Experiment with electric fish

Here are some of the latest images from the Enki project…

The main view of the experiment chamber. The Enki installation at Cornerhouse is now up and running. There are experiments by appointment every 15mins, and all the data is being collected.

It has taken me ages to make these comms units, they contain16 interconnecting cables within a noise reducing or shielded structure.

The Table has two monitors one from the fish room and one from the human room. You can speak to the person in the experiment via a mic.

Inside the sound proofed room for the human there is a chair and the sensor interface.

There is a window into the fish room on the side of the chamber

The room containing the fish is electrically shielded.

Spectropia – toffee apples

This was amazing at the opening of Spectropia- the drinks were covered in foil [apparently to shield them from EM fields [many themes in the conference were to do with the potentially damaging effects of EM emissions] and these was a chef making toffee apples live! they looked so amazing who could resist. The funny thing was that as soon as you bite in to them you teeth get fused together with toffee making it impossible to speak for several minuets!

ENTER, 3rd international festival for art science and new technology, Prauge

In 2007 I participated in ENTER 3, http://festival-enter.cz/index.php
organised in by CIANT, I never had a chance to blog it. I had two works here, one of which was a performance showing the BZ reaction, the other was the ENKI documentation at the french institute. The Performance was in a 15th century cellar space, beautiful arched ceilings. The problem was it was so cold the chemical reaction did not start. I had to block all the window spaces with cardboard, to try and keep at least some heat in.

The vampire quid was of inspiration to Louis Beck – I was lucky to see a show of his posters and publications last year at the Goethe institute…Having seen the vampire squid recently on utube it reminded me of the Louis Bec show I saw during the festival…

ON VAMPYROTEUTHIS INFERNALIS
Homage to Vilém Flusser

ENTER 3, 3RD INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL ART / SCIENCE / NEW TECHNOLOGIES enter3.org

iLog developments

check out the latest prototype iLog!!! Over the past few weeks the owl project have been developing some new iLogs – This is a test run before it is finally sealed up and polished…Tilt sensors help give a more physical interaction – you have to swing it about a bit to do any thing…The other Owls – Simon and steve currently working on ilogs with accelerometers…

Fully programmable USB connective.
3 controllers (One switchable to Light sensor)
4 directional tilt switching.
4 push buttons
2 Toggle switches
http://www.owlproject.com/

Water shoes – walk on water!

I am proud to present a scanned in plans for the construction of water shoes. The “Hobbies New Annual” presents many projects such as building flying planes, radios and model dioramas etc – however this project stands out. I borrowed this book from my wifes father ages ago – he now accuses me of stealing it! As a child Harriet had always asked if he could make these – for obvious reasons he thought better of it. The book states…

“When complete – these will be suitable for day tripping on local water ways or for longer jaunts around the coast” Excellent – If any one is up for making a pair – perhaps you can join me next year for a water walk?

As you can see from these plans the design is constructed from an old waterproof coat, and other simple materials – surely with a little modification – a safe and working version of this can be made. The obvious concern in what happens when you fall over? I think these should be tried in shallow water first.

Chemical waves – bz reaction

Finally got around to experimenting with the reaction – trying to work out the best way to get a dramatic visual result – sandwiching the mix between glass and the base of a petri dish worked well – but the waste gas product creates bubbles which eventually obscure the reaction – so we tried to get an even covering over the glass by getting it perfectly flat.

Nicks brother had an idea to try the reaction vertically – which worked amazingly well.

Pond life

Here is the original drawing from a project to create a sustainable ecosystem inside a globule of water (1999-2004) – I am just modifying this to include the addition of a laser to detect micro acoustic sounds and sub-sonic architectural noise. the droplet of liquid acts as a natural sensitive body – that can modulate the laser, acting like a lens.

BZ reaction

Last year my self and Nick Senior (Chemist and materials scientist) got together to recreate the BZ reaction – “The Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction is a spatio-temporal chemical oscillator.” which sounds excellent in its self – but to see this reaction for real is quite un-nerving in a strange way. I have made a page about it which has all the information on this (see pages) This year we are going to try and interface it with sensors to see if we can use the rhythmical pulses to control musical chords. hopefully this will be on show in Prague later in the year…

In this photo from our experiment last year – two spiral formations have developed, they rotate in synchronization and in opposite directions! the image covers about 5cm section of liquid squashed between glass.

BZ reaction page

Owl project – Lovebytes

Here is a video taken during the Lovebytes festival – we got rained on quite a lot so there was none much to watch -

We are making a log into a leg – this is a race that pole lathe experts do to prove their skill – they do it in 9mis to make two perfect chair legs – it took us about 3 hours to make one bad one – but its ok because its art.

check out the site www.owlproject.com for full info…

Binary Jam – Liverpool

I did a performance for this event organised by Markus Soukup as part of the Sound Network (Binaural Orchestra (G Byatt, D. Stockton & Guests), Modulus (Antony Hall), Apple & Can (Moebius & Igor Hax), Plus Projection By John O’Shea (‘Photography Where The Shutter Is Not Open’)

The performance was based arround the concept of  amplitude modulation. The earliest experiment using the concept of AM transmission was made at Bell Laboratories – where they used a water jet to record the conversation and ambient sounds in a room and etch these to wax cylinder. C.V. Boys demonstrated the ability of a water jet to amplify the sound of a ticking clock and a tuning fork.

During the performance for binary Jam I placed Daphnia in a droplet placed on a sensor; the water drop created a lens. The sounds were created as the creatures passed through the laser and creating distortions with the movement of the body and antennas – as well as the effect of the creature bouncing on and off the wall of the droplet causing the lens to shake and oscillate – creating a drum like reverberation.

I also used a USB interface with 8 light sensors controlled by candles to generate harmonic frequencies and drones with MAX MSP.

Greg Byatt kindly took these images…

Daphnia – contained in droplet on light sensors.

Droplet with laser transmitting through it.