Art and Junk

I have an instrument at Assemble that will be on display January 3rd for Unblurred and I'm currently working on something I call the "Sonic Canvas" for a show at On The Skids January 10th.

Arduinos? WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN ARDUINOS!

Creating this instrument for the upcoming Hyperlocal show at Assemble Friday December 5, 2014! More info on the show here: http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=4e42b947152c14bbe3fc50687&id=3b0a8d4279

Video:

#hyperlocal Friday@ Assemble Work In Progress

A video posted by Jonathan Hodges (@retroscientific) on Dec 12, 2014 at 4:42am PST

WIP for hyperlocal show this Friday @ assemble

A video posted by Jonathan Hodges (@retroscientific) on Dec 12, 2014 at 4:47am PST

ECS: Hybrid Instruments/Game of Tones- Inspired by the work of Ken Butler

It's been a long time without an update. I've been teaching kids at the Environmental Charter School lot of fun things! One of the things we created were "Hybrid Instruments" inspired by Ken Butler. I met Ken when I was in high school and have been inspired by his work since I started creating weird musical instruments. In the class students used guitar/bass necks, and one violin to create one string musical instruments with body made out of recycled instruments. We then added D.C. motors to the instruments to strike their string. We then took the instruments and connected them to a keyboard to control the motors.

Video:


Demo Instrument I created for the class:

For the final 2 weeks of the class students designed and fabricated a structure out of the instruments they called "Game of Tones," The structure took the form of a throne and the instruments were connected to an organ bench. Students then added LED lights to each instrument so when their motor was activated a light would correspond with each instrument. Students also created two percussive elements to the structure that played cymbals in two different ways. We then connected all the motors and LEDs to a Guitar Hero guitar to control everything.

Video: