Mad Science
Wednesday, February 4th, 2004
Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA

Speakers:

William J. Beaty, “From Holograms to a Big Bang”: Weird Science Salon Founder and mad professor emeritus William J. Beaty has been goading Seattle’s science hobbyists into action – and leading them from the front – since 1984: that’s twenty years of bangs and whimpers (http://amasci.com/wsci/). Remember Pond Machine II, Bill’s shimmering, wriggling galvanometer-and-acrylic-strip vertically-mounted sculpture at last summer’s People Doing Strange Things With Electricity show? That’s just a start. This Wednesday, Bill is going to begin with holograms, and then take us on a journey to… somewhere. You might want to bring earplugs.

Unfocus your eyes to see 3D effect Images © William J. Beaty, 1995 – 2004

Kevin Hilbiber, Mystery Presentation: The Ballard-based founder of Seattle’s weirdest and most wonderful art/tech supply mecca, House of Science (http://www.houseofscience.com), will be sharing his extensive electronics expertise and artistic (interactive sound and light sculpture) credentials in a wild and woolly mystery presentation. Expect the unexpected from a man whose career highlights span everything from “a hazy slacker’s life” to vacuum tubes – often at the same time.

David Maymudes, "Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?": Seattle-based David Maymudes studied number theory, computer science and theoretical physics before spending a decade as a software architect and development lead at Microsoft. In 2000, David headed in to the outfield to work on PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) systems, studying the mathematical theory underlying them and the computer software necessary to implement them. He and his cohorts have come up with a notion that is extraordinarily elegant, reasonably priced, and at first glance, quite nuts. See what you think! http://www.gettherefast.org/.

DJ Bios+a+ic will spin cds featuring local and international sound sculptors and sonic architects. Bios+a+ic is the solo alias of Wesley Davis of entropic advance (http://www.entropicadvance.com/). Wesley fuses ambient, noise, experimental, glitch and texture to create a lucid and encompassing musical environment.

William J. Beaty: http://amasci.com/billb.html

Kevin Hilbiber: Kevin's first show was at the 1968 Ghiradelli Square International Childrens' Art Center, where he displayed 'wire sketches', funny cars and shopping carts, figures from Saul Steinberg and Charles Scultz - "kid stuff" created from leftover scraps of leadwire taken from components he soldered into pc boards for his father when he was 12. Other career highlights include an interactive sound and light sculpture show called Softscience in 1985 at silkscreen collective Survival Graphics (Madison, WI), which was the first ever non-print based show held at that venue. A year later, Softscience became the name of Kevin's Amp Tech shop, which ran for the next 10 years. Kevin is a founder of Ballard's House of Science, holds an ATA degree in electronics and lives "a hazy, slacker's life otherwise".

David Maymudes: David graduated from Harvard University, where he studied number theory, computer science, and theoretical physics. He worked at Microsoft from 1990 - 2000 as a software architect and development lead on products including Internet Explorer, Windows versions 3.1 through XP, and the Windows Media Player. Since then, he has been studying the mathematical theory underlying PRT systems and the computer software necessary to implement them. http://www.gettherefast.org and http://www.skywebexpress.com tell you more.