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
Liquid Light Movers
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
TOY P1ANO
The TOY P1ANO is a self-playing hyper
instrument 30 Key Schoenhut Piano modified with
solenoids, copper contacts + contact mics
Mux chips + Teensy Audio shield + teensy3.6
to read keys + output Midi
Excitation from contact mics synthesizes a
tuned modeled string based on the
Karplus-Strong synthesis model
Mia Yao Meng
Hyperreal Gesstures This project is a reflection of the gestures we perform on a routine basis in order to interact (as the trigger and the data input) with networked devices such as smartphones and laptops. These gestures are abstracted/flattened in the design process and transformed into online behaviors. This habit-formation process only takes us a […]
Emily Eisenstein
plasticity My clothes my hair my face my body. The way I look and the way I feel are at war with each other. A film about gender in isolation.
Dylan Marx
Cavalry Call –
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
Roger Holzberg
LIFE QUILT “Created by the Healthcare by Design class of 2020 (CalArts Theater School), in partnership with Henry Mayo hospital. LIFE QUILT is a part of a larger pilot program developed for patients & families approaching end of life. Each panel is an active, creative experience, designed to reduce anxiety, connect family members in support, […]
Mengqing Yuan
B-body “My B-body” is a project I created during home quarantine. It is based on a poem I wrote about the relationship between my physical body and my consciousness. The text of the poem reads: My B-body My body doesn’t belong to me It wants to be free It wants to come apart It wants […]
Charles Danner
TW/CW: trauma **Trigger Warning** This is a multimedia piece about the experience of being a victim of trauma in the current COVID-19 climate. The piece consists of original poetry written and performed by Nicole Paige Chaffin over an original score by Charles Van Alst Danner. The score features a custom feedback instrument, the FeedBox in […]
Daniel Rappaport
Live Your Fantasy! Daniel L Rappaport is a CalArts alum (graphic design ’01) and is a graduate of the FIDM/Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (digital media ’08). His ascendants are Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, and others, and he hails from the disgustingly famous Beverly Hills, CA. He has over 25 years of digital media […]