People doing strange things with electricity (Toronto Franchise)

Dorkbot: Saturday December 2 and Sunday December 3

Gabe Sawhney
Nick Stedman
My Doki Doki
Rob King
David McCallum
Amos Latteier

Gabe Sawhney

Gabe Sawhney is a hacker working at the edges of code and culture. As co-creator of [murmur], he develops the platform, tools and infrastructure for the project. He is the founder of WirelessToronto, a community wireless network setting up free-to-use hotspots in public and semi-public spaces in the city, each featuring its own "hyper-local" community portal. Gabe has collaborated on several other locative media, video and kinetic interactive installation projects. With an academic background in architecture, film and semiotics, Gabe balances an understanding of technology with a passionate interest in visual design, usability and information architecture. Proficient in a range of wireless and locative technologies, his heart rests with the simple, the intuitive and the cheap.

Nick Stedman

Nicholas Stedman is a Canadian artist living in Toronto and Buffalo. He works with various forms of technology to produce objects that exhibit human-scaled behaviours. Currently he is designing a line of intimate robots. Stedman works both independantly, and in collaboration to produce artwork. He is pursuing an MFA at UB. For the past three years he was the studio manager at InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, and has also worked for Banff Centre for the Arts as a production associate.

http://nickstedman.banff.org/tribot.html

My Doki Doki

Can you feel the beating of your heart? When was the last time you felt it pound, or skip a beat? Was it from excitement? Fear? Attraction?

Our heartbeat is a direct line to our emotional and physical state. Imagine you could share it with others? Who would you choose to share it with? A lover? A friend? A stranger? Can we interact with people on a deeper level by tuning in to a whole new channel of body language?

The concept behind my doki-doki is to enable you to see and feel your heartbeat and share the experience with others. By providing a visceral expression of your heartbeat, my doki-doki creates a new kind of self-awareness and a unique opportunity to connect with others.

www.mydokidoki.com

Rob King

Rob King is an artist, programmer, and designer based in Toronto. Working primarily in web and software art, his areas of exploration include social networking software, alternative interfaces, emergent systems, and the possibilities of wireless and ubiquitous technologies.

http://e-mu.org/

David McCallum

David McCallum is currently the Associate Editor of Musicworks Magazine. He recently completed an M.Sc. in Art and Technology at Chalmers Technical University in Göteborg, Sweden. His work focuses on improvised laptop music, DIY electronics, and silliness wherever possible. Groups and projects have included the Live Electroacoustic Research Kitchen, Flexing Swine, I/O Media, and the United Empire Loyalist Orchestra musical improv groups; The Attack of the PANTs DIY electronics outreach workshop; and You Say Potatoe, I Say Potato: a study in the sonic properties of genetically modified potatoes.


http://sintheta.blogware.com/blog

Amos Latteier

Amos Latteier is an interdisciplinary artist who performs PowerPoint lectures and creates interactive public art using technology. He delivers slide lectures on scientific and cultural topics including ant societies, models, statistics, and pigeon aerial photography. He has performed lectures across the North America and in Europe. His recent public art projects include a telephone-operated karaoke protest song project, a pigeon condo, cell phone-operated nature tour, a 500 lb potato battery, a chainsaw-powered walking machine and several hovercrafts.

A Report on Pigeon Aerial Photography discusses the history of aerial photography and documents my experiments with pigeon aerial photography. I raised pigeons and built small cameras that they used to take photos. I have used APS film cameras and small digital cameras along with custom timing circuits and harnesses. The preliminary results are promising.

http://latteier.com/pigeoncam/

 

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