What a Year!

This past year Roth Mobot members Tommy Stephenson and Patrick McCarthy leaned heavily into their day jobs as new massive projects loomed in their respective careers.

Tommy took little to no time off as he prepared to officially retire from his position at the College of DuPage to spend some deep quality time with his family. Patrick helped to design the Museum of Science and Industry's  Spring Make event, featuring history's largest digital fabrication laboratory, the Make Shop.

They both still dabble in electronics. Tommy continues to perform solo and collaborative experimental music on hacked toys and other acquired technology. Patrick took on a professorship at Columbia College Chicago, teaching Audio Electronics in their Audio Arts and Acoustics department.

Tommy Stephenson

Professor Patrick McCarthy

RoMo's OpenSCAD Experiments

Film Score Workshop at Columbia College

Roth Mobot's Patrick McCarthy has been invited to teach a one day Introduction to Circuit Bending workshop this Spring as part of Columbia College's Music Composition for the Screen graduate program. Students will learn how to manipulate common discarded electronic devices and convert them into custom musical and audio instruments. The workshop will focus on the concept of "audio safari" and how to explore a sonic soundscape before attempting to control it to apply it temporally to film/video.

"Though I've had a general interest in circuit-bending from afar on the Internet, I had never seen a live performance, and I just want to reiterate how awesome I thought it was. It was so musical in a way that was almost totally new to me. I loved the element of chance, and the idea that these toys that may have been sitting on a Goodwill shelf or on their way to a junkyard were now being used in this new artistic context, like they had been raised from the dead as zombie versions of their former selves.... I find the whole idea so inspiring."

~ Ed Barton, Columbia MFA Student ~

Roth Mobot, Drexltron, and Xela LIVE at Jerry's

Monday, December 1st, 2014, 8:00 PM

Jerry's Cosmic Sandwiches and Drink

1938 W Division St., Chicago, IL (map)

  8:00 - Roth Mobot (Chicago)

  9:00 - Drexltron (Chicago)

10:00 - Rocks and Waves (Cleveland)

11:00 - Panq Ng (Chicago)

$ 7 Cover. Proceeds go to the out-of town artists, and Drexltron.

Facebook Event page. Show organized and produced by Drexltron.

~FREE~ eSymposium 10/22/14

Wednesday, October 22, 2014
6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Geek Bar Chicago
1941 W North Ave, Chicago, Illinois 60622 (map)

Experimental Electronics Artists, Video Glitchers, and Circuit Benders gather for an evening of eating, drinking, soldering, toy hacking, project sharing, and jamming. ~FREE~
(facebook event link)

Roth Mobot's "Introduction to Circuit Bending" Sunday, October 5th, 2014, Noon - 3:00 PM

The Experimental Sound Studio

5925 N Ravenswood, Chicago, IL 60660 (map)
Register for the Workshop

Roth Mobot has been invited to conduct one of their Introduction to Circuit Bending workshops as part of this year's Chicago Artists Month festival.

Tommy Stephenson and Patrick McCarthy, both vanguards of the circuit bending movement, have set the standard for immersive, interactive, alternative education with their unique focus on technology, invention, and problem solving through creative thinking and electronics tinkering.

Circuit Bending is the creative recycling of discarded consumer electronics, usually children’s toys, guitar effects units, inexpensive battery-powered musical instruments, portable CD players, etc., to create unique experimental electronic art by adding wires, knobs, and switches to control new connections within the device’s pre-existing circuitry.

No prior knowledge of electronics is required.

Take apart an old toy and make a brand new musical instrument! At the end of this workshop participants will be able to identify and explore the basic components of a typical circuit board, the basics of soldering, install output jacks, switches, body contacts (and more!), and control a world of new sounds. Tools and components will be provided.

Participants are required to bring one or two battery-powered devices (with batteries!) to the workshop.

Register for Roth Mobot's Introduction to Circuit Bending Workshop

Toy Hacking at Teen Ignite

Line for the Circuit Bending Session	Patrick McCarthy & students
Overbooked class = floor lab	Patrick watches demo

Naperville's 95th Street Public Library hosted its first day-long Teen Ignite technology and arts seminar. Approximately 115 teens participated in over two dozen hour-long hands-on sessions. Roth Mobot's Patrick McCarthy gave a crash course in Circuit Bending and Toy Hacking to an overbooked crowd of 40 students in a conference room on the library's second floor.

"We'll just have to remove all the chairs." Patrick announced at the beginning of the session, "We'll 'hack' the room!"

You can read more about the event in this Chicago Tribune article, and the Trib also posted some video.

EGS7 (Experimental Garage Sale 7)

Annual Circuit Benders Experimental Garage Sale.

Roth Mobot's Minnesota Residency

Roth Mobot was awarded a grant* for a three day teaching residency at South Ridge School in Culver Minnesota. We taught over 120 students grades 7-12 the principles of prototyping experimental electronic circuits, and finally how to build an Optical Theremin, a light-sensitive tone generator.

On the last day of the residency Roth Mobot then performed a short circuit bent improvisation for some of the students in an open-ended circuit bent jam session. Before and after the performance various students from the school were invited to play their newly created Optical Theremins with Roth Mobot and their DIY electronic equipment.

The following day Roth Mobot held a free Introduction to Circuit Bending workshop at the Prøve Gallery in Duluth. Later that evening Roth Mobot performed a concert with Duluth's own Tim Kaiser.

* Funded in part by the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council with money from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008 and by Minnesota Power Foundation.

Roth Mobot at South Ridge School

Roth Mobot has been invited to South Ridge School in Culver Minnesota to teach students 3rd through 12th how to build experimental electronic instruments.

Then on Saturday, April 26th, from 1- 3 Pm they will be conducting a Introduction to Circuit Bending workshop at the Prøve Gallery in Duluth followed by an evening 's performance with Duluths' own Tim Kaiser.

Introduction to Circuit Bending
(BYOT) Bring Your Own Toy
Saturday, April 26th, 2014, 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Prøve Gallery
21 N Lake Ave
Duluth, MN 55805 (map)

WFMT Radio at eSymposium!

Sunday, April 6, 2014, 12:00 - 4:00

Pumping Station: One

3519 N. Elston, Chicago, IL 60618 (Google map)

WFMT radio will be recording a documentary about the eSymposium that day!

AND PS:1 has graciously donated two spaces for us to use that day -- their electronics lab, and their new "music lounge." So we will have the ability to not only hack away at our projects as usual, but we will also have a space to set up our equipment and make some noise!

I've been advised that we should bring our own amplification equipment. I can bring a mixer, anyone want to volunteer on the amp?

Please be prompt -- radios and microphones wait for no one.

The Innovation Studio at the MSI

Roth Mobot's Patrick McCarthy was interviewed by WGN's Demetrius Ivory as part of their coverage of the MSI's month-long experiment in "teaching innovation." The MSI's Black Creativity Innovation Studio exhibit promotes science and engineering to museum guests and scheduled school groups. Patrick was one of the lead Facilitator's on the project and helped shape the guests' experience during their in-studio sessions.

David Novak's "Japanoise" National Book Tour

Roth Mobot performing on hacked toys before book reading

Peter Speer Q&A after book reading

Roth Mobot's Patrick McCarthy demonstrating homemade sequenced hacked toy

Recently Roth Mobot was asked to appear on Make: magazine's online "Maker Camp 2013 Found Sound" video webinar. Patrick showed up, talked about the circuit bending community, hacked an ambulance toy live on the air and answered questions from viewers. He shows up around the 27:00 mark in the video.

Circuit Bent Petting Zoo at FIGMENT Chicago!

FIGMENT Chicago with the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance

Sunday, August 11, 2013, 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Garfield Park Conservatory

300 N Central Park Ave., Chicago, IL 60624 (map)

~FREE~

Roth Mobot has been invited to create a Circuit Bent Petting Zoo at this summer's FIGMENT Chicago Festival. Tommy and Patrick, and other circuit benders from the Chicago area, will set up a table full of experimental electronic art pieces that the public can play with to produce weird sounds and music.

Roth Mobot will be bringing their Phonograpahitephone, an interactive hacked record turntable that plays graphite drawings made by anyone!

FIGMENT demonstrates what the arts can be: participatory, bursting with creativity and completely free, born from the desire to share imagination and invention between artists and the public.

FIGMENT is a grassroots effort, organized and run entirely by volunteers as a gift to our cities because we believe in the aspirations and mission of FIGMENT. We believe that FIGMENT addresses a number of key issues:

Roth Mobot's Article "Spring Reverb in a Lunchbox" in Musicworks Magazine

Roth Mobot's DIY article "Spring Reverb in a Lunchbox" made the cover of the current issue of Musicworks Magazine. You can read the article in the magazine's online preview.

Roth Mobot's Phonogaphitephone at TEDx Windy City

Gallery of photos from the installation

Roth Mobot was invited to create an interactive installation for TEDx Windy City that focused on the theme of "contrast."

We proposed a "Phonographitephone," a modified children's turntable that sent variable electronic signals to custom circuitry and circuit bent toys via high contrast drawings the audience members made on paper disks.

We then hung all the disks in a make-shift gallery that grew throughout the day. Participants were able to "play" other drawings made by other guests.

Rotation: A Dark Ambient / Experimental Compilation

Listen/Download Tracks: | Bandcamp | Beatport | Amazon | iTunes |
1. Ateis - Non Plus
2. Chvad SB - She Should Be Here
3. Dead Voices on Air - Power Failure
4. Roth Mobot - The Current Jellyfish Scare (excerpt)
5. Words on Water - Of the Black Goatskin
6. Saemskin - Republocratic Lies
7. Ambient Mechanics - Death of a Star
8. Controlled Bleeding - The Poisoner (Part 2, excerpt)
9. Herwig Holzmann - Watching the Abortive Mimoid
10. Secant Prime - Henkel Transform

This is the first collaboration of Uncoiled Loops and Facility Records to bring you some of the best dark ambient / experimental music in the genre, with some well known acts as well as new, up-and-coming acts. This includes Dead Voices On Air's "Power Failure" as one of the 7 previously unreleased tracks, includes Herwig Holzmann's (of Photophob fame) now out of print "Watching the Abortive Mimoid". Roth Mobot is leading circuit bending in Chicago, with 30+ performances, museum/gallery installations, workshops, and so much more. It also provides for the first time Controlled Bleeding's "The Poisoner" (Part 2, excerpt) as a single track download. Chvad SB (of things outside the skin) is currently touring with Controlled Bleeding, and has just completed a soundtrack for the horror flick "Gut."

Roth Mobot's Article "Hacking an Audio Greeting Card" in Musicworks Magazine

Roth Mobot's DIY article "Hacking an Audio Greeting Card" made the cover of the current issue of Musicworks Magazine. You can read the article in the magazine's online preview. There are shout outs to Tim Kaiser, Talking Computron, The Ring Toss Twins, and Mother Daughter Crime Team. We have been asked to write another article for their next issue -- stay tuned!

Third Coast Festival Awards Get Bent

Roth Mobot was commissioned again this year to design, build, and "bend" the electronic interiors of the annual Third Coast Festival awards. Once finished, the electronics are housed in retro-styled radios fabricated at Trek Studios. Each award plays two minutes of the winner's documentary, and has a "bent" option; giving each award an interactive playability that is unique for each person examining it.

Roth Mobot's Patrick McCarthy assembling the awards' electronics

Trek Studios' custom radio-shaped housings

A spontaneous jam breaks out during a systems test at Trek Studios

The winners holding their finished awards (photo by Vanessa Churchill)