A three minute survey of some electronic songbirds I made during the past two years.
video
Throwback deep fake / The Taxidermist of Live Pelt (2003) /
Before returning to my current obsession with French wallpaper and botanical circuit boards, here is some more "deep fake" for you from my 2003 Live Pelt installation. The Taxidermist is one of eight characters I invented to cope with American culture in post-9/11 reality. This is my re-cut of footage originally shot and edited by Shambhavi Kaul and Joshua Gibson. Live Pelt was made possible thanks to support from Creative Capital, the LEF Foundation, and Duke University.
Hackaday Superconference 2019 /
It was an honor to speak at the 2019 Hackaday Superconference. What an amazing group of hardware enthusiasts! Thank you, Hackaday #supercon
Songbirds on my lawn /
Here are six transparent pepakura-style songbirds, each containing a unique, analog electronic sound generator. The birds are linked by rainbow cables to a breadboarded computer (i.e, “bird brain”) that uses shift registers, astable multivibrators, and transistor switches to achieve a pseudorandom sequence… so the bird’s songs don’t sound repetitive, of course. I’m chasing after the mysteries of life —the spark of life. Eventually these little fellows will perch in a sculpture called “Birds at My Feeder,” (2019).
down time /
Earlier this week, I had arthroscopic surgery on my left hip to repair an old injury that was becoming arthritic. This post is an evolving repository of and video loops that I’m creating during my downtime.
Pretty computer accidents /
Pretty computer accidents. I continue to work on a labor-intensive sculpture (electrolier). This video is tangentially related, insofar as I've discovered some cool visuals along the way. It would take me a long time to explain the sequence of computer accidents that created this landscape. Suffice it to say that the cloud and the mountainous earth are two different spatial interpretations of the same object, which in engineering terms means that the algorithm was an explosive failure. "Pretty is as pretty does" is not true in this case.
Designing creatures of the night /
Bluebird with cricket /
Video documentation of "Bluebird with cricket," 2018. Watercolor and analog electronics on paper, 15" x 15" x 1.5"
Note that the breadboard visible in the video is unrelated to the piece - I am just using it as a convenient source of 12V DC. The other circuits in the breadboard are in-development for other works of art.
Bluebird with cricket, 2018. Watercolor and analog electronics on paper, 15" x 15" x 1.5"
The colors of this photograph are truer than the video, but still not as vibrant as the actual work. I used cobalt and manganese blue, both of which have such an electric quality.
