Vegevision!
We owe that awesome headline to Brooklyn artist Ranjit Bhatnagar, who sometimes uses the term for his flatbed scanner images of Greenmarket produce, a project he’s been working on since 2000. His carrots graced the cover of Edible Brooklyn’s Spring 2007 issue, and selections from his scans–lovely little sprays of garlic chives, slices of okra that look like stars, and of course, bacon–are being shown through the month of December at the Baby Grand (world’s smallest) karaoke bar in a show called Greenmarket Scanography. For those who’ve been to this tiny Soho spot on Lafayette St., you know the key component of that name is Baby: This is but a sliver of a space, and thus Bhatnagar’s work, like others previewed at the bar, is being shown in slide format. Literally–the slides, shown below, are displayed on the wall, lit from behind, and viewed using the provided magnifying glass. Oh yeah, should you miss the show, you can see some of his recent work on Flickr, too.

The project continues, with 263 fresh & all-organic images so far.

screenshot from clickblog.it

Here’s some excerpts from the show– thanks to bee Chris for editing and naming the songs!

You may be able to catch an interview and some more from the show on NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered this Saturday or Sunday. [Update: the interview aired on March 7th and can be read & heard on NPR's site.]

photo: me and two bees with our granny-carts full of junkstruments!

If the wind really picks up, the flowers will spin.

And here’s a video from when I was testing it on my deck.

Update: here’s video from the festival itself.

– more party photos from Andrew – more from me

electric jam Download audio file (01-electric%20jam.mp3)
“set up a groove” Download audio file (02-set%20up%20a%20groove.mp3)

coconut & foot Download audio file (03-coconut%20and%20foot.mp3)
your branca is leaking Download audio file (04-your%20branca%20is%20leaking.mp3)

konono no. 0 Download audio file (05-konono%20no.%200.mp3)
bang on a can Download audio file (06-bang%20on%20a%20can.mp3)

Lev’s featured in the premiere episode of BoingBoing TV today.

Thanks, boingers!

“There’s already a lot of crap music in the world and it hasn’t killed us.”

More at wired.com, 9/27/07.

Lev plays Patsy from ranjit on Vimeo.

(also on youtube)

Lev and Thumpbot play “Crazy” from ranjit on Vimeo.

(also on youtube)

They don’t play so well, but what do you expect from robots?

Here’s a video of the wind-up noisemaker I made for the second handmade music night:

Six keys, four springs, one knob from ranjit on Vimeo.

Accordions in trees!.

There’s some photos of Misericordiam al fresco over at flickr.

There’s no attempt to create a humanoid with Misericordiam, by Ranjit Bhatnagar, an accordion hung from a rope. It compresses and, thanks to gravity, decompresses with a convulsive abandon. I don’t know if it had any other purpose than humor, but I didn’t feel like I needed more.

– roberta fallon and libby rosof’s artblog: The human side of artbots

MONUMENTAL MOMENT
A playful approach to Tatlin’s Monument

When I heard the title of Flux Factory’s latest show, Response to Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International Conceived in the Mood of Ambivalence, or R.T.T.M.T.T.T.I.C.I.T.M.O.A. for short, I thought I was going off to see a ridiculous, pretentious show full of highfalutin communist propaganda.

I’m happy to report that I was completely wrong. [...]

– Aileen Torres, New York Press

My photo (above) from opening night was used to illustrate the article.

[...] The exterior appearance was plain– a sleek, seamless black wall that nearly spanned the entire lofty space. A silver crank handle and a small, clear, rectangular box encasing a pickle were the only ornaments. Clamped by wires on both sides, the pickle began to spark and light up as the handle was turned. Moments later, a halt­ing melody churned out from the other side of the wall.

A journey through the maze-like interior of the melody’s physical architecture began when you infil­trated the entrances to the box, tucked away on either side. The artists created a series of small musical chambers connected by sharp turns, stairs, and an orange slide, producing curious tex­tures of sound that played in sync, united in a single song. An old accordion hummed in a blue velvet room designed by Ranjit Bhatnagar. Draped with delicate strings of tiny white lights, it hung by a rope and pulley from the ceiling like a chan­delier, playing itself with each rota­tion. [...]

– pp74-75, Sculpture 12/2006, International Sculpture Center

The sound of an accordion can be joyful or annoying, and artist Ranjit Bhatnagar has managed to add a dose of creepiness with his creation “Misericordiam.” Here, an accordion dangles in a black curtain-flanked booth, playing sinister sounds to no one in particular. White LEDs give it a festive air, but its intermittent noises and shakes make it seem like a prop escaped from a haunted house.

– Rachel Metz, Wired Blogs

An exhibit of some of my Brooklyn photos has been installed in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue subway station through the MTA’s Arts for Transit program. The exhibit is open 24 hours a day through 2007 for the price of a subway ride, so go take a look!

more on flickr

The FluxBox, which was on view at the Flux Factory in Queens from March 25 to April 29, triggered a greater feeling of suspense than your everyday automata. Not because it was a room-sized version of something that usually fits in your hand, but because the only visible part of the box from the entrance was the crank, and the crank was wired to a kosher pickle. more…
- Bethany Ryker

more photos at fluxfactory.org
more photos by Catherine Eaman

Music boxes are typically small, delicate items, but imagine creating one large enough to walk through. The Flux Factory, a Queens-based nonprofit exhibition space and artists collective/habitat, has done just that with its latest installation, FluxBox. Instead of a standard “tooth and comb” apparatus, however, seven acoustic sculptures produce the show’s simple 16-bar melody. more…

Sensitive Research was exhibited in the Art Gallery at Siggraph 2003. Here’s a few photos from the exhibition.

At first, they put it inside a glass box– missing the point of an interactive piece. So I sneaked the box off in order to let people tweak the knobs. By the end of the exhibit, both knobs were broken.

Lev performed at Artbots 2003, the robot talent show, at the Eyebeam Atelier in New York City, July 12-13, 2003. Here’s a few photos from the event.

Visit artbots.org to see all the other wonderful art machines.

If you were at artbots 2003 and have video or audio of Lev, please share it with me! I was too busy to get any good video of Lev in action.

The wind-up mermaid box was exhibited at the Mermaid Show at the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center, Brooklyn. Here’s some photos from the show.

These are some of the drawings made by visitors to Artbots in collaboration with Sketching Device #1.

For more, visit the old Sketching Device homepage
Note: you can purchase any of these drawings for $45 each, or if you really hate them, I will destroy them for you at $75 each.

Most entries fell into the category that Mr. Galanter called ”punk-rock robotics,” emphasizing cheap components and a playful do-it-yourself approach.

Ranjit Bhatnagar said he had torn apart his stereo speakers to build Sketching Device No. 1, which used patterns of vibration to move pens across a sheet of paper. David Webber’s AO2000, which visitors picked as their favorite, made chaotic music with a blender, an adding machine, two laptop computers, an old television and some coffee cans, among other things. Symet Studio, by Stefan Prosky, a family of simple solar-powered robots that left trails of dots as they hopped around, was voted best of show by the robot-builders.

sketching device #1 and toy dogs on Vimeo