Sculptor James Mallos will talk about two interactive sculptures exhibited at the FLIK Film Festival last summer, "Blow," a BEAMbot that subsists on gallery illumination, and "Today Now," a live video application programmed in Processing and Automator that lets gallery visitors create original repeating patterns from their own appearance and donate them to the public domain. Of interest to BEAMbot fans is the use in "Blow" of a thread tourniquet, a simple mechanical stratagem that turns a pager motor into a muscle-like actuator, and the use of a curvigami paper carapace instead of skeletal mechanism. A new convert to Processing, Mallos will try to impart his enthusiasm for the programming language that has been embraced by artists around the world. He will also try to justify his obsession with the p6 symmetry group.

James Mallos is a sculptor and toy designer. Educated as an engineer, he has been in and out of programming episodically, becoming in the process a combination old fossil and newbie. He introduced his construction toy TWOGS at the Austin Maker Faire 2007, and way of making baskets by computer at Bay Area Maker Faire 2008.