as well as an Instructables about the crazy projector mounting system Chris Jordan taught me. You can check the write up (no pictures) on the NASA blog. I now have the power to mount a projector or camera onto a n y t h i n g ! At the event Eric Drasin and I did remixes of Zardoz, 60s space movies, and vector graphic 80s arcade games. Colin will have to post all his 3d models and documentation of his totally rad audio modulating space suit. The Awesomeator was already awesome, but now it looks astronomically awesome with a new chrome/silver exterior.

And today at work I decided that instead of sitting around on gmail or blogs I will learn Processing.

NASA Space Camp

Colin is building a space suit complete with audio modulation and wireless vdo transmission. Eric Drasin and I are doing live visuals all night. There will be dancing, portals, temporary tatoos, DJs, beer, haircuts, VJs, bands, face painting, teleportation stations, pedal powered waterfalls and MORE! Come come come! Bring your dancing moon shoes.

December Randomness

Barracks expedition







Tried to help Shawn fix his Roland 505. Sadly it was to damaged to revive.


3 Amigas!

on an unrelated note....

Ive had this song in my head for the past week. Its by Boris Gardner, off of the Trojan Souful Reggae Box Set, and has the most oddly familiar melody and chord progression.

Yesterday I finally figured out why it sounded so familiar!!

How do people do mash ups/bootlegs?? I want to combine the two songs so badly!

December - Finishing the TV Robot

December started unnoticed as Tomislav and I were busy finishing Bud Spotch the TV Robot.

With 4 TVs installed (!!!!) we were actually allowing ourselves to think that we might be able to possibly just maybe pull this ridiculous project off.


A view from the back


More plexi/circuit glam shots



This is the control panel that Tomislav and I made. The TVs were manufactured with the normal type of controls, on/off, volume, input select, etc, but these controls were attached to a cumbersome PCB that took up way to much space and was impossible to work with. To solve this problem we decided we would have to wire up our own control panel for all the TVs. This is the bottom control panel for the lower 3 TVs before it got mounted.


While anything with a bunch of knobs and switches instantly catches my attention, I think these are pretty sweet looking control panels.


5 TVs done!!!!!


In the late hours of the night Evan and Joe stop by and hang out in the fury of our productivity. You can tell Evans laptop is so jealous of Bud Spotch


Joe and 5/6ths of Bud Spotch's face make introductions


6 TV's!!!!!! (and 6 more for emphasis after working for 2 days straight on this-->!!!!!!)


Here is a side view of the bottom to give you an idea of the insane rats nest of wires and circuits we dealt with


The other side with mounted control panel.



Oh holy WOW we did it!!!!!!!@#$!%!!!&!*!!(!)!



To summarize
We installed 6, 3.5 inch, B&W, TVs, we got for free from Hasan Elahi, vertically, in space where only 4 should fit, in a completely hand made metal and plexi case, with entirely rewired controls, inputs, and power chords, that is attached to a metal stand on which a body of a mannequin rests, on which we will put a suit and call it Bud Spotch.

In case you need a recap:



The next big steps were wiring up custom video input and power chords. We didnt make custom wires just because we had some time between 4am and 11am but because these TVs use an 1/8th inch jack (like on your headphones) to receive modulated video signal. So we used a fat stack of VCRs to modulate signals and some very professional looking alligator clips to get these wires together as fast as we could.


The power chords were made by cutting up a 100ft extension chord, electrical outlet pieces from Home Depot, and a bunch of duct tape.


Next was the big moment: turning it on. With several cameras and extinguishers ready for any electrical fires Tom bravely switched on the TVs.

AND IT WORKED!


Some Indiana Jones testing


After a round of high fives and cautious placing aside of fire extinguishers we turned it off, took it apart, and installed it in Mason Gross for Tomislav's class the next day.

Of course 1 minute after I took this photo the top middle TV flamed up and burnt out. Luckily no other TVs were hurt. Sadly, we didnt catch this on video and still have to repair it.


Despite that minor fire, it looks pretty great


Speakers were attached to the frame with power of magnetism


Ive come to realize with 'new media art' a lot, if not ALL, focus goes into making 'the system' for the delivery of mediated content and content is dealt with last. This project was no exception given incredible amount of work required to build the beast and quick deadline hanging over our heads. Luckily Evan Damerow saved the day and set up and shot the videos with Tom. The horse head images stem from these photos that Tom made that deal with the greater mythology surrounding Bud Spotch and the British Anti-Mafia.


The power strips lining the wall worked really well for us as we needed 12 outlets.


It feels a little strange summarizing in two posts something that took over 3 months, but so it goes. More December endeavors after I sleep.