puns, not intended.  the next stage is to solder two vactrols to pcb boards with 16 wire leads (8 for each channel) being connected to the arduino mega board.  I need to check some things… does the audio truly cut out when the push button is pressed to stop the sequence?  Is the timing correct?  does each step have the same step duration?  Is there any variance?

I can breadboard the leds so that I can still see what steps I’m on etc and it would probably be a good thing to solder the potentiometers to the board just so that a firm connection is achieved.

If everything is correct in the above areas of concern I can move forward and begin the circuit design in EAGLE and prepare to begin etching my boards and prepping my laser cutting files.

pcb boards (2) , small leds (16)

next sequencer steps

maxim ic digital pots control audio volume levels through arduino code. maybe this works?

So it looks like I can do a few things to help really clamp the audio off to silence in the arduino LED sequencer.  I am now testing the circuit with the 10k resistor clamp between ground and line replaced by a photoresistor/LED combo that is identical to the one being used to gate open the signal.  This has definitely helped out and I think that before I throw in the towel I need to try out a “matched-ish” set of vactrols, just to see if I can take out my human error in favor of a hopefully more marginal machine error and get results on both the clamp circuit and the signal circuit that are close to identical.  I’m sleeping on it tonight and then I’ll probably end up doing some testing with the opto-coupler.

vactrols.sequencers.pulse.led.arduino

In a rather stupid moment of enthusiasm many months ago I began the process of sequencer for audio gating and based my ideas for an arduino version on the circuits designed by Nic Collins in Handmade Electronic Music. And I should’ve known better… but…. well, never mind, lets just say I should’ve known better.

My photoresitor/LED homebrew opto-coupler was tested and I realized that the audio is not being fully gated on/off. It’s pretty much gated with the proper resistors in place, but you can still faintly hear the audio track slipping through when the LED is off. There are some options available to me, but I’m afraid I may have just set myself up for a bit of failure. That rather doomed statement is, in part, because I just noticed a passage in the book that says that the lack of full on/off gating is inevitable.

So, we move forward, perhaps I can use transistors as my gate? I’m afraid though that even that is not going to give me the true and clean silence I want when that step in the sequence is fully off.

More setbacks, more considerations as I move forward, hopefully towards something good.

arduino.sequencer.setbacks

“No matter how artful the photographer,” Benjamin asserts, “no matter how carefully posed his subject, the beholder feels an irresistible urge to search such a picture for the tiny spark of contingency, of the Here and Now, with which reality has so to speak seared the subject, to find the inconspicuous spot where in the immediacy of that long-forgotten moment the future subsists so eloquently that we, looking back, may rediscover it.

“This long exposure time, which “caused the subject to focus his life in the moment rather than hurrying past it,” parallels the beholders subsequent engagement in  front of the work.

Benjamin as quoted by Christopher Ho in the text, “Within and Beyond, Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Crowd”" that was published in PAJ (performance art journal).

spark of contingency, the long exposure, focusing

Gallery 400 at UIC here in Chicago hosted a screening of videos from the collection of Jefferson Godard that was co-curated by Alicia Eler.

http://gallery400.blogspot.com/2010/03/performance-anxiety.html

“Come for Gallery 400’s MFA Thesis Exhibition opening 5-8 pm, and stay for: Performance Anxiety, a program of short video works dealing with performances of cultural identity. In navigating complicated understandings of gender, race, class, sexuality, or existence in on- and off-line spaces, individuals accept and internalize cultural rules or ideologies and pass; reject them, identifying such performances as a form of cultural oppression; or even scramble and combine rules and codes in personalized constructions. Performance Anxiety (run time: approximately 50 minutes) features the work of American artists Rochelle Feinstein, Kate Gilmore, James Murray, Jeroen Nelemans, Greg Stimac and Stacia Yeapanis.” (from the press release)

it’s.a.little.late.but.i.thought.i.d.mention

Well, at least the programming and layout are complete. After a lot of back and forth with a huge amount of help through the arduino forum, it looks like the sequencer is performing properly and accurately. There is one small issue with the LEDs but I believe that it won’t be an issue once I have the appropriate pulldown resistors in place (currently there are no resistors and as a result, when the LEDs are forced off you can see a muted and faint completion of the current sequence pattern).

This version of the sequencer is replete with both potentiometer control over speed and length of sequence… push button control over pause(on) or pause off/restart at beginning of sequence and I believe (hopefully) control over the brightness of the control LED through potentiometer (also/or maybe instead there could be potentiometers between the leds and the switches (wouldn’t that be divine)).

In any case, photos will follow tonight, though at the moment I’m working through the Eagle CAD software in order to learn how to print my own circuits since I’m realizing that that’s going to be important when actually making this circuit since I really want to have PCB mounted components and avoid as much loose wiring as possible. Design and layout are going to be the focus for the near future as I test all this out.

8.step.sequencer.done.arduino.

This still has a bit of work left on it… I’m not totally convinced that the timing is even/smooth… it seems like the final LED in the loop is off in hit and release… though I’m not entirely if it’s my eyes or the code.  Everything else is working well, I’m now able to adjust the sequence length via a potentiometer, pause the sequence using a push-button, and adjust sequence speed using another pot.  The problem at this point remains having a button that first suspends the LED sequence, turns off any lit LEDs and then, when released, starts the sequence over again on the first frame.  I’ve had a huge amount of help on the arduino forum and that’s been really whats made this go from nothing to something.  Hopefully the code is done by the end of the weekend and I can begin to sort out how to board this out and design the interface.

const int buttonPin = 2;
const int ledPin =  12;
int buttonState = 0;

int leds[] = {3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10};
#define NUMBER_OF_LEDS (sizeof(leds)/sizeof(int))

boolean flickbook[][NUMBER_OF_LEDS] = {
{  HIGH,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW},
{  LOW,  HIGH,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW},
{  LOW,  LOW,  HIGH,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW},
{  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  HIGH,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW},
{  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  HIGH,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW},
{  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  HIGH,  LOW,  LOW},
{  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  HIGH,  LOW},
{  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  LOW,  HIGH}
};

#define FRAMES (sizeof(flickbook)/(sizeof(flickbook[0])))

int sensorPin = 0;

const int sensorMin = 0;
const int sensorMax = 1023;

void setup()   {
for (int led=0; led<NUMBER_OF_LEDS; led++) {
pinMode(leds[led], OUTPUT);
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT);
}
}

void loop(){
int sensorReading1 = analogRead(2);
int range1 = map(sensorReading1, sensorMin, sensorMax, 0, 7);

switch (range1) {
case 0:    {
long time = millis();

for (int frame=0; frame<1; frame++) {
for (int led=0; led<NUMBER_OF_LEDS; led++){
digitalWrite(leds[led], flickbook[frame][led]);
}
(buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin));
while (buttonState == HIGH) {
buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
}
int sensorValue = map(analogRead(sensorPin), 0, 1023, 0, 1000);
while (sensorValue >= (millis() – time)) {
sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);
}
time = millis();
}
}
break;

case 1:    {
long time = millis();

for (int frame=0; frame<2; frame++) {
for (int led=0; led<NUMBER_OF_LEDS; led++){
digitalWrite(leds[led], flickbook[frame][led]);
}
(buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin));
while (buttonState == HIGH) {
buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
}
int sensorValue = map(analogRead(sensorPin), 0, 1023, 0, 1000);
while (sensorValue >= (millis() – time)) {
sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);
}
time = millis();
}
}
break;

case 2:    {
long time = millis();

for (int frame=0; frame<3; frame++) {
for (int led=0; led<NUMBER_OF_LEDS; led++){
digitalWrite(leds[led], flickbook[frame][led]);
}
(buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin));
while (buttonState == HIGH) {
buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
}
int sensorValue = map(analogRead(sensorPin), 0, 1023, 0, 1000);
while (sensorValue >= (millis() – time)) {
sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);
}
time = millis();
}
}
break;

case 3:    {
long time = millis();

for (int frame=0; frame<4; frame++) {
for (int led=0; led<NUMBER_OF_LEDS; led++){
digitalWrite(leds[led], flickbook[frame][led]);
}
(buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin));
while (buttonState == HIGH) {
buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
}
int sensorValue = map(analogRead(sensorPin), 0, 1023, 0, 1000);
while (sensorValue >= (millis() – time)) {
sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);
}
time = millis();
}
}
break;

case 4:    {
long time = millis();

for (int frame=0; frame<5; frame++) {
for (int led=0; led<NUMBER_OF_LEDS; led++){
digitalWrite(leds[led], flickbook[frame][led]);
}
(buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin));
while (buttonState == HIGH) {
buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
}
int sensorValue = map(analogRead(sensorPin), 0, 1023, 0, 1000);
while (sensorValue >= (millis() – time)) {
sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);
}
time = millis();
}
}
break;

case 5:    {
long time = millis();

for (int frame=0; frame<6; frame++) {
for (int led=0; led<NUMBER_OF_LEDS; led++){
digitalWrite(leds[led], flickbook[frame][led]);
}
(buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin));
while (buttonState == HIGH) {
buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
}
int sensorValue = map(analogRead(sensorPin), 0, 1023, 0, 1000);
while (sensorValue >= (millis() – time)) {
sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);
}
time = millis();
}
}
break;

case 6:    {
long time = millis();

for (int frame=0; frame<7; frame++) {
for (int led=0; led<NUMBER_OF_LEDS; led++){
digitalWrite(leds[led], flickbook[frame][led]);
}
(buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin));
while (buttonState == HIGH) {
buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
}
int sensorValue = map(analogRead(sensorPin), 0, 1023, 0, 1000);
while (sensorValue >= (millis() – time)) {
sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);
}
time = millis();
}
}
break;

case 7:    {
long time = millis();

for (int frame=0; frame<8; frame++) {
for (int led=0; led<NUMBER_OF_LEDS; led++){
digitalWrite(leds[led], flickbook[frame][led]);
}
(buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin));
while (buttonState == HIGH) {
buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
}
int sensorValue = map(analogRead(sensorPin), 0, 1023, 0, 1000);
while (sensorValue >= (millis() – time)) {
sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);
}
time = millis();
}
}
break;

}
}

arduino.8.step.LED.sequencer.in.progress

Treat the computer like an over-priced playback device for beat-syncing. Keep building hardware. Keep spinning records. Keep making music.

Computer

pulse_patternswitch

After considering the use of a 3pdt or tpdt switch common to guitar foot pedals I realized that while it was certainly an option, there are other more commonly (read, my stock of supplies) available switches that would do the trick.  After a bit of thinking and some false starts this evening with a few different circuits and switches, this beefy switch popped up with a double in and double out option.

This allows me to route two signals into the switch from two different sources, and then, by placing one output on one side of the switch and the other output on the other side of the switch I could toggle back and forth between the two input signals…. Below is a little diagram for this section of the circuit.

This switch will go between the arduino and the opto-coupler, diodes will likely be necessary since I’ll be splitting the signal between the opto-couplers and the LEDs used to indicate the 8-step pattern of the arduino gate.

Arduino.Pulse Chain Switch

A 3pdt would be the perfect solution to the “two signal lines in/one signal line out” switch issue that’s been nagging at me today. The 3pdt is commonly used in AB switches of guitar pedals as a way of moving between inputs. I’m going to see if there’s another switch option tonight that I’ve already got in-studio, but if not, it looks like ordering and learning how to wire a 3PDT is in order for a weekend activity.

Arduino.3pdt

interface_start_for_gaterhater

Apparently this didn’t post up last night, so here it is again.  This is the start to the interface/ideas for controls for the Arduino Gate Interface, lovingly known as gater.hater in my head due to the the constant alterations and rebuilds.  With individual control over both the low and hight pulses of the LEDs I may lose the ease of a tap.tempo option for bpm control, but with some practicing I think beat matching shouldn’t be too difficult and this way, I can create more complexities with the individual control over both the High and Low durations.

More tonight.

Arduino . Start of Interface/Circuit Options for Gate

pulse_dimmer_control_notes

I’ve put into place both the pulsing programming and some circuitry to modify the LED behaviour outside of the Arduino programming. The LED pulse speed is being controlled through the 10k pot that’s connected to the analog 0 pin on the board. That translates through the programming to the LEDs 1-4 (for testing, 1-8 for final production) that pulse sequentially. I’ve just inserted a 10k potentiometer between the ground and the LEDs. I actually ended up just pulling the pot from the sequence pulse speed control to test that I could control LED brightness levels. I had the ground and +5 still plugged into the board and then connected them over to the ground that LEDs run to.

So, brightness, in one form or another, would appear to now be controlled. I now want to make it so that two potentiometers control the on/off pulses for each LED in the chain. One potentiometer controls on length (digitalwriteHIGH), and one controls off length (digitalwriteLow).

After that comes the inclusion of a “reset” button hit within the programming.

Tomorrow I want to add the programming to control the Off/Low/0 duration that separates it from the On/High/1 duration.

So, not to get ahead of myself, but what about stereo control options? Cross-paths for fades between multiple patterns? Think about this.

Arduino.Notes For 01.24.10

When the button is off/0 (the “if” part of the statement) the LED behavior is based on the tap tempo arduino programming. When the button is pressed on the circuit switches to reading the potentiometer (this is the “else” part of the statement). The potentiometer number needs to match that of the tap-tempo programming and vice vers. One must over-write the other smoothly and without there being a jump in numbers.

Arduino.Tap Tempo and Potentiometer Notes

// These constants won’t change:
const int analogPin = 0; // pin that the sensor is attached to
const int ledPin = 13; // pin that the LED is attached to
const int threshold = 400; // an arbitrary threshold level that’s in the range of the analog input
int sensorValue = 0; // variable to store the value coming from the sensor

void setup() {
// initialize the LED pin as an output:
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
// initialize serial communications:
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
// read the value of the potentiometer:
int analogValue = analogRead(analogPin);

// if the analog value is high enough, turn on the LED:
if (analogValue > threshold) {
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
}
else {
// read the value from the sensor:
sensorValue = analogRead(analogPin);
// turn the ledPin on
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
// stop the program for milliseconds:
delay(sensorValue);
// turn the ledPin off:
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
// stop the program for for milliseconds:
delay(sensorValue);
}

// print the analog value:
Serial.println(analogValue, DEC);

}

Arduino.If Analog read over 400, trigger LED solid, If Analog read under 400, flash LED at current sensor value of potentiometer

// These constants won’t change:
const int analogPin = 0; // pin that the sensor is attached to
const int ledPin = 13; // pin that the LED is attached to
const int threshold = 400; // an arbitrary threshold level that’s in the range of the analog input

void setup() {
// initialize the LED pin as an output:
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
// initialize serial communications:
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
// read the value of the potentiometer:
int analogValue = analogRead(analogPin);

// if the analog value is high enough, turn on the LED:
if (analogValue > threshold) {
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
}
else {
digitalWrite(ledPin,LOW);
delay(200);
digitalWrite(ledPin,HIGH);
delay(200);
}

// print the analog value:
Serial.println(analogValue, DEC);

}

Arduino.Modified If/Then example, If Potentiometer under 400, blink LED, if over 400 steady LED

http://umlautllama.com/projects/arduino/s/TapTempo.pde

created 17 Jan 2009
by Tom Igoe

http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/IfStatement

*/

// These constants won’t change:
const int analogPin = 0; // pin that the sensor is attached to
const int ledPin = 13; // pin that the LED is attached to
const int threshold = 400; // an arbitrary threshold level that’s in the range of the analog input

void setup() {
// initialize the LED pin as an output:
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
// initialize serial communications:
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
// read the value of the potentiometer:
int analogValue = analogRead(analogPin);

// if the analog value is high enough, turn on the LED:
if (analogValue > threshold) {
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
}
else {
digitalWrite(ledPin,LOW);
}

// print the analog value:
Serial.println(analogValue, DEC);

}

——————————-

Created by David Cuartielles
Modified 16 Jun 2009
By Tom Igoe

http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/AnalogInput

*/

int sensorPin = 0; // select the input pin for the potentiometer
int ledPin = 13; // select the pin for the LED
int sensorValue = 0; // variable to store the value coming from the sensor

void setup() {
// declare the ledPin as an OUTPUT:
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
// read the value from the sensor:
sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);
// turn the ledPin on
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
// stop the program for milliseconds:
delay(sensorValue);
// turn the ledPin off:
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
// stop the program for for milliseconds:
delay(sensorValue);
}

if/then statement. read potentiometer/LED.tap tempo link

If/then statement. If button is pushed (1/high) then read potentiometer A. If button is not pushed (0/low) read value of tap tempo. I need a better understanding of how to combine the three example codes I have worked on. With that I can begin to really work on the gating programming circuit I’ve been trying/failing to build with arduino.

Arduino Notes

I’m back to using an arduino to control the behavior of my gating circuit. It’s cleaner, less wires, fewer issues and can be programmed quickly to alter behavior.

Also, I rather stupidly stripped my wires for the current IC based circuit using snips… and have found that the wires I used are unlikely to hold up to the test of time. I’m looking at seeing how much of this circuit can be etched onto a board. I’d really like to see my process move in that direction. Since it’s cleaner, more durable and more likely to not have wiring/consistency of performance issues.

I also found a site that will allow me to power my USB specific freeduino board through the USB hookup using a 9 volt battery. This is huge since I have little to no interest in having to power this off of my computer when performing…. This way I have a standalone unit with all of the power arduino backing it up.

Arduino Update for 8 step sequencer/phaser/gating

17

I’m currently part of a curated screening that is being broadcast on both French and German television. If you’re in either country you can catch it on Tuesdays starting at 6 pm. The press release is listed below.

Performance Anxiety
Curated by Alicia Eler & Jefferson Godard

November 10-December 22, 2009
Broadcasting Tuesdays at 6pm on French channel freebox 129 and German Unitymedia/Kabel BW

JAMES MURRAY – Electrical Performances: Push It, 2007
DVD video, 4 minutes
Courtesy of the artist

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – November 10, 2009 – Art critic Alicia Eler and video art collector Jefferson Godard present Performance Anxiety, a program of short video works dealing with “performances” of cultural identities. Whether navigating complicated understandings of gender, race, class, sexuality, or existence in on- or off-line spaces, individuals either accept and internalize cultural rules or ideologies and “pass,” or reject them, identifying such performances as a form of cultural oppression. Performance Anxiety runs approximately 50 minutes, and features the work of American artists Rochelle Feinstein, Kate Gilmore, James Murray, Carlos Rigau, Greg Stimac and Stacia Yeapanis.

Unlike most video art shows, Performance Anxiety will not live in a gallery or museum space. Souvenirs from the Earth TV, a Paris-based organization that operates under Nam June Paik’s idea that video art should be available on television, will broadcast the show on French channel freebox 129 and German channel Unitymedia/Kabel BW at 6pm beginning Tuesday, November 10th, and running through December 22nd. The program will also stream once online during the show run; details to come.

In KATE GILMORE’s My Love is an Anchor (2006), the artist anchors her foot in a bucket of cement, and for six minutes she pounds, hammers, and twists back and forth, attempting to break free of this self-imposed situation. Wearing a short black dress, Gilmore seems like she should be at a cocktail party, not struggling on the floor of an empty room. Her work builds on 1970s feminist, endurance-based performance work, and suggests the monotonous, difficult act as a metaphor for change–it takes a huge effort to make even a slight chip in the foundation. Gilmore’s work has been show internationally; recent exhibitions include “100 Years” at PS1/MoMA, Queens, New York; “Reflections on the Electric Mirror: New Feminist Video” at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York; “By Any Means” at Locust Projects, Miami, Florida; and at Franco Soffiantino Arte Contemporanea, Turin, Italy.

JAMES MURRAY’s Electrical Performances: Push It (2006) is a fixed video portrait of the artist. Viewers see Murray’s face and shoulders only. The lyrics from Salt and Peppa’s “Push It” appear at the bottom of the screen, but one cannot hear the actual song. Murray sweats heavily, enduring increasing amounts of pain until the song finally ends. The viewer can’t help wondering if he enjoys it, if he’s suffering, or both. Murray says his work is invested in “the ideologies that are prevalent in both queer BDSM and club music regarding the potential for emancipation and freedom through physicality and endurance.” If this holds true, what does his video mean for the politicized homosexual male body post-AIDS crisis that exists in a period of gay culture mainstreaming? Is there such a thing anymore as the queer body politic? Recent exhibitions include Our Great Show at Nice & Fit Gallery, Berlin, and Body Collective at Alogon Gallery, Chicago.

ROCHELLE FEINSTEIN’s Ball and Chain (2007-8) calls to mind lyrics from Janis Joplin’s “Ball and Chain”: “Something grabbed a hold of me, honey, / Felt to me honey like, lord, a ball and chain.” In Feinstein’s take on the phrase, a small disco ball swings around a square black base. The iconic disco ball suggests political connotations of 70s disco and the cocaine wars, and the 80s AIDS epidemic that later devastated carefree, sex-thirsty men who danced all night at clubs. With the renewed love of shiny disco balls in America, Feinstein asks viewers about their own, subjective ball and chain, suggesting the ways that this timeless image has become subjective and, perhaps, de-politicized. Recent exhibitions include “I Made a Terrible Mistake” at LAB Space/Art Production Fund, New York; The Studio Show at David Reed Studio, New York; “Talk Dirty To Me” at Larissa Goldston Gallery, New York; and Desire at Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas (2010).

Chicago-based artist GREG STIMAC’s video Peeling Out (2006) deals with the performance of masculinity in American culture. Stimac travels through rural areas of the Midwest and California, and asks men with trucks to “peel out.” The guys rev up their engines and slam on the pedals, leaving thick black tire tracks on the road and smoke streaming from their exhausts. The truck drivers perform masculinity as they would weight-lifting or heavy drinking games–whoever can do it hardest and longest proves that he’s the “manliest” of them all. Stimac’s work probes these tests of masculinity. Exhibitions include a forthcoming solo show at Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, Illinois (2010); USA Today at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and Preview Berlin, Video Art Program in Berlin, Germany.

In Black Face Beyonce (2006), artist CARLOS RIGAU dresses himself in blackface and a wig, and sings out-of-sync with Beyonce’s song, “Crazy in Love.” The artist intends for this riff on the music video to be viewed on an iPod; the viewer, in turn, feels both shame and pleasure in watching it. Rigau’s work suggests that we have not yet entered a post-racist age. Rigau’s recent exhibitions include Our Great Show at Nice and Fit Gallery, Berlin, Germany; Optic Nerve at MOCA North Miami; and Alogon Gallery, Chicago.

STACIA YEAPANIS’ Life Isn’t Bliss. It’s Just This. It’s Living (2007) explores existentialism in virtual culture. Her Sims character goes through her day, performing mundane tasks like cleaning the bathroom, experiencing emotional outbursts, and doing exercising. The game, as she suggests, parallels life–meaning must be created, and each individual must carve out a place for him or herself. Identities are subjective, malleable, and formed by individuals. If the Sims game mirrors “real life,” one must conclude that the adage is true: life is only what you make of it.

CURATOR BIOS

Alicia Eler is an art critic and new media curator. Her art criticism has been published in Artforum.com, Art Papers and Time Out Chicago magazine, among others. Alicia’s recent curatorial projects include Response: Art and the Art of Criticism, a collaboration between prominent Chicago critics and Chicago artists, and Video as Video: Rewind to Form, a show conceived with artist Peregrine Honig. Alicia is also the Arts & Culture Community Manager of ChicagoNow.com, a network of local blogs sponsored by the Chicago Tribune Media Company. She holds a BA in Art History from Oberlin College. You can find her on Facebook and Twitter.

Jefferson Godard is a video art collector and professor of architecture. He is deeply dedicated to understanding art by emerging talent. Based in Chicago, his true passion lies in video art, and he has curated several video themed exhibitions over the past two years. Chicago shows include Body Collective at Alogon Gallery, a video series at Shane Campbell Gallery and a screening at Living Room Gallery. Most recently, he presented Our Great Show, a curated exhibition of works from his personal collection, at Nice and Fit Gallery in Berlin. The works that he collects and exhibits focus on sexuality, narratives of struggle, and identity with themes of deeply rooted anecdotal story telling. He is a founding member of EMERGE, a collectors forum at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago, and has been profiled on National Public Radio (NPR), and in the Christian Science Monitor, Newcity Newspaper and Chicago Gallery News. Find Jefferson on Facebook.

SFTE logo

Souvenirs from Earth TV is an international Cable TV station, currently broadcasting in France (freebox 129) and Germany (Unitymedia/Kabel BW), presenting a 24h program of film and video art. This channel is a platform where artists of different sensibilities can find a high-end environment to experience new forms of distribution and presentation of film and video art. Souvenirs from Earth’s production section also produces commissioned and free video art.

Press Release for French and German Television

photo-10

This is the 8 step sequencer that I’ve been working on. It’s been a little slow going, testing a variety of LEDs, photo-resistors and other components, but last night it started to come together. I’ve had issues with getting both the control and indicator LED to pulse together and without issue…. something that was solved through using a series of diodes in the circuitry between the IC and the final two LEDs.

Tonight will consist of wiring the rest of the indicator LEDs and wiring both the control LED and the audio line.

In the end this project will gate audio on and off in an 8 step sequence. This is accomplished by connecting a control LED to a photo resistor that splits the audio line input. When a light turns on the audio is passed through, when the light is off, the audio stops. With an 8 step pulse chain there is the possibility of beginning to build more and more complex rhythmic patterns. I’ve got a reset button on the surface so that the pattern can automatically be reset to step 1 of the sequence, though we will see if that helps with beat matching. In any case, more photos tonight or tomorrow and hopefully a little bit of video as well.

Images from 8 step sequencer

V/T

circuit-copy

After on-the-bus contemplation I’ve added a couple of new components, re-done some of the layout and made sure that what I am doing makes sense for both the circuit and future performances with said circuit.  The box was picked up yesterday and is a gorgeous red color… which will go great with the masonite and black acrylic that we cut over the weekend for the arduinome enclosure.

The circuit is entirely bread-boarded and now all it needs is a little bit of final love before being transferred onto a real circuit board and soldered up.  I’m hoping that I can finish work on it tonight, but I’m missing some 1M Pots (I’m sure they’re in storage) so a couple of aspects (the power starvation points) may need to wait until I make one last final trip to the electronics store.

More in-progress photos will get taken tonight.

Circuit Design For Gating

remote_arduino_photo

This is the actual circuit board that was pulled from the Panasonic video camera’s remote control.  It’s got this gray and black surface that is conductive when the pads embedded in the rubber of the remote’s buttons are pressed.  Unfortunately it was not conductive with metal, solder, anything useful… which meant that I ended up sanding the black and gray material off the surface of the circuit board in order to reveal the small copper pads located beneath.

Although maybe tedious and certainly not the easiest way to hack a circuit, drilling a couple of small holes through the remote’s circuit board in order to thread the wires through and make a connection between the remote circuit and the transistors wired to a separate circuit board that then connects to the Arduino.

It’s a simple and easy hack, clean and works quite well.  The only downside is that the way it’s being controlled with the current setup, both in terms of hardware and software, results in the wide angle/telephoto adjustment speed is “full-on”.  Adding resistance to the circuit or the software settings would be a helpful way to make an adjustment to how this circuit works.

More on this as it continues to be modded and developed further.

Wiring of Remote Control for Video Camera

After working with Arduino as a sequencer for audio (in a way)…. I realized yesterday that my thinking about it, and the amount of money that I was about to invest in it… was probably a less than wise use of time and resources.  So instead, I picked up a copy of Handmade Electronic Music (I bought it, I gave up on Routledge figuring out how to send my copy to me as a thank you for my having done the DVD production and filming) and have gone back to the original intention that I had to use the 74C14 and the 4017 circuit to control audio amplitude pulses.

There are some issues that I’m hoping to work out, the major one being the need to control the decay of the LED and the need to make what was once a square wave of ON/OFF for the LED into a situation where the On/Off relationship can be altered… but it’s a step in the right direction and hopefully with a bit of work, something can emerge that is usable in live performance.

From Digital to Analog

This past week has really been a refocusing moment.  A lot of new circuits are in the works and a few older ones (see Arduinome etc) are getting the final edits and cases that they need in order to really start using and testing.  One of the major big returns that I’m very excited about is the possibility of creating a beat oriented gating device that would be controlled through an arduino and a piezo disc or something else.  I’ve come across some code that was intended for something else entirely (using a piezo to create mary had a little lamb as you tapped it)…. the thing is, I’m wondering if that code can be taken apart and reconstructed so as to flash and control LEDs.  If that is the case then I can move forward with the LED/photoresistor project.  The major issue that I’ve run into with this circuit comes in the coding.  Essentially I’m looking to use one potentiometer to control the speed at which the LEDs are cycled through by the Arduino.  The issue is that this creates essentially what amounts to a square wave with the LED behavior (i.e. on and off for the same period of time)…. this isn’t what I want musically… I want to be able to set both the high and low aspects of the LED, something I’ve been trying to do with two pots (0ne for interval or low and one for LED ON or high).  I’m not sure if this new approach will work but I think with both this and the other LED coding work that I’ve been doing something is bound to come out of it.

New Circuits

wiring_a_remote

A pretty straightforward schematic for connecting an Arduino to a video camera’s remote control in order to randomly alter the zoom and telephoto settings of the camera.  The circuit uses PNP transistor switches to carry out the on/off command from Arduino and while the initial testing of this wasn’t necessarily firm, by the time it was entirely wired and properly connected to the board the circuit and design worked quite well… There are plenty of applications for this sort of circuit and it was nice to get this demo example up and running properly without huge hiccups (aside from some faulty transistors I ran into over the weekend).

The arduino code merely adjusts for a randomly selected number (from a preset time-delay range) to wait between adjustments to telephoto and zoom. F0r testing I used 10 seconds to 1 minute but theoretically this could be much longer or shorter.  Since the transistors hit the button in a full on/off manner the amount of time for each adjustment to zoom was between .1 and 3 seconds.  All in all it’s an interesting development in my ongoing love for altering electronics to either play by themselves or play through inappropriate external interfaces/controllers (ala photo-cells and cd players).  More to come as this week is all about creating a new arduino based looping amplitude controller.

Arduino, Remote Control

photo-2

Here are two Arduinome images and some thoughts for the next round of this interface.  Initial problems include but are not limited to: making sure the ribbon cables/connectors are oriented in such a way that they do not interfere with one another/making packaging thicker than it needs to be.  Also, the resistor used for controlling the LED matrix ends up being a somewhat random number that will necessitate combining resistors together in order to maximize the potential of the LEDs while still not messing up any of the electronics on the unsped arduinome shield.  After a few missteps with crimping the ribbon cable and connectors (why is it always what would appear to be the simple process is actually what ends up being a cluster-fuck?) I realized that the next time i build an unsped shield I’ll make sure to get really clear and precise documentation.  At the moment I haven’t found anyone who’s done it and while it isn’t complicated by any means, it would still be nice to have a clear and straight-forward roadmap.  Also, I need to make sure that I get into the sch0ol in the next week and build out the case.  So that means I need to buy standoffs etc.  I thought the lack of pre-drilled holes for the unsped arduinome was a mistake but then realized quickly that since the shield locks into the arduino itself, no standoff is necessary (which is beautiful really).

Tonight I hook it up to my laptop and run it through max/msp for the first time.  Hopefully if there are bugs they are minor and I can get started on the next phase of work (actually making dance music with it)…. I’m also starting to hatch my plans to build a stribe1 touch interface.  For whatever reason a move to making and mixing live has been really exciting in a way that records haven’t been for awhile.   While djing is still something I love, producing tracks and making tracks live has been something that I’ve really been wanting to move towards (at least for the moment).

Anyway… here are two terrible images of the matrix + shield + arduino.  If everything works I’ll post more images tonight at some point.

Initial Arduinome Images

A technological revolution gradually pushed back the limits of investigation into space and time until aerial reconnaissance, with its old modes of representation, disappeared in instantaneous, “real-time” information,  Objects and bodies were forgotten as their physiological traces became accessible to a host of new devices-
sensors capable of detecting vibrations, sounds and smells; light-enhancing television cameras, infra-red flashes, thermographic pictures that identified objects by their temperature, and so on. When time-lags were lost in real time, real time itself broke the constraints of chronology and became cinematic. No longer frozen as in an old photograph, military information allowed the past or the future to be interpreted, since human activity always gives off heat and light and can thus be extrapolated in time  and space.  In 1914 however, systematic aerial cover of the battlefield was still at the mercy of darkness, fog or low cloud.  Only bombers had already freed themselves from the alternation of night and day: they began with simple electric lamps and were later fitted with spotlights under their wing-tips or landing gear.  (page 24)

“For men at war, the function of the weapon is the function of the eye.”

“I am the camera’s eye. I am the machine which shows you the world as I alone see it.   Starting from today, I am forever free of human immobility.  I am in perpetual movement. I approach and draw away from things – I crawl under them – I climb on them – I am on the head of a galloping horse – I burst at full speed into a crowd – I run before running soldiers – I throw myself down on my back – I rise up with the aeroplanes – I fall and I fly at one with the bodies falling or rising through the air.” – Dziga Vertov (as quoted by Virilio, page 26)

War and Cinema, Paul Virilio, Verso Books (page #’s correspond to this publisher)

Excerpts from “War and Cinema” by Paul Virilio

“No, said Zezette, not the radio, I don’t want it, I won’t think of war.  Well, let’s have a bit of music, said Maurice.  Chersau, good-b—–b-r-r-r–my star–here is the news—sombreros and mantillas–J’ attendrai, at the request of Huguette Arnal, Pierre Ducroc, his wife and two daughters of La Roche-Canillac, Mlle Elaine of Calvi and Jean-Francois Roquettem for his little Marie-Madeleine, and a group of typists at Tulle for their soldier sweethearts, J’ attendrai, day and night, have some more bouillabaisse, no thanks, said Mathieu, something can surely be arranged, the radio crackled, sped over the white, dead squares, smashed the windows and penetrated into the dim vaporous interious of the houses, and Odette thought: It’s got t work all right, it’s so hot.”

A beautiful passage from The Reprieve by Sartre that doubles as both a wonderful description of turning the radio dial and as a short-hand nod to the method and style in which this book is written.

The Reprieve, Jean-Paul Sartre