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)