I went to see my old friend Sean last night at an opening down at Gigantic Art Space down on Franklin Street. He has a very interesting piece called Cabinet showing there as part of a group show called “Object Lessons.” From that gallery’s description of the piece:
“Cabinet is based on a research project in which the recorded and archived the applauses he has received as a performer and in doing so has documented the temporary moments when we leave our isolated bodies and become part of a collective body, with its own temperament and desires. The cabinet itself is a homemade device that has been designed around its contents, much like a library’s card catalog furniture is based on the dimensions of a single index card.”
It’s awesome and hand-made, technical and interactive and whimsical all at once. It’s right by the street. You should go see it! Yes, you!
All the pieces seemed great, but the one way in the back, involving a number of eggs rigged up as amplified percussive devices driven by an 8×8 matrix sequencer — itself wonderful orange eye candy on a white pedestal — was the one that really blew my mind. When I was there, two really cute little kids were playing with the sequencer and causing all kinds of interesting glitchy rhythmic things to be produced by the eggs. It’s sort of impossible to ignore.
Seeing Sean always makes me want to put my EE degree to good use and reminds me of all the technical experience I have designing, building, and testing actual physical hardware that has been languishing disused in the back of my mental closet. (he’s also way ahead of me with the whole pac-man/art thing) Now if I could only get myself to focus on creative projects for more than a few days at a time…