I was flicking through the latest copy of Realtime last night when I saw Jeremy Yuille’s report from this year’s Electrofringe festival in Newcastle. I had a great time at Electrofringe and saw Jeremy around the place quite a few times so I was interested to read his report. Before I got to the first word of the article, the photo at the top caught my eye. “That tinfoil looks familiar… Is that my watch? Hey! Those are my hands!”
The photo was taken by Jonah Brucker-Cohen who was running the workshop. The idea was to take random electronic junk and turn it into unusual MIDI controllers. Jonah is a researcher/artist who is interested in alternative human/machine interfacts and the social aspects of technology and the network. Check out his website coin-operated.com for info on his many different projects. Also helping out was Nick from Sydney band Toy Death. Toy Death produce music from hacked and modified toy instruments. Check out their ‘ridiculous website’ for interactive sound demo goodies.
Jonah and Nick:
My main piece was a VHS videotape which I converted into a pair of mini drum pads. I did this by opening up the video cassette, removing the tape and wrapping both the tape spools and the inside of the case in tinfoil. With the connection of a couple of wires I was able to create two circuits that connected when the tape spools were pressed down.
When I got back to Melbourne I finished the VHS drums off by attaching four RCA plugs to replace the bare wires. This lets me run audio or video signals in and out of the tape and cut pictures and sound in and out (very crudely) for VJ performance.
Other projects included a mannequin who would create a MIDI event when struck in the head by her own leg…
… and a turntable with light sensors as triggers.
Super geeky fun was had by all.
cool pic - yeh i’m using the pic of you for everything these days.. check out the official site here (www.coin-operated.com/scrapyard). We are running the workshop in Berlin next week which should be cool! Gail from ElectroFringe will be there too so will be good to see friends! Cool about your controller too - i like the fact that you put RCA plugs on it and are using it! Excellent!
-jonah