Wednesday, October 1, 2003
Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA

 

Speakers:

Laura MacCary and Lawrence MacCary, "Dialectric": Seattle artist and weaver Laura MacCary and her father and collaborator, Spokane sculptor, poet and electronics expert Lawrence MacCary, will be talking about the hows and whys of their series of interactive artworks combining weaving and electronics. They will also unveil a new piece for the first time. Each piece in the series consists of an electronic component woven of conductive or resistive materials cast off by industry, and a circuit designed around the weaving. By interacting with the weaving the viewer physically enters the circuit, and the circuit passes through the viewer, blurring the boundary between them. The title of the series, Dialectric, is taken from the words dialectic, meaning the juxtaposition or interaction of two conflicting ideas or forces, and dielectric, an insulating substance or one in which an electric field can be maintained with a minimum loss of power. Videos of some pieces in the series can be seen at http://www.maccary.com/.

Toby Paddock, "Magnetic Sensors For The Unwashed And Lazy: using Hall Effect devices without learning very much": Seattle-based Toby Paddock gives an introduction to simple sensors and switches that detect the position of a magnet. Inside is a lot of science, but from the outside, they are small, cheap, rugged, have few wires, and are pretty easy to get along with. They may be a reasonable alternative to mechanical switches and potentiometers in some things that move. They can be simpler to use than you might realize. http://www.seanet.com/~tpaddock/ will tell you more about Toby's passions and interests.

Pinky & Rex, Talk Title TBD: Seattle-based experimental musicians Pinky & Rex re-contextualize thrift-store toys, toy instruments and other electronic oddities, appropriating rather than reinventing the devices to create symphonic walls of sound using “crappy Casios”, discarded metal objects, toy tambourines, walkie-talkies and so forth. While they do some basic circuit bending and are working on some custom amplification setups using old stereos, discarded speakers and megaphones, their main aim is to see what kind of sound they can coax out of interesting stock components by working instinctively rather than tweaking those components into something else altogether. See and hear the results at this month's dorkbotsea meeting!

Pinky & Rex will be performing after the meeting on their collected oddities.

Join us for beer, music, conversation and mingling after the speakers have spoken - and bring work-in-progress for peer review and comment during this last part of the evening if you like: we'd love to see what you've been working on!

Toby Paddock: Toby Paddock is "just some guy that thinks hall effect sensors are kind of neat and that everyone should know about them". He also likes to listen to audio frequency magnetic fields using homemade pickup coils, but that's a different thing altogether. Tinkers with sound, electronics, and field recording, but mostly speculates about projects that never get started. Is trying to develop the "Shut Up And Solder" method of actually getting something built. He works for an aerospace electronics company in the environmental test labs and lives in Everett, WA with his wife, 2 kids, 1 fish, 2 cats, 1 dog, and a hamster. They appreciate his enthusiasm for his hobbies, however, not sharing his unique admiration of sound often send him to the garage.

Laura MacCary and Lawrence MacCary: Laura MacCary is a weaver who has also been studying electronics for the last few years.Her father, Lawrence MacCary, is a sculptor and a longtime electronics experimenter, whose interests span a wide spectrum of electrical and electronic subjects. His projects are mostly electro-mechanical, some electro-magnetic, and others are both solid-state and "hollow-state" based adventures. Laura is interested in the idea of weaving as a ubiquitous but little-noticed technology, unvalued while still essential to human survival. Electronics is another technology that is becoming so omnipresent and so integrated with our lives that we will soon cease to notice it. However, electronics is sure to cross the boundary of our skin, and enter our bodies. Its fields already do. It is this intimate interface between people and technology that Laura examines in this series of works. Each piece in the series consists of an electronic component woven of conductive or resistive materials cast-off by industry, and a circuit designed around it. By interacting with the weaving the viewer physically enters the circuit, and the circuit passes through the viewer, blurring the boundary between them. The title of the series, Dialectric, is taken from the words dialectic, meaning the juxtaposition or interaction of two conflicting ideas or forces, and dielectric, an insulating substance or one in which an electric field can be maintained with a minimum loss of power. Laura sees these as metaphors for the participants in an interaction, and the space between them. This series is also an opportunity to collaborate with her father, and she see the works as metaphors for aspects of our relationship, and relationships in general.