[dorkbotatl-announce] thurs, 11/16 @ 7 pm: dorkbot art and technology forum

[Jason Freeman]

The Atlanta chapter of Dorkbot, the international forum on art and  
technology dedicated to “people doing strange things with  
electricity,” will have its next meeting on Thursday, November 16th  
(that's a week from Thursday) at 7 pm in the Couch Building at  
Georgia Tech.

Full details and directions are available at:

http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotatl/

Talk abstracts at are the bottom of this message.

I also wanted to let you know about two other upcoming events of  
interest:

PHILIP GALANTER EXHIBITION

This Thursday, November 9th, Atlanta-based artist (and recent dorkbot  
presenter) Philip Galanter's new exhibition of generative lightbox  
drawings opens at Mason Murer Projects at 325 East Paces Ferry Road;  
the exhibition runs through January 6th. The opening reception is on  
November 9th from 7-9 p.m. Full details at http://philipgalanter.com  
and map at http://tinyurl.com/ycfjkd

SONIC GENERATOR CONCERT

Sonic Generator, the new ensemble-in-residence at Georgia Tech,  
presents its inaugural (and free!) concert on Tuesday,  November 14th  
at the Georgia Tech Alumni House. Among other things, it will feature  
a performance of Gil Weinberg and Scott Driscoll's Jam'aa, which  
features the same robotic drummer being presented at this dorkbot  
meeting. Full details and directions are available at http:// 
www.sonicgenerator.gatech.edu



Now, on to the actual presentations for this dorkbot meeting:

DANIEL BAUEN: ROBOTONY

Robotany is a collaborative of Jill Coffin, John Taylor, and Daniel  
Bauen to combine nature and robotics. Breeze, the first installation  
of Robotany, is an ambient robot inhabiting the body of a japanese  
maple. Breeze can visually sense and react through 360 degrees,  
allowing her to reach out to you and others whenever you are near.  
This is not a dancing bush, the motion is subtle and artistic, and at  
the same time, surreal.

Daniel Bauen (Lives in Atlanta, GA) is a Swiss-American mechanical  
engineer focused in the design and application of electromechanical  
systems (mechatronics): combining electronics, programming, and  
mechanics to work on projects involving robotics, product design,  
interactive art, micro-controllers, and biomechanics. He currently  
works on monumental, interactive stone and steel sculptures, and as a  
mechanical engineering consultant for Function Engineering.

Jill Coffin (Lives in Zurich, Switzerland) is a digital artist,  
wearable electronics designer, and doctoral student at the Wearable  
Computing Lab, Institut fuer Elektronik, ETH Zuerich.

John Taylor (Lives in Seattle, Washington) is a nomadic technologist,  
originally from the Silicon Valley. The bulk of his belongings are  
currently on Bainbridge Island in Washington State, but cities such  
as Portland, Los Angeles, New York, Austin, Zurich, and San Francisco  
have recently played host to his wanderlust. Currently, his travels  
are distracting him from finishing his thesis for a Masters of  
Science in Architecture from Cal Poly, SLO. Other monkeys-on-his-back  
include contract event production for Red Bull, experimenting with  
multi-camera panoramic HD video, and the occasional game of Capoeira.

SCOTT DRISCOLL: A ROBOTIC DRUMMER WITH EARS

Haile, a robotic drummer that can listen and interact with other  
human players in a drum circle will be demonstrated and explained.  
Haile uses two robotic arms to play an American Indian PowWow drum  
along with human players by listening to audio from microphones  
installed in the humans’ drums. The talk will go over some of the  
ways it interacts with people, along with some of the nuts-and-bolts  
of how it operates.

Scott Driscoll has been working on Haile as his primary project while  
a grad student at the Music Technology department for the last year  
and a half. Before joining the music department, he completed a  
mechanical engineering undergrad at Carnegie Mellon with minors in  
computer science and robotics, and then a mechanical masters degree  
at GaTech. He is currently taking part in the development of an  
amateur robotics company, and plays piano and darbuka on the side.



As always, dorkbot, which is sponsored by the Georgia Tech Music  
Department, is free and open to the public.


--
Jason Freeman
Assistant Professor, Music Department
Georgia Institute of Technology
840 McMillan ST
Atlanta, GA 30332-0456
(404) 385-7257
jason.freeman at music.gatech.edu
http://www.jasonfreeman.net




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://music.columbia.edu/pipermail/dorkbotatl-announce/attachments/20061107/a912058c/attachment.html