Last year I was lucky enough to be the Digital Media Artist in Residence at the University of Abertay, Dundee, a position funded by the Scottish Arts Council. It was an amazing experience for me and my career, and it officially culminated in the production of my first solo gallery show, which took place at the Hannah Maclure Gallery. This show was called “Gelkies”, and opened in November 2009. The show was presented as a sort of zoo, with the eponymous Gelkies being strange creatures native to rural Scotland. I even made a nature documentary about them:
Here is a video that documents the installation itself:
Tomorrow I’ll be giving a talk about the Gelkies to the fabulous folks from Central Station as part of their exciting Dundee Pop-Up tour. Looking forward to it!
Posted 1 year, 12 months ago at 6:31 pm. Add a comment
Last Friday saw the premiere of my new installation Expected Arrival Time in Dundee, as part of the Winter Light Night event. This piece came together surprisingly quickly, thanks to the support of John Gray from the Dundee City Council and Donna Holford-Lovell from Abertay University Cultural Projects, and an incredible amount of help and hard work from Ken Rusk from Abertay.
For Expected Arrival Time, a series of disused LED bus shelter signs from the city of Dundee were built into a large array of nearly two meters tall, and I made a system for controlling their flashing based on sound. The whole structure was placed in an empty shop front in downtown Dundee, with a microphone hanging from a window above the sidewalk. The microphone picked up the ambient sound of the street and sent that to the bus signs, which flashed in different ways in response to the sound. Watch the video to see it in action!
Posted 2 years, 2 months ago at 2:43 pm. 2 comments
I feel very honored to be involved in Rough Cut Nation, a brilliant show that’s happening right now at the Nation Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.
In a nutshell, the Rough Cut Nation project is a bunch of Scottish artists who took over the Portrait Gallery, which is closing for renovation at the end of the summer. They covered the walls with their work, which looks absolutely brilliant. I got involved by making an interactive temporary paint installation!
Check out the video I made, featuring music by the one and only Handface.
Together with Kristina Johansen, we also made a glove using conductive thread and embedded LEDs to make the interaction a bit more natural:
I originally got in touch with Richie Cumming, the organizer of the show, to help him set up a sensor system for switching on some UV lights. The idea was that they would light up every so often to reveal hidden textures on the walls that were painted with UV-responsive paint. Long story short, we ended up not going with that plan, and instead I built something that was a lot more interactive and loads of fun to play with…I got some UV LED’s from Patrick Hickey at Nipht Technologies and turned put them into jars and boxes with little buttons. When brought near the walls they made the phosphorus paint glow in lovely magical way.
The jars and boxes felt a lot like futuristic spraypaint cans…I started thinking that maybe the different types of containers I put them in each represented what spraypaint cans will become in various divergent futures. Hmmm.
In any case, the UV LED things fit really well with the whole show, because it gave people the opportunity to paint the walls themselves in a fun and temporary way. It went down a storm at the opening on Friday!
Rough Cut Nation will be open to the public until August 30th, and it’s free! It’s also your last chance to visit the Portrait Gallery for a couple years, so get in while you can. There’s also a nice little café they’ve set up just for the show. You can find out more on the Rough Cut Nation Page of the National Galleries of Scotland website, and on the National Galleries Blog!
Posted 2 years, 5 months ago at 11:01 pm. 1 comment
The Gelkies will be at the Hannah Maclure Gallery in Dundee as part of the “Word Games” exhibit with Gayle Meikle. The opening is tonight at 6pm, and the show continues until July 17th. Here is the text that will accompany the piece:
The Gelkie is a strange and mythical creature, whose very existence was in doubt until recently. Native to Scotland, the Hannah Maclure Centre is delighted to present these highly endangered specimens in something resembling their natural habitat. Researchers are still puzzling over their mating habits, but what is clear is that male and female Gelkies must form pairs in order to communicate in their peculiar language of light and sound. A solitary Gelkie is a sad sight indeed, unable to express the slightest noise. But while they naturally form couples, scientists are perplexed by their tendency to spend most of their lives arguing. With time, and your support, Gelkies can flourish throughout Scotland. Please contact the Scottish Gelkie Appreciation Society (SGAS) for information about how you can help these remarkable creatures.
Posted 2 years, 7 months ago at 2:01 pm. Add a comment
I’m working on a project right now that involves building digital synthesizers that react to light. As a first step I made a small synth that I was able to fit inside a jam jar. I creatively named it the Jam Jar, and it totally rocks. Here’s a video that explains what it is and shows me jamming out with Ableton Live!
For more pictures check out my Flickr set. [edit]> I neglected to mention that I built this synth with enormous help from a tutorial on hack-a-day!
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago at 8:56 am. 5 comments
Yesterday I handed in my thesis. I’ve been working on it since May, and I think it turned out pretty well. It was an interactive sound installation that tracked the location of a listener and changed the sound according to their movement. Check out the website for video, audio, and more.
Tomorrow I’m heading back to the states, and I’ll be travelling all around the world for the next month or so. I’ll be getting back to serious work on the Wii Loop Machine, so hopefully within the next couple of weeks I’ll have some new toys for you.
Posted 4 years, 5 months ago at 7:19 am. Add a comment
The idea was to build an interface where people could come help us make some sound and music while drinking tea in a relaxing atmosphere. We’re going to keep developing it, so this will probably evolve a lot in the near future. This week I’m working on a short video. It will be done by Friday, I’ll upload it here as soon as it’s finished. See you then!
Posted 4 years, 9 months ago at 3:15 pm. 3 comments
Thanks to Anna Seppa, Alex Fong, and others, I have some video footage from my show at the Forest Cafe the other day. The audio is a bit distorted, but it’s rather fun to watch.
Before we get to those, if you’re interested in my current studio project you can read about it (and listen and watch videos) here. It involved building a tea set that generates music and sound. Very fun stuff.
And here are a couple of songs from the show. Good For Me:
The Oh Be Gentle Strut
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Five More Minutes
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Each Possible Conclusion (featuring the Wii controller)
Posted 4 years, 11 months ago at 7:00 am. 5 comments
The Amazing Rolo is Edinburgh-based sound designer, musician, and digital artist Yann Seznec. He specializes in interactive installations, ragtime piano, custom music software creation, and sound art. He is founder of Lucky Frame Limited, a small company that makes fun digital things, and teaches occasionally at various universities.
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