Everyone likes art that moves. But making moving art can be tricky. One easy way around many problems is to adapt a ready made mechanism, such as a Billy Bass, furby or Chevy Cavalier.
Usually, you will have a motor, some gearing and electronics to control the motor. Often, it’s easy to replace the existing motor control circuits with a circuit of your own design, as Jeff Mann does with the talking fish.
One thing you should have in your bag of tricks for this kind of thing is an h-bridge chip. This will allow you to make a motor go forward or backwards, something you can’t do with a simple transistor. A good chip to play with to get the hang of h-bridges is the L293D. The datasheet can be confusing if you haven’t used this chip before, but fortunately, there are lots of good example circuits available.
The disadvantage of this chip is that it is only really good for small motors- if you are building a big robot, you will need more current capability.
An H-bridge is good for controlling DC motors-make sure you know the voltage rating and current draw of your motor, and measure the current with the motor under load!
Usually you will want some kind of gearing on your motor- just like the motor in a car, electric motors like to run at high RPMs, and are geared down to obtain high torque. Matching a gearbox to a motor can be very challenging, unless you have a machine shop at your disposal, so you’ll probably want a motor with a built-in gearbox. These can cost a few dollars for a plastic version, or several hundred for something larger, or more precise. Excellent geared motors are often available from surplus dealers for a fraction of their original cost.
If you take a motor, a gearbox, and some kind of feedback that knows the position of the motor,what you have is a servo. These days, people usually use ‘”servo” to mean the RC servo motors sold for radio controlled planes and cars. You don’t need to buy all the radio control stuff to go with them- these are very easy to control with microcontrollers, or even discrete circuits made with 555 timers.
They come in all sizes, from tiny ones , to huge ones made for 1/4 scale models. Many artworks use many,many servos, such as Nicholas Stedman’s Blanket Project , or Eddo Stern’s work, currently showing at InterAccess.

(photo by fdecomite used under Creative Commons License)

Originally shown at the New York World’s Fair, 1940.

Yet another IA workshop season has comes to a close. A big thanks to everyone who participated, this round was an unprecidented success. So successful in fact, that some of your missed out because some of the courses filled up so quickly (uh, Sensors, Audruino, Electronics). Well if you wanted to take these but didn’t sign up in time, you might be in luck! Please contact Jennifer (jennifer (dot) cherniack (at) interaccess (dot) org) with what you’d like to take in the summer- if there are enough people, we’ll run them again!

The wonderful Leah Sandals interviews Eddo Stern for the National Post, take a read here:

http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/story.html?id=433848

Canadian 60×60 : 15 April (deadline extended)

Eligible works: Any sound or music captured on recorded media, which does not require live performers for its presentation in concert. The piece may be of any style and may comprise electronic sounds, field recordings, recordings of voice or musical instruments, or other sound
sources

Vox Novus, in collaboration with the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC), is inviting composers to submit recorded works 60 seconds or less in duration to be included in the first Canadian version of the annual 60×60 project. 60 compositions will be selected to be played continuously in a one-hour concert. The Canadian 60×60 concert season will begin with a debut in Montréal and continue throughout Canada in venues to be announced. Concerts may also
include a visual component (a clock, video clips, spectrographs, dance, etc.). The works will also be broadcasted on radio stations and featured on a Sonus.ca dedicated gallery. Please submit your recorded work(s) and submission form(s) before 31 March (postmarked). You may submit your works online or on a CDR; see submission guidelines below. Your work may be selected for both the Canadian and the International 60×60 projects.

For submissions consult our website at http://www.60×60.yaeldad.com
Questions: email 60×60@yaeldad.com

My last post chronicled spring with a listing of some of the shows in this city that featured emerging artists’ projects. As many of us know with Spring in Toronto also comes the Images Festival. Now in it’s 21st year, it is highly regarded as a breeding ground for edgy and experimental work. Once upon a time it was the only video alternative for the Toronto International Film Festival. Now it’s programming includes performance, animation and installation based works, such as the one currently showing at InterAccess.

To be a festival that features work from students to internationally recognized artists, you must have some sense of humor. A particularly subtle joke was pointed out to me the other day that I find quite lovely and want to share. I’m surprised I didn’t figure it out sooner. If you’ve seen the catalog you must have seen this image. Go get the catalog to get the upcoming joke; I’m having issues posting the photo (my scanner isn’t working and the image won’t upload, damn you wordpress!). I ask you to take a good hard look at the staff photo on Page 10 of the catalog. Interesting, perhaps someone boring.

But recall a photograph from a particular magazine about Canadian Art, not to mention any names, that had their own opinions about media arts in our municipality.
Look at this! Now look at the Images photo again, and I hope you’re having a slight chuckle. I certainly did. The gesture is humorous and in good fun, despite being critical. Through its mimicry of Canadian Art’s photospread, where Scott Miller Berry becomes Paulette Philips, it really indicates how artists become superstars that make it to magazines. International careers need to start with local support and conscious efforts to explore new and edgy ideas, and that’s what this photospread on page 10 says more than anything.
Props to Shannon Cochrane who directed the photograph.

Last year Images launched the iFPOD project; it highlights some Canadian Video art favorites for downloading and dissemination. The project features some artists our IA community know and love. This year, as a wink and a nod to our efforts no doubt, they have started a blog. For Images coverage, I would like to direct you there. You may ask why I’m not choosing to review or critique it’s programming, pick my favorite pieces, etc. Firstly, I’m swamped. Secondly, I’m only really seeing what I want to see anyway, with my vtape pass, so it’s not a fair review. Thirdly and most importantly, Images has gone to the trouble of commissioning and asking three top artists to blog, including my favorite boyfriend (and yours to!) Andrew James Paterson. You are also able to comment and leave your own thoughts. As participants in the culture of image and meaning making, it seems second nature to engage in such a forum.

Until we can have a longer conversation, all the best, and happy viewing!