Fall 2019: Art 5490: Make Anything Talk to Anything

Professor: Ali Momeni

This course is intended for visual artists, musicians, designers, computer scientists, engineers and architects (among others) interested in exploring real-time interactive software applications. Such applications allow translations/interactions among various media; examples include sound to video (e.g. music visualizers), gesture to sound (e.g. the theramin, Wii controllers as musical instruments), gesture to video (e.g. motion tracking for interactive visualizations, interactive architecture), interactive sculptures (e.g. sensor controlled mechanics, robotics, lights, LEDs). The Max/MSP/Jitter new media programming environment will be the primary instrument of the course. Max/MSP/Jitter is a graphical programming environment that provides user interface, timing, communication with electronics, communications with the web, MIDI support, real-time audio and video synthesis and processing.

For more information see the class blog and the course syllabus.

Fall 2019: Art 5670/8600: Mechanical Theaters and Toy Orchestras

Professor: Ali Momeni

The paradox of shadows:

"Shadow is all appearance, immateriality, without substance; but at the same time gives a way of avoiding the seduction of surface--often referred to as appearance as opposed to essence." 

-William Kentridge, Excerpt from a lecture delivered at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, on the occasion of the exhibition William Kentridge, 20 October 2001-20 January 2002

Goals:

This class aims to create a collaborative practice based research structure surrounding the history, techniques and critical discourse surrounding automata, mechanical theaters, toy orchestras and shadows.  Students and instructore will pursue a literature review whose findings will be shared through in-class presentations and on-line documentation.  This research will include past and present-day technologies and aesthetics, as well as the analog and digital means through which the theatrical experience incorporates information.   

As the course is intended for students with a primary interest in <em>making</em>, the research methodology will be practice-based and divided into two halves: for the fist half of the semester, students are expected to read, write, research, find, tag, organize, gather.  This phase focuses on building a practice in working with mixed media as opposed to creating a finished object/work.  In March we will hold mid-term reviewers, where students will lay-out all that they have gathered in their research and get feedback on the materials, directions, aesthetics, references and imagery they have gathered.  The 2nd half of the course is dedicated to the creation of a new work.
 

Since this graduate-level seminar meets only once per week, students are expected to dedicate studio/making-time to this course outside of the class-period.  In class studio days will be dedicated to demonstration of and monitored experimentation with the subject matter's instruments and techniques; in-class hours will also be used for group critiques.

For more information see the class blog and the course syllabus.

My collaborative work Smoke and Hot Air with Robin Mandel is now on display in the show titled FEEDFORWARD, at Laboral: Centro the Arte y Creation Industrial in Gijon, Spain.

The show was curated by Steve Dietz and Christina Paul; the form has posted a number of images of the show on Flickr, with a separate album for the opening night.

During August 3-7, 2009, Robin Mandel and I taught a week-long intensive workshop on physical computing at Anderson Ranch. The workshop was titled Physical to Digital (see Anderson's flier).

I created a course blog that includes arduino code, references for working with kinetics as well as videos of the students final projects.

Working with Motors:

1. Our Simple Voltage Amplification Circuit
2. Graphical Resistance Calculator
3. Transistor and Diode basics
4. Our TIP122 voltage amplifier

More interfaces:

Arduino

Arduino Shields

Wiring

Pic microcontroller

Gluion

Phidgets

CUI

Excellent stepper motor:
Stepper Motor

Stepper Driver

Source for premade driver boards:
Futurlec Electronics (Thailand)

I will spend Oct. 3 to 16 in Ghent, Belgium, participating in the 2008 Almost Cinema Festival. The plan is to show two sculptural works, and give a with my man David Bithell.

I've been working on some software and electronics for Robin Mandel in order to realize his Storm. First I made a Arduino-MIDI-output-translator application that converted MIDI out of GarangeBand to on and offs on the Arduino's Digital Outputs. Then I integrated the MIDI playback into the translator application.