What: “People doing strange things with electricity“
Where: Serial Space, 33 Wellington St, Chippendale
When: Tuesday 29th May, 7pm for a 7:30 start
PRESENTERS
R.kobrynski : Hydrogen
Kobrynski will be presenting his first prototype of a system that converts water and electricity in a specific form of Hydrogen on demand. It can cut through steel, and melt all sorts of materials, including tungsten that is known to sublimate at 5000C. This technology can be a revolution for many industries as it is completely free of toxic exhaust gasses. He will also approach some other applications of this technology such as for cars, it can indeed reduce the emissions of CO2 80% and 100% of NOX. This technology could be an overnight solution to nearly 1/3rd of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. Kobrynski would like to discuss the future of this technology at world scale, as a tactic to change our economy to run on a clean fuel as soon as possible.
Note: Bring some challanging materials to be melted for the demo!!!
Pia van Gelder : Technical Delusions
Pia will be presenting some research she has been doing on the psychological condition commonly called the ‘technical delusion’ first written about by Victor Tausk in a paper published in 1919 called . Pia will discuss a recent essay by media-archaeological theorist which reexamines Tausk’s theories in relation to television and media studies. Pia would like to discuss how this condition, which is now considered a first-rank symptom of schizophrenia, might apply to electronic arts practice and what she calls ‘machinic affinities’.
Image: Jakob Mohr, Beweisse [Proofs], ca. 1910. Courtesy Prinzhorn Collection, University of Heidelberg.
You : Show & Tell
As per usual there is an open session at the end of Dorkbot for very informal impromptu short show and tells. Anyone is invited to bring along something they are working on and show us your stuff!
What: “People doing strange things with electricity“
Where: Serial Space, 33 Wellington St, Chippendale
When: SATURDAY(!!!!) 28th April, 15:00 - 18:00
This month’s Dorkbot is at a special time at the tale end of the Moduluxxx, Mini Modular Synth Fest! Come along early to see the (on from 10-3)
Moduluxxx is a 2 day thermo voltaic burn out celebrating and exploring modular synthesis. Somewhere between a museum, a LAN party and a pet show, Moduluxxx will be an space for vicarious enjoyment, learning, rubber necking, starting a dangerous new hobby (fiscally speaking), kicking tires or brushing shoulders with your peeps.
Around the world modular synthesis is experiencing a renaissance of interest and experimentation, with new developments from high bandwidth video synthesis systems through to reinventions of granular synthesis in an analog context. In a creative audio world that is dominated by software, saved files and presets, modular synthesis offers no recall, each patch is unique and perhaps unrepeatable. The equipment itself is constructed in small manufacturing runs, often by hand, designed by dedicated enthusiasts operating out of their lounge rooms.
So what is modular synthesis anyway? It is a style of synthesiser design where the architecture is left open. Each element, whether it be a sound generator, filter, controller, modulator or effect can be reconfigured in an infinite variety of arrangements.
PRESENTERS
ED LECKIE – LZX INDUSTRIES
LZX Industries is a Texan/Australian partnership drawn together by mutual obsession with early video art, and frustration with the lack of available hardware products for modular video synthesis and processing. The goal of LZX Industries is to provide highlyfunctional, professional tools for interacting with video signals in a hardware context at a price point within the grasp of the independent artist.
Ed Leckie is an Electronics Engineer with a professional background in image processing technologies, and a lifetime love for synthesizers and electronic music. He has been an active member of Clan Analogue, an electronic audiovisual collective, for the last 10 years and is part of the electronic duo Bleepin J. Squawkins.
THOMAS O’CONNOR – PITTSBURGH MODULAR
Thomas O’Connor (Port Adelaide, South Australia) An electro-entomologist & journeyman dilettante. When not planning for Year Zero or building towers of plastic skulls in his backyard he likes to unwind with a frank and open discourse on nothing with anyone who will stand still long enough & not press charges. A student of the Dérive, Trap Rap & Ghetto House he is currently searching for the philosophers stone in a unique mix of baking soda, 808 bass drums & metal film resistors, whilst admitting he is unlikely to succeed in this endevour, he maintains that this is “kinda the point”.
Some of the more usefull side effects of his experiments are avaliable as practical electronics from the good folks at Pittsburgh Modular.Thomas O’Connor – Pitsburgh Modular
DAVID BURRASTON
David Burraston is an artist/scientist involved in technology and electronic music since the late 1970s. He had an innovative role in the foremost UK telco’s R&D laboratory in diverse areas such as Artificial Life, Virtual Reality and Visualisation. Self taught in the areas of music composition/technology, chaos and complex systems, he is recognised as a leading practitioner/theorist in the field of generative music, producing both peer reviewed publications and musical compositions. He is also a peer-reviewer for the MIT Press journals Leonardo Journal, Leonardo Music Journal, Computer Music Journal and on the editorial board of Leonardo Transactions. In January 2008 David became a member of the Australia Research Council funded initiative COSNET (Complex Open Systems Research Network). David is a founding member of the Electronic Music Foundation Institute (www.emf.org). David was part of the team that designed and built The Wires installation at The WIRED Lab and is a member of the Board of Directors. He has been operating an independant art/science music studio called Noyzelab since 1981.
His PhD thesis developed and applied fundamental new concepts, arising out of generative music practice, to a key problem in complex systems. This has served as a foundation methodology for creative practice and complex systems research, an area David calls Creativity and Complexity. The outcomes of his research have been recognised by international peers, evidenced by the acceptance of papers into significant journals such as Leonardo and Digital Creativity. The international peer reviewed Leonardo Abstracts Service (LABS) voted his PhD top among all submitted abstracts in 1st half of 2007 because of its special relevance to art/science. His current work is aimed at tackling more key questions in complex systems from a creative practice perspective, drawing inspiration from natural and artificial complex systems. These key questions address the definition of randomness, structure and high level descriptions of information processing in complex systems.
Go to for more details
Moduluxxx is proudly supported by , and and along with many Pozible crowdsters!.
Opening: 18:00-20:00 Tues 6th March
Open: 12:00-18:00 7th - 11th March
Artist Talk: 14:00 11th March
The annual Dorkbot Sydney Group Show is an exhibition of “people doing strange things with electricity”. The show presents a collection of interactive installations, generative art, sound art and electronic sculpture by artists from around Australia.
Dorkbot Sydney has been running regular events since 2006, establishing a community of curious people. Dorkbot aims to bring people together, presenting independent innovative work from all fields including artists, musicians, engineers, programmers and hobbyists.
Dorkbot Sydney is supported by Serial Space, an artist run initiative dedicated to the development and presentation of experimental, hybrid and interdisciplinary art.
What: “People doing strange things with electricity“
Where: Serial Space, 33 Wellington St, Chippendale
When: Tuesday 28th February, 7pm for a 7:30 start
PRESENTERS
MANUEL BETANCURT
I would like to talk a little bit about physical computing and mobile devices, showing an application: measuring the response of the neurones in a cockroach leg as sound and visualising it in a mobile device.
JAHAN KALANTAR : GAMINGSYDNEY
Jahan Kalantar will be talking about GamingSydney which provides a broad community environment for gamers in Australia. Currently we run TF2, CSS and Minecraft servers and plan on launching a gaming media site soon. GamingSydney’s mission is to bring many attributes separate gaming communities offer and bring them together by involving a great degree of community involvement. GamingSydney aims to link players with their local community and promote value through engagement.
YOU - SHOW + TELL
As per usual there is an open session at the end of Dorkbot for very informal impromptu short show and tells. Anyone is invited to bring along something they are working on and show us your stuff! Don’t be shy now…
What: “People doing strange things with electricity“ Where: Performance Space, Track 8, Carraigeworks, 245 Wilson Street, Eveleigh (corner of Codrington & Wilson streets)
When: Tuesday 13th December, 7PM SHARP - 10pm
COST: FREE -
This month Sydney’s Dorkbot goes to as a part of the Program, to present 4 incredible projects from a variety of super nerds including: Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders with their installation ‘Zwischenräume’ embeding curious robots into our architectural fabric, Michaela Davies who uses live percussion and sonified data to control motor function in performers via electric muscle stimulation (EMS), Aras Vaichas and his Micro Patch Synthesizer and Balint Seeber and Matt Robert who track planes in 3D by decoding RADAR using high-tech radio. Come along and experience a change in atmosphere and some amazing inventions!
PRESENTERS (in no specific order)
//// Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders - Zwischenräume \\\\
Zwischenräume (Interstitial Spaces) couples curious robotic agents with our built environment by embedding robots into the architectural skin. Each robot is equipped with a motorised hammer or a chisel, a camera, and a couple of pick-up mics to interact with its environment and network with the other machines. In this mingling of wall and machine, the wall’s anatomy becomes the milieu for the machines to develop and express their desires through knocking, producing cracks, and punching holes. Zwischenräume makes tangible our intimate and complicit relationships with the machinic ecologies we create. It is the first installation in a series of works that explore the performative potential of a machine-augmented architecture and its unfolding anatomical trauma.
The collaborative practice of Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders explores the materiality of digital processes, their agency and performativity, as well as the audiences’ aesthetic experience as they become bodily involved. Their pervasive, locative and robotic installations have been exhibited internationally, including at the Ars Electronica, Thessaloniki Biennale, MCA Chicago, ICC Tokyo, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, and OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz. Both live and work in Sydney. Petra Gemeinboeck is Senior Lecturer in Interactive Media Arts at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW. Rob Saunders is Senior Lecturer in Design Computing at the Design Lab, University of Sydney.
Zwischenräume video docu: http://vimeo.com/15272452
Petra Gemeinboeck portfolio: http://www.impossiblegeographies.net/
Rob Saunders website: http://web.arch.usyd.edu.au/~rob/
//// Aras Vaichas - Micro Patch Synthesizer \\\\
Aiming to be the world’s smallest patching synthesizer, this dual-CPU beast will curl the hairs in the ears of even the most tone deaf musician. The Micro Patch Synth takes Lo-fi to even lower levels by sporting one of the world’s lowest sample rates and low bit depth yet this device still manages to move forward with an amazing array of features for its size:
Features:
* one octave keyboard
* arpeggiator
* two voltage controlled oscillators
* low frequency oscillator
* random and noise generators
* ring modulator
* sub oscillator
* two voltage controlled filters
* envelope generator
* voltage controlled amplifier
* analog joystick
* seven patchable potentiometers
* function key
* rotary encoder
* mono audio out
* USB powered
Michaela Davies is a boxing instructor, doctor of psychology and artist. Michaela uses sound sources such as recordings of seismic activity as triggers to activate electrodes placed on the performers’ bodies. Their involuntary spasmodic movements make them look like puppets.” Like puppets! This lady is clearly mad as a brush. Where do we sign up?
Davies works with electric muscle stimulation and data audification to question metaphysical assumptions affirming the existence of an intentional inner self, and the physical realm as an expression and reflection of this. Using sonified seismic data to generate involuntary movement via a custom–built EMS device, Davies’ work, subsoma, explores the lack of agency humans have with respect to global systems. This project was supported by National Science Week and performed at the Powerhouse Museum (Sydney, 2010) and CSIRO Discovery Centre (Canberra, 2010).
//// Balint Seeber with Matt Robert - Aviation Mapper \\\\
Ever wanted to intercept RADAR signals from air traffic control and visualise your airspace in real-time on a 3D map? While you’re at it, check how many faults have been reported by the next plane you’ll be travelling on (e.g. do the toilets work?). How about figuring out who is transmitting from any registered antenna in the country? If you have ever wondered about the enormous amount of invisible data buzzing around you, come and learn how it all works!
Seeber and Robert will show how easy it is to analyse wireless communications systems using open source software and cheap radio hardware. The focus will be on how to use Software Defined Radio to create a souped-up Mode S aviation transponder/ACARS receiver with an Internet-enabled smooth-streaming Google Earth front-end.”
More details -
//// YOU - Show & Tell \\\\
As per usual there is an open session at the end of Dorkbot for very informal and short show and tells. Anyone is invited to bring along something they are working on and show us your stuff! Don’t be shy now.
BTW - Last Dorkbot for 2011
FYI - PERFORMANCE SPACE AYBABTU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
<->Dorkbot Sydney has been nominated for Fbi Radio’s prestigious ” Category. This award recognises that moment when people come together and magic happens. Blogs, agencies, event organisers, art collectives, gallery owners…any group of people doing great work together & making this city all the better for it.
DORKBOT SYDNEY GROUP SHOW 2012 APPLICATIONS OPEN - DUE MONDAY 28TH NOVEMBER
Exhibition to be presented at Serial Space Opening Tuesday 6th March and closing on Sunday the 11th March
Dorkbot Sydney Group Show is an annual exhibition of “people doing strange things with electricity” that will be presented at Sydney Artist Run Initiative Serial Space. For the third year, Dorkbot Sydney is accepting applications from any field, be you artist, engineer, programmer or hobbyist, in any form, electronic, experimental, hybrid or interdisciplinary. Submissions should not be limited to artworks - but should respond to the theme “people doing strange things with electricity”. The Dorkbot Sydney Group Show is something between an art exhibition and a science fair. Some past projects that have been exhibited have involved robotics, installation, interaction, electronic sculpture, screen based works, web based work, audio instruments and performance works.
Dorkbot Sydney Group Show is the one of the only annual exhibitions in NSW that is dedicated to a focus on contemporary electronic, hybrid and interdisciplinary art. It has exhibited a variety of emerging and mid career artists next to engineers and scientists, both local and interstate. The exhibition aims to present the dialogue that exists between science, technology and art, putting experimentation and innovation at the forefront.
For more information on how to apply for this exhibition please download these documents:
1. Dorkbot Sydney Group Show 2012 Information DocumentPDF 2. Application Cover Sheet or Doc
tr-IO by Lukasz Karluk + Gentleforce, 2010
Exhibited at Dorkbot Sydney Group Show 2010
Photograph taken by Pia van Gelder
What: “People doing strange things with electricity“
Where: Serial Space, 33 Wellington St, Chippendale
When: Tuesday 1st November, 7pm for a 7:30 start
This month’s Dorkbot Sydney is curated by Serial Space On-Site Resident Andrew McLellan AKA Cured Pink. We will have three “powerful” presentations by experimental artists and machine lover/haters.
PRESENTERS
Andrew McLellan - Cannibalised Machines
For the last few years Andrew McLellan has been aggregating fragmented and crude instrumentation for his noise-performance project Cured Pink. Over the last year in particular, Andrew has been building cannibalised machines from cheap powertools for scenarios that embrace spontaneity, danger and the psychic tendencies of the attending crowd. Andrew will be showing instruments and objects that he is building (and/or hopes to build) during his on-site residency with Serial Space in October/November.
Harry Mills - Situational Amplification
Electronic instrument building which explores situational amplification as well as sound content. The translation of a musical idea into analogue devices, using simplification and primitive network schemes to control feedback and signal paths. The exploration of circuits representing traditions of sonic/visual reproduction and generation.
Lucas Abela
Initially classed as a turntablist, Lucas Abela’s work has rarely resembled anything in the field, early feats saw him stabb vinyl with Kruger style stylus gloves, bound on electro acoustic trampolines, drag race the pope across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, perform deaf defying duet duels with amplified samurai swords, hospitalised by high powered turntables constructed from sewing machine motors, record chance John Peel sessions with the Flaming Lips, become Otomo Yoshihides’ favourite entry into his Ground Zero remix competition; ‘Consummation’ (even though instead of sampling the CD he destroyed it using amplified skewers!).
Today these turntable roots have became almost unrecognisable, evolving into his infamous glass instrument (broken shards being to Lucas nothing more than a giant diamond tipped stylus you can play with your mouth). He has been perfecting the instrument since it’s invention in 2003, perfroming internationally as Justice Yeldham and with his glass/ drums/ piano trio, Rice Corpse.
Lucas has principally been a live audio artist, perfroming live since 1994 after Oren Ambarchi stumbled across his radio performances, and invited him to play the What is? Music Festival. However Recently he has begun dabbling in sound installation with works like Vinyl Arcade, where remote control cars with styli attached are raced over a track made from a mass of disused vinyl records.
What: “People doing strange things with electricity“
Where: Serial Space, 33 Wellington St, Chippendale
When: Tuesday 30th August, 7pm for a 7:30 start
This month we have a jammed packed line-up of amazing projects and we will be joined by our special host Aras Vaichas!
PRESENTERS
Ollie Bown - Live Algorithms and Hands Free Concerts
Ollie Bown has been exploring an interest in the subject of agency and autonomy in computer programs in various forms over a number of years, particularly in music. In this talk he gives a summary of some of the systems, musical experiments and workshops he has been involved in creating and curating, along with some of the most interesting work he has found in this area, including his own systems that use recurrent neural nets and decision trees to responsively create musical patterns, the gatherings of the Live Algorithms for Music network in London, and a short concert series in 2010 in Melbourne called “Hands Free”, where computer music composers were invited to send software as proxies for themselves, to perform with human improvising musicians.
Dan Mackinlay and James Nichols - Pattern Machine
Pattern machine is a site specific installation project started for underbelly 2011, incorporating Giant inflatable nematodes, industrial machinery brought to live through projection-mapped animation and multichannel improvised music madness stuff.
For Dorkbot the audio guys from pattern machine will present some of their tools and a short taster performance in glorious mid-fi quad surround.
Project URL:
David Lyon - WaterDuino - Open Source Water Injection for Arduino
One proven way of reducing pollution, carbon-emissions and fuel useage in petrol motors is with water-injection. It’s also great if you have a turbo-charged vehicle as it allows engine temperatures to be lowered so that you can run higher boost. With the introduction of EFI cars, water injection fell out of favour. The reason for this is mainly because the computer in the car was too complicated for people to interface with. With Arduino, we can now again easily control a water injection system and make it with low cost.
WaterDuino is an Open-Source project with all the Arduino software that you need to run the system. This presentation demonstrates the project and how to make a system with minimal cost.
Erin Gee - Orpheux Larynx
Fascinated by all things vocal, Erin Gee is a Canadian artist from Montreal who makes music, interactive installations, performances and videos with combinations of flesh and electronic voices. An overriding theme in her work is an exploration in the tensions of human-computer interaction, which she feels are heightened by human narcissism. In this talk, Gee will share some of her past interactive works as well as offer some sneak peeks of her most recent project in Sydney: Orpheux Larynx. This project is a choral work for robotic and human performers made in collaboration with media artist Stelarc and engineers at MARCs auditory labs (University of Western Sydney) and will be presented August 27th at the Powerhouse Museum.
This research project is supported by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, MARCS Auditory Labs at the University of Western Sydney, and the Thinking Head project funded by the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.
- Website of Erin Gee
- Website for the Thinking Head project
- Website for MARCs auditory labs @ University of Western Sydney
- Website of Stelarc
What: “People doing strange things with electricity“
Where: Serial Space, 33 Wellington St, Chippendale
When: Tuesday 26th July, 7pm for a 7:30 start
Come to Serial Space for a midyear nerd-out.
P R E S E N T E R S
GAVIN SMITH
The Light Scythe is an open source tool for light painting. It can write text or images frozen in midair which are captured by the camera with a long exposure. Images are created on a laptop computer and transmitted wirelessly to a 2m long staff filled with coloured LEDs.
Unlike simply photoshopping text in afterwards, images that are lightscythed directly interact with the environment in the photo. The hovering light is reflected off shiny surfaces, diffused through translucent objects and occluded by objects such as fences between the camera and scythe.
Gavin will give an outline of how he created the light scythe, as well as a parts list for anyone who wants to make their own.
If anyone wants to bring their own camera capable of long exposure, we’ll do some experimental light scything in front of the crowd.
ANGUS DEVESON
In the lead up to Robot Serial Killers this august, Angus will be doing a talk on combat robotics. Combat robots is a sport in which two or more radio controlled fighting machines battle it out in a specially constructed arena, attempting to destroy or disable their opponent within a 3min time limit. There are rules however within the scope of them a wide variety of designs have evolved and continue to do so. Combat robotics is the only radio control hobby which focuses on ingenuity, design and skill rather than just who has the most money.
Angus will be talking about the Australian combat robotics scene and some of the technical details of how these machines function and how to make one yourself.
SHOW & TELL
BREAK OUT!!! Show things unexpectedly. Show us what you’ve got!!!!
