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


 

Jamie Naqvi

Scenes Inspired by film, memory, and collage, “Scenes” uses found and original material to recreate three scenes from its author’s life.  

John Tejada

Future Stars class compilation album John Tejada, a frequent guest on Touched Music compilations, hatched the idea of turning the final project for his CalArts “Advanced Electronic Music Production” class into a compilation album for the established label. John Tejada Presents Future Stars features 15 of Tejada’s students at their best, as well as an […]

Carla Lopez

Water as a cleansing, invigorating, distortional, and transitional space. Motel pools as portals. Coloring and Layout Assistance – Lula Ochoa and Emily Malone My Swimmers – Lula Ochoa, Audrey Bandrowski, James Holsten, and Arius Ziaee Additional Camera Work – Savannah Perry Music by 11ai – www.ilai.link Thank you to the Calarts Risograph Printing Techs, especially […]

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 […]

Lorelei Acuna

Indigarb Fast fashion is the world’s second largest polluter, emitting 10% of all carbon emissions and is dumped into lands and oceans all over the world. In Our compilation of video and photography come together to evoke empathetic response in our viewers. By seeing humans absorbed in plastic, we mirror the way our Earth and […]

Patty Rangel

Hybrid Reality Theater “The Main Gallery screen will be pulled down and projected on it will be a video of Devorah Medwin (New York Actor’s Studio) doing a live reading of her play “”Maggie”” accompanied by her Second Life Avatar. After the video introduction, a reading of the short play will take place (live) by […]

Katherine Shea

Georgie Romero Is Done For A horror comedy audio drama podcast. Georgie Romero, a zombie, has risen from the grave, driven to solve the mystery of her former human life with the help of an inept witch and a cynical ghost. Rachel Greenberg, producer/co-writer/co-producer Socks Whitmore, producer/lead actor Evan Johnson, composer/sound engineer Elliot Yokum, sound […]