slimework

The Automaticiser (below) is a copper plate etching that doubles as a touch controller. By touching the surface with the hand, different connections and resistances are created. This controls how signals are sent around the Kreepback instrument: a labyrinth network of feedback and sound generating devices. As the name suggests, the controller makes use of automatic procedures (a creative process that on the use of the subconscious), not only in the way it was created, by closing the eyes and ‘doodling’ to create complex and unpredictable etches in a copper clad board, but also in performance, where the hands are used to make connections across unpredictable paths.

The Cymatic Controller (below left) is a DIY mechanical wave driver that vibrates conductive material across a ‘prepared’ Chladni plate. The preparation of the plate involves a hand-painted circuit in silver conductive paint on acetate sheet. The sheet sits on the Chladni plate. As the material takes on different patterns and positions on the plate caused by vibrations derived from different waveforms, contacts are made across an open circuit. The resulting signals made by the contacts are used to trigger sound generating devices.

The idea behind using such a controller was to explore the crossover between visual and aural representation of sound, and the sculptural properties of the ‘object’. The Cymatic Controller expands on similar work undertaken by Richards, that of ‘dirty electronics’: the appropriation of found objects for electronic instruments and the use of discrete sound generating devices. The controller is made from an old loudspeaker, with a small cooking mould as a cap for the coil. The circuits for the controller derived from patterns that occur in natural phenomena and subconscious doodles, in this case taken from cracks in the roof above Wright ’s studio Parrot Music in York ibelow). These types of ‘circuit board’ lend themselves to generating unpredictable results when interfaced with other circuits.

To make complete circuits, a conductive substance, for example made from gelatine and salt, is used (. Other non- Newtonian liquids such as a composite made from PVA glue and borax have also been used. The ‘slime-like’ nature of these substances when vibrated creates a strong image: that of B movie-esque visuals and de-generative states.