Listening Room Manuscripts

These are some shots of my large-format illuminated manuscripts

Stone/Voice Instrument

This instrument inspired by notions of mysticism, sorcery, and nature worship. It is also about the idea of humans trying to find ways to control the elements. The performer has one goal in this piece, and that is to touch, rub, plead, or gesture towards the stone in order to conjure the wind (the sound …

Illuminated Manuscript Phonograph Project

In this project, I have tried to find an ideal way to viscerally experience and explore sound in image.  This is still an open question.   Obviously, at any point I could have bought a record player and recording sound is very simple these days.  This does not solve my problem.  Record players do not operate …

Painting Instrument

This is an alternative controller built of a wood panel, conductive paint, copper leaf, capSense, light resistors, leds, and a chipkit. The painting is played by modulating the relationship of the circuit to the ground. As the performer draws near/far, the disturbance grows stronger/weaker. Touch grounds the circuit and functions as a switch. There are …

Nearly Silent Wind Chime

Silence is a luxury. In a world where machines, radios, and phones are constantly making noise, it feels wrong to take a rare silent space and add sound.  That is why I made this wind chime.  I hoped to bring the listener’s attention to the silent beauty of the area around the wind chime rather …

Gulliver’s Cello

This kinetic sculpture installation was about the difficulty of learning to play an instrument.  Those who wants to build musical machines (for example the popular work of Seth Goldstein) want those machines to play well from the beginning.  In human practice this would never be the case and I felt it was important to make …

Candy the Burlesque Bot

This was a small kinetic sculpture robot (now dismantled, RIP) played 8-bit renderings of Quincy Jones out of her head, swayed her leg when approached, and had a bright red led up her skirt.  She had a built-in sensor/alarm combo so that if you looked up her skirt she would beep like a smoke alarm. …