Mechatronic Art and Music

These are the four final projects from the 2020 "Mechatronic Art & Music" course. Each student was tasked with opened ended assignment of designing and creating their own electro-mechanical device related to their personal creative practice. Carl Burgin, Trevor Bock, Charles Danner, Cy Krafft & Kai-Luen Liang

Kai-Luen Liang

Tomorrow There Will Be Wind ( Automatic Windchimes )
A performance of playing an Arduino controlled set of wind chimes.
Vibration motors are activated through a motor driver creating divisions and
polyrhythms based on various “states.” First iteration prototype with beer
bottle activation.


 

Trevor Bock

4-Note Bottle Blowing Instrument

I have always loved the angelic sound that is produced by blowing into an empty glass
bottle. The combination of wind noise and the ringing sine wave tone that resonates out of the
bottle creates a fascinating timbre that is impossible to perfectly replicate digitally. What if you
could mechanically create this sound and produce beautiful melodies to perform with it? This is
what inspired me to create the 4-Note Bottle Blowing Instrument. This device contains four
small fans attached to DC motors mounted in a specific way to effectively blow air into each of
the bottles. This causes them to resonate and create a fairly loud sine tone. Each bottle is
individually tuned by raising and lowering the amount of water inside them. Using an Arduino,
the instrument will then perform a sequence of notes by fading the fans in and out from left to
right. This allows musicians to tune each bottle accordingly and create any four part melody
they desire.


 

Cy Krafft

This work in progress was inspired by a love of old school liquid light shows and a fascination
with the precise engineering of the inside of a moving head. The goal is to repurpose the
internal mechanisms from used Clay Paky Alpha Spot and Alpha Wash fixtures to create an
animating liquid light show in the beam of the fixtures.
I began with the Alpha Wash fixtures due to the less complex internal layout. However, due to
the limited range of beam effects in the fixture, the color wheels were my first choice for
modification. The challenge with the color wheels was adapting the rotational movement of the
color wheels into the vertical movement of a plate.
The first iteration of this design is made of two clear discs connected by a silicone tube to create
a sealed container that is then filled with the dyed oil and water. The two discs can then be
oscillated against each other through the use of a ridged gear on the inside of the metal plates
holding the discs. This creates the fluid movement associated with traditional liquid light shows.
In addition, the entire mechanism can be moved in and out of the beam to add or remove the
effect. The prototype of this iteration is still in development


 

Charles Danner


 

Joanna Keler

DEEP INSIDE “CalArts. A game-changer in the education of professional artists. CalArts. Grounded in openness, experimentation, critical engagement, and creative freedom. CalArts. Transform ourselves, each other, and the world. Let’s go, stranger I’ll show you CalArts. From outside to inside. To all our concerns, frustration, and alienation. To all what will always stay in counselor’s […]

Leslie Crapster-Pregont

Light: action and reaction “Light: action and reaction” highlights the awe and wonder of the simple transition of light throughout the day. Time lapse video captures the movement of the sun and its reflection/refraction across dichroic tiles. The changing pattern of color and light encourages the viewer to slow down and appreciate shadow art that […]

Steve Weir

Alleys The Alleys series documents a lesser-known casualty of the construction boom in Seattle—alleyways. While they often carry a negative reputation, they are an integral part of the urban landscape.

Fallon Williams

Originally located on the back wall of the MOD, IRIS was a 3-dimensional automated aperture that opened to about 17-ft in diameter to reveal a lit cyclorama in its opening. For the Virtual Campus, we will be modeling the iris in 3D software, then using lighting software to create various lighting looks. Christian Mejia (MFA2, […]

Brian Griffith

Biological Internal Feedback Biological Internal Feedback is a visual music piece exploring the opaque gelatin that is created when combining the moment of inspiration and the realization of the thought. The video for this piece was created using nature footage taken from around my neighborhood, and abstract video synth textures created in the CalArts Videographics […]

Jeremy Rosenstock

This is a text setting of excerpts from “Notes on the Cinematograph” and “Au Hasard Balthazar” by Robert Bresson. The work is composed for speaking pianist.

Alex Cerutti

Change The Game Change The Game is a creative exploration focused on being free, experimental, and self expressive — there are no limits. changethegame.studio

Perry Cook

COVID Pan Drum: A Robot Tongue-Drum Rendering of the SARS-2 COVID Virus Genome I’m building a custom robot to play a little lap-sized tongue (steel) drum. A program will read through the roughly 30k base pairs in the COVID 19 (SARS-2 COVID Wuhan Seafood Market) DNA sequence. Particular (known) functioning segments will be sonified when […]