Roth Mobot's 3-D Animation at MEECAS 2011

Premiered at #MEECAS 2011. Get your 3-D glasses!

MEECAS 2011

Saturday, October 22
12 Noon - 12 Midnight

Lizard's Liquid Lounge

3058 W Irving Park Rd. (map)

"... a mecca for data hackers, and video performers and artists."

~TimeOut Chicago

The annual Midwestern Experimental Electronics Conference and Showcase (www.MEECAS.com) is a free, day-long, inventors' networking symposium highlighting the past year's innovations in the areas of Musical Instrument Design, Performance, Circuit Bending, Data Hacking, and Video Art.

There are lectures, demonstrations, interactive installations, a daytime circuit bent open mic, and an evening's showcase of the Midwest's most innovative artists and inventors. Children welcome from Noon - 4:00 PM if accompanied by a parent.

Inventors, Artists, and Musicians are encouraged to bring their latest experiments, instruments, videos, etc. to demonstrate during the circuit bent open mic or to place on the "work table" as part of the interactive installations section of the event. Audio-based installations should include headphones.

EVENING SHOWCASE: 6:00 PM - Midnight, CST
This year's Evening Showcase features the work of:
- TOYDEATH, Sydney, Australia
- Tim Kaiser, Duluth, MN
- Talking Computron, Minneapolis, MN
- Space Gun Bunny, Fort Wayne, IN
- ROTH MOBOT, Chicago, IL
- The Ring Toss Twins, Minneapolis, MN
- Mother Daughter Crime Team, Chicago, IL
- Dustin E., St. Louis, MO
- CMKT4, DeKalb, IL
- Alex Inglizian, Chicago, IL
- adamon, Lawrence, KS

VIDEO PROJECTS: Noon - Midnight, CST
Various Artists (Experimental electronic video projects welcomed!)

INTERACTIVE INSTALLATIONS: Noon - Midnight, CST
Various Artists. (Experimental electronic projects welcomed!)

WORKSHOPS, PRESENTATIONS, DEMOS: Noon - 6:00 PM, CST
Noon - 1:00 PM, Vactrol Fever with Patrick McCarthy
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM, Build a Bending Buddy and/or Build a Contact Mic with CMKT4
3:00 PM - 6:00 PM, What is Circuit Bending? with Various Artists
5:30 PM - 6:00 PM, The Audio of the Aurora Borealis with Sam Piro

MEECAS STORE: Noon - Midnight, CST
Exhibiting and performing artists will be selling recorded works, experimental musical instruments, electronics kits, apparel, etc. to offset their costs.

LIVE WEBCAST: 5:30 PM - Midnight, CST
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/meecas-2011

CALL FOR DEAD BATTERIES: Noon - Midnight, CST
Bring your dead batteries to the MEECAS and we will send them to a proper eWaste recycling center. Last year the MEECAS audience brought enough batteries to fill a bucket!

Phish Playing one of Tommy's Devices

Photo by gilbertlow

A brief video snippet of Mike Gordon from Phish playing the Orange Mercury Box, a circuit bent device that Tommy Stephenson built in 1999.

Phish was in Chicago and Tommy stopped in to say hello, check out the show, and deliver yet another one of his unique circuit bent devices personally. Over the past few year's Mr. Gordon has acquired quite a collection of Tommy's custom devices.

Time Lapse Video of Roth Mobot Circuit Bending Workshop at Museum of Science and Industry's Fab Lab

Students from the IIT Boeing Scholars Academy attended a day-long Introduction to Circuit Bending Workshop hosted by Roth Mobot's Patrick McCarthy at the MSI's Fab Lab. The students learned basic circuit hacking techniques, how to solder correctly, and how to use CAD software to design cases for their new experimental electronic musical instruments and cut them out of plastic with robot-controlled lasers! Unatronics' Michael Una was our special guest that day, and offered invaluable assistance.

Roth Mobot's Circuit Bending Workshop at Museum of Science and Industry

We taught the students how to hack simple 555-based circuits (that were mass produced right in the museum's Fab Lab), how to design casings using CAD software, then how to manufacture their custom designs with robot-controlled laser cutters! Special thanks to Michael Una, Dan Meyer, and the Fab Lab interns for their invaluable assistance.

Lighting Young Brains On Fire

Northwestern University's Office of STEM Education Patnerships has recently hired Roth Mobot's Patrick McCarthy as their Designer of YouSTEM Alternative Learning Environments. Patrick will be instrumental in designing, developing, and implementing after school self-running interactive "drop in" labs for teens to explore Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math.

"Chicago has excellent after school facilities for sports, the arts, and digital media." Says Patrick. "Soon students will have spaces where they can hang out and explore Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math on their own terms and at their own pace. These new YouSTEM environments will encourage independence of thought, demystify technology, make mathematics a natural language, and foster an intuitive approach to invention. I also want to show teens, and... well, everyone, that social networks can be used as powerful developmental and educational tools. And it's going to be fun!"

Amplify Your Slinky

As Seen On Page 4 Of 6/30 Chicago Reader

Patrick McCarthy of the duo Roth Mobot teaches a class on how to build a contact microphone, which picks up vibrations through solid objects rather than through the air. It’s part of Getting Bent, a series of first-Sunday workshops in circuit bending: “the creative recycling of discarded consumer electronics to create unique experimental electronic art by adding wires, knobs, and switches to control new connections within the device’s pre-existing circuitry.” Participants are encouraged to bring objects to amplify, like sheet metal, cardboard, acoustic instruments, Slinkies, and coat hangers.