I’ve been researching bits & pieces of inexpensive tech for art installations that bridge the physical/digital gap in interesting ways. In particular I’m developing tangible music ideas (moving beyond touchscreens and pixels) and integrating vision / motion capture into my realtime gfx stuff. Figure I’ll share some interesting building blocks. First, I recommend the great RFID visualization experiments and process writeups over at BERG and nearfield.org. The reader and tags are reasonably priced if you want to try.
Personally I’m into capacitance sensing for making touch-responsive objects. Here’s a technical article for beginners. If you’ve got an Arduino it’s one of the simplest circuits to build: a resistor, capacitor and, um, any piece of metal. The CapSense library‘s a great intro. Getting more advanced, the MPR121‘s a tiny, inexpensive chip that handles 12-channel touch for you. I’ve got one coming in the mail and am looking forward to tinkering. With multiple sensors you run into interference problems, but I found a neat paper on fighting these effects. (Love this spread-spectrum sensor but it’s waay more advanced to build.)
It’s my new book! 144 whole pages jam-packed with your favorite art. It’s so exciting to finally be done and flip through a copy. You can order one too!
As I start building more projects in physical rather than purely digital space, it’s important to find good, cheap, environmentally friendly sources for raw materials. I really miss going to American Science and Surplus in Chicago (possibly the greatest store to ever exist) as a kid. Here are some Bay Area places to find surplus & recycled ingredients.
So I inherited a load of LEDs and some basic driver electronics from a friend. They’d been assembled Christmas-light fashion for a Burning Man project, sequenced by Atmega32 microcontrollers. Reverse-engineering their circuitry was straightforward, and an opportunity to learn about Darlington arrays — the ULN2803A chip lets you control a high-current set of lights from a low-current microcontroller.
I like the diffuse look of paper lanterns over the point-light intensity of bare LEDs so I’m playing with different shapes and materials. Most of the work now will be sculptural, and I’ll be going for a ‘luminous origami’ feel.
Check out the Crochet Coral Reef Project and their hyperbolic crochet blog. Margaret Wertheim gave a TED talk on this intersection of geometry, environmentalism and handicrafts. She says about modeling these sea slug & coral shapes, it’s “almost impossible to do it on computers.”
Althea Crome did the remarkable miniature knitting in Coraline – read an interview or watch this feature:
I love kinetic sculpture. Here’s a collection of my favorite work; Wikipedia has much more.
MAKE filmed a wonderful artist profile on Reuben Margolin, who builds these floating wooden waves with an amazing sense of lightness. Watch full screen!
Hoberman Transformable Design creates expanding domes and architectural shells and originally turned me onto transformable (or deployable) structures. Here’s an interview.
Tim Prentice – like blankets, wind, or wiggling microorganisms
Ben Hopson studies movement in industrial design to give objects personality
Who
Hi, I'm Larry Sheradon. I make art with code and ink, shoot photos of tiny worlds, and create websites in San Francisco. Cofounder and CTO of LOVELAND.
Write me at sheradon (at) gmail (dot) com.
So I inherited a load of LEDs and some basic driver electronics from a friend. They’d been assembled Christmas-light fashion for a Burning Man project, sequenced by Atmega32 microcontrollers. Reverse-engineering their circuitry was straightforward, and an opportunity to learn about 
