KineticWorld

.:: Thursday, January 31, 2008

Take Control Of Your Tone!

At Build Your Own Clone!

Build Your Own Clone sells kits to build guitar effects pedals, otherwise known as "stompboxes." You may be saying, "when did this turn into a musical equipment blog?" but bear with me a second. Any artist who works with sound, not just "music", can make use of guitar effects to modify and shape those sounds (this assumes that the artist is making use of some source of electrical signals for their sounds) Pedal effects can be used with microphones, contact mics, magnetic pickups, and can add some incredible variations.

More places to look, in case you are interested...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_pedals
http://www.guitarsite.com/effects.htm
http://www.amptone.com/bookseffects.htm
http://www.musicfromouterspace.com/
http://paia.com/
http://www.thingamajigs.org/
http://www.axeandyoushallreceive.com/

Special thanks to Benny, and the rest of the gang, at Real Guitars in San Francisco for the heads up on BYOC.

Posted at 11:22 AM by CTP |

.:: Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Roger Wood's Victorian Clocks

Roger Wood makes some wonderful clock assemblages (you know, the kind we love with all those fiddly old parts?) up in Toronto, and you can see them at his Klockwerks site.

Special thanks to KineticWorld reader Dan Haskell for bringing the Boing Boing post about Roger to our attention (Sorry Cory, I haven't been able to read Boing Boing in the last few days ;-)

Posted at 12:19 PM by CTP |

.:: Monday, January 21, 2008

The Art of Andrew Smith

Last summer I was in Salt Lake City, and on my way to dinner I walked past a place called Iao Gallery and saw art moving in the windows. Being into kinetic art as I am, I had to go inside and investigate. I met the owner of the gallery, Shadna Sieger, and got introduced to the art of Andrew Smith. Andrew has a lot of great stuff to look at over at his site - I encourage everyone to go spend some time poking around there. After my gallery visit I had a great dinner down the street...all in all a very nice walk in Salt Lake City that evening.

Posted at 11:00 PM by CTP |

.:: Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The art of Judith Fegerl

Be sure to check out The Chinese Nightingale (I think it's my favorite)

Posted at 10:54 PM by CTP |

Musee Patamechanique

"In the manner of the great Wonder Rooms of yore, the original theatre of the broadest scope, Musee Patamechanique is a hybrid institution, a museum cum-laboratory, cum-carnival for the senses.

Please, accept this offering as an introduction to current practices in the field of Patamechanics, and a re-introduction to that wonderful sense of the marvelous, the magical, and the sublime that existed before the demise of the historic Cabinets of Curiousities."

Musee Patamechanique article in the Boston Globe

Posted at 10:37 PM by CTP |

The Art of Scott "Gaspo" Gasparian

Scott Gasparian, better known to all of us as Gaspo, is a California artist who creates wonders out of LEDs, electronics, mechanics, and a few other assorted things. His most recent glowing buddha, the Chakratron, is truly a marvel to behold. Be sure to search through the galleries to see all of Scott's work.

The Chakratron has its own website as well here.

Posted at 11:08 AM by CTP |

.:: Monday, January 14, 2008

Experimental Musical Instruments

I have to admit that among all the kinetic works, my greatest fondness may be for things that make noise, sounds, and music, and a really great source for such noisy, as well as musical works is Bart Hopkin's site Experimental Musical Instruments. Pictured above is "Savart's Wheel", designed by Bart himself. This piece is, "widely acclaimed for the fact that it makes the most obtrusive, obnoxious and irritating sound imaginable." Now that is kinetic art that I can really get behind.

Be sure to check out their amazing listing of books, as well as back issues of the incomparable "EMI Journal" published between 1985 and 1999. Also not to be missed is their selection of hardware and electronics for your own experimental designs - all of this can be found in their Catalog area.

Posted at 4:49 PM by CTP |

BlinkM from ThingM

A very cool new programmable LED module is on its way from ThingM, and will be available very soon.

from their site:
"Have you wanted an LED that can fade from deep red to bright purple? Flash like a police light? Turn on with the subtle fade of an incandescent bulb? Flicker like a candle? That's BlinkM.

We've attached an ultra bright wide-angle RGB LED to a microcontroller. Using BlinkM Sequencer, our software that fuses a color picker with a drum machine, you program BlinkM to be any color, and blink and fade in virtually any pattern.

When you've programmed your BlinkM, you unplug it and pop it into your project. Apply 5 volts, and it does its thing, whether that's glowing your favorite pinkish purple, or pulse like an old neon light. All for under $15."

Posted at 10:32 AM by CTP |

Jon Sarriugarte's Boiler Bar

Friend of KineticWorld.com, and all around great guy, Jon Sarriugarte, sends us word that his Boiler Bar will be making an appearance at The Crucible's "Hot Couture:A Fusion of Fire & Fashion" show this week. Leave a tip and get a fireball :-)

Posted at 9:20 AM by CTP |

.:: Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Fantasy Mechanics - Machines Tell Stories

Fantasy Mechanics - Machines Tell Stories is an upcoming show at the Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany. The show opens February 23rd and runs until June 29th.

Loosely translated from their site:
"Phaeno is showing wondrous mechanics and comical automata in the new special exhibition, "Fantasy Mechanics - Machines Tell Stories". More than 70 kinematic installations of renowned machine artists from England, the USA, and Russia will be on display in the Wolfsburger Science centers. The automata tell humorous, absurd, and sarcastic stories and comment on life. The connection between artistic aesthetics and the openly presented technology represents the special attraction of the works of art."

Here is the page for the exhibition in German

Special thanks to Sarah at Cabaret Mechanical Theater for bringing this show to our attention.

Posted at 1:10 PM by CTP |

.:: Sunday, January 06, 2008

KMODDL - Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library

"KMODDL is a collection of mechanical models and related resources for teaching the principles of kinematics--the geometry of pure motion. The core of KMODDL is the Reuleaux Collection of Mechanisms and Machines, an important collection of 19th-century machine elements held by Cornell's Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering."

Posted at 5:15 PM by CTP |

The art of Dan Grayber

Current show:
Self Resolving Problems at Art Engine Galleries until January 12th. Art Engine is located at 1035 Mission Street in San Francisco, CA.

Lifted from Dan's site:
"Many of my pieces are small, spring loaded, mechanical objects. They are intricately designed and fabricated to accomplish one of the most simple, yet most essential tasks that an autonomous object can. This task, this need, is that of holding itself up. In most cases, my pieces accomplish this by actively attaching themselves to specific architectural features and individual objects."

Posted at 2:04 AM by CTP |

.:: Saturday, January 05, 2008

The art of Michael Pfleuger

I haven't found out much about the man, but I like his work.

Posted at 12:45 AM by CTP |

LASER TAG by G.R.L.

I've loved this thing ever since i first saw it. Graffiti Research Lab has a projector system, mounted in a van, that can project images onto the side of a big building. That alone could be pretty cool. But with this system you hold a laser pointer and use it to write on the side of the building, and the projector follows the laser, creating a huge tag of wherever you point the laser...did that make any sense? Just watch the video, and prepare to be awed.

Oh, and btw - look for the simulated "paint" dripping...pure genius.

Posted at 12:20 AM by CTP |

.:: Friday, January 04, 2008

The artwork of Jeremy Mayer

Excerpted from his site:
"The work of Jeremy Mayer has, over the past 20 years, unfolded from a fascination with the relationship between the micro and the macro; this inspiration is manifest in his work viscerally, philosophically, physiologically, and sociologically. He has created an iconoclastic body of work that ranges from sculpture using resin and disassembled typewriters to hyper-realistic drawings borne of ruminations about the future of consciousness in relation to technology."

I don't think that they move, but I simply can't resist old typewriter parts (or any old machine parts in general for that matter)

Posted at 12:00 PM by CTP |

.:: Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Crucifix NG

"Crucifix NG is a printed electronic circuit board in the shape of a crucifix. This handheld, wall-mountable device houses a battery-operated transmitter that broadcasts an ASCII, non-denominational version of the Lord's Prayer at 916 megahertz.

Many people affix crucifixes and other religious iconography to the walls of their homes for metaphysical security. Crucifix NG goes a step further, bathing a physical space in an anointed electromagnetism."
-
Thanks go out to Paul Badger at Modern Device Company
for sending us the link.

Posted at 11:11 PM by CTP |

RSS feeds on KineticWorld are up!

We got the feed working, so have at it!
Link over there on the right, or use this one: FEEDS!!!!

Big thanks to Jamais Cascio for not only helping get the feed working, but also for helping get post titles up and running tonight too. Oh yea, and for the hot chocolate too.

Posted at 6:59 PM by CTP |

Carl Pisaturo - Machine Artist

San Francisco artist Carl Pisaturo has some great stuff over at his website. Carl has always produced some amazing machines so it's well worth taking a look.

Posted at 12:10 AM by CTP |

.:: Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Les Machines de l'Ile Nantes

Many of you probably remember The Sultan's Elephant by Royal de Luxe. The artists behind that amazing show have a grand new project in Nantes, France called Les Machines de l'Ile Nantes.

"A team of machine builders have set up their workshop in the industrial warehouses of the former shipyards, at the heart of the Ile de Nantes. The designers let their imaginations roam from the treetops to the savannah to the ocean depths, building a bestiary of living machines that escape the confines of the workshop to populate this area under redevelopment. The Great Elephant, the Marine Worlds and the Heron Tree are urban sculptures open to the public. Like doors to the world of dreams and magical journeys, they give this area a mysterious feel harking back to the time when it was the starting point for vessels setting out to travel the world"
- Francois Delaroziere and Pierre Orefice

Loads more info available in this PDF.

A couple of sources alerted us to this info, but I think the trail started at Laughing Squid.

Posted at 10:40 PM by CTP |

Fentix Cube - World's first cubic touchscreen computer games platform

Featuring a unique ultra-bright (even in daylight) full-colour cubic screen and a unique cubic multitouch touchscreen technology (patent pending) this games platform has been programmed to implement various multi-dimensional games, puzzles, and lighting effects.

BBC online article

Posted at 2:10 PM by CTP |

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