[...] 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
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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
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The Brooklyn in Color exhibit made an appearance in the Flickr Blog– appropriately, since the flickr photography site was instrumental in making the exhibit happen!
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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
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There’s a nice review of the Fluxbox in the June issue of the Brooklyn Rail.
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
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–The New Yorker, April 24, 2006
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Time Out New York has a nice preview of our fluxbox installation.
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…
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Since I’d long since disassembled the original Sketching Device, I made this new one for the PASS and Lawrence Hall of Science exhibits:
The base is heavy foam with a nice grippy rubber bottom, so it doesn’t vibrate around the table; the stage is mylar sliding over acrylic.
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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.
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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.
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