Show 9/19-21: ArtXposium From Sept. 19-21 I'll be participating in ArtXposium, a 3-day multimedia art experience with more than 80 participating artists. Local, national and international talent will come together from September 19th to the 21st to display a variety of art work ranging from traditional painting, sculpture, and photography to interactive, multimedia, and sound installations. I'll be showing two old-but-good pieces there: Small on the outside, infinite on the inside
and This is for you
  ¶ 9/10/2008 11:48:00 AM 0 Comments

  MAKE Article published I recommend that anyone interested in music, doing things yourself, and taking control of your reality pick up this month's copy of MAKE magazine. And if you like it, get a subscription- it's way cheaper.

My article "Drumbot Activate!" is contained within this new issue. In it, you'll find informative text and images that outline an easy-to-construct MIDI-controlled robot drummer.

It's based on the HighlyLiquid MIDI Decoder kit, with some simple additional parts.

A quick demonstration video:


Robot drummer from Michael Una on Vimeo

It was my goal this year to write an article for MAKE, and I'm a little surprised how quickly it happened. I expected to toil in obscurity for a lot longer.
  ¶ 9/10/2008 11:29:00 AM 0 Comments

  Reserach I picked up an Arduino Diecemila last week and I've been playing around with it, hoping to use it in future art installations. Some nifty implementations I've discovered along the way:   ¶ 9/08/2008 01:52:00 PM 0 Comments

  Working on it... It has been pointed out that this website is experiencing problems, which may cause alerts from your antivirus or browser saying that this is a "possible attack site." I am aware of the problem and think it's fixed (fingers crossed). I'm also working on a separate publishing/formatting issue, so my apologies if this blog shows up in your RSS multiple times. I'm hoping to resolve things tonight. In the meantime, please enjoy these images:   ¶ 8/07/2008 08:47:00 PM 0 Comments

  Video from We Are Hacks performance in NYC On July 18th I had the pleasure of performing at the last-ever HOPE conference in New York City. Peter Kirn of createdigitalmusic.com had a great preview writeup before the show, and the audiovisual acts did not disappoint. Collin Mel from MAKE Magazine's blog posted some video of my performance, which was augmented by visuals from Vade (Anton Marini) and Mary Ann Bene. You can see me "scratching" some audiotape on a flat panel by running a tape head over it. Music @ the Last HOPE from Collin Cunningham on Vimeo. The entire archive of performers (including Animal Style, some houseplants, and other awesomeness) can be found here, the filenames all start with "DMN" for Digital Music Night.  ¶ 7/29/2008 02:28:00 PM 0 Comments

  Upcoming show The show will be called Shadows, tracks and traces When: Opening reception August 2. Show closes August 31. Where: Second Bedroom Gallery, 3216 Morgan Street Apt. 4R Chicago Description: Shadows, tracks and traces seeks to make people aware of the omnipresent, ambient surveillance going on around us all the time by audiovisually representing the evidence we leave as we move through infospace. As the viewer enters the room, they come within the recording field of a video camera and a microphone. An automated system records and processes the audiovisual data generated within the room and presents it back to the viewer in a dissociated, fragmented stream coming from all directions. This piecemeal representation of data is a metaphor for the informational wake we leave as we move about the planet. Credit card receipts, brief appearances on surveillance cameras, our picture taken by an ATM machine- all this evidence can point at the existence of a person but never gets at the heart of who we are, what we're doing, and why we're doing it. It's an incomplete, fragmented picture of us as individuals. Taken by themselves, these pieces can be interesting or novel, or even beautiful, but it's their failure to complete the picture which is most interesting. Bio: Michael Una is an audiovisual artist living in Chicago. His work investigates wave motion and rhythmic coincidence, with an eye toward complex systems interaction. I've started to install and it's looking good so far:   ¶ 7/07/2008 06:02:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Magnetic fields File under inspiration.

Labels: inspiration, magentic fields

  ¶ 6/04/2008 01:35:00 PM 0 Comments

  Press Mark Weaver of Minneapolis's Daily Planet newspaper published a nice wrapup of BENT Fest, with some choice quotes from me and some of the other performers. Check it out here. He also made a nice little video to show off a device he modified during the festival: Thanks Mark.  ¶ 5/22/2008 10:40:00 AM 0 Comments

  Upcoming shows Hey everyone. Next Wednesday, April 30th I'll I’ll be performing a live looping audio set as part of the Butterfly Social Club’s Re:Vivify Wednesday series. There will be live video, artmaking, bodywork, fortunetelling, and probably a whole lot of hip urban hippies. 9pm, 722 W. Grand, next to the Funky Buddha Lounge. Be there or be a hippy-hating Republican. The next day I'll be driving up to Minneapolis for the Midwest leg of BENT Festival. It'll be three days of circuit-tweaking excitement. I'll be exhibiting my Beat/Bleep bikes, giving a workshop on building your own Drum Robot Friday, and playing a live set on Saturday with my band Memory Selector. Local Minneapolis blog l'etoile has an interview with Memory Selector as one of their weekend event picks, which can be viewed here (at the bottom). If you're in Minneapolis or Wisconsin, I highly recommend you check it out.

Labels: shows

  ¶ 4/24/2008 01:48:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Robot Drummer In preparation for my upcoming workshop at BENT Fest Minneapolis, I've been assembling and implementing the HighlyLiquid MSA-R MIDI decoder kit. A preview of the results: Robot drummer from Michael Una on Vimeo.  ¶ 4/22/2008 09:32:00 AM 1 Comments

  Zigzags
Zigzag_v1 from Michael Una on Vimeo.  ¶ 4/18/2008 02:30:00 PM 0 Comments

  Excerpt from live show, 4/5 at Happy Dog Gallery
Michael Una at Bigger Than Your Life from Michael Una on Vimeo.  ¶ 4/15/2008 10:41:00 AM 0 Comments

  Grid Transformatiions A sketch of a little idea I'm working on for BENT Fest video projection.
Grid interference patterns from Michael Una on Vimeo.  ¶ 4/11/2008 12:43:00 PM 2 Comments

  Electromechanical sound generation

Labels: inspiration

  ¶ 4/10/2008 02:40:00 PM 0 Comments

  Jejunum Last night when most sane people were asleep, I was drawing this diagram of the small intestines for my clients here in LA. It turned out so pretty I thought I'd share it:   ¶ 4/09/2008 10:30:00 AM 0 Comments

  Show this Saturday For its first anniversary, arts collective Deadline Projects presents this multi-media exhibition of works tackling big issues, like space, time, religion and debt. Plus, the opening is sponsored by Goose Island! I will have one interactive piece in the show, and I'll be playing a live musical set starting at 7:30pm. More live electronic music will follow, by Moment Sound.

SATURDAY, APRIL 5th, 2008 7PM-MIDNIGHT HAPPY DOG GALLERY 1542 N. MILWAUKEE CHICAGO, IL 60622

One night only.

Bigger Than Your Life A one-night art event not to be missed: Deadline Projects's one-year anniversary show! Deadline Projects is proud to present Bigger than Your Life, a multi-media one-night art exhibition. This time around, Deadline Projects attempts to grapple with ideas that are bigger than our brains can handle and make sense of them using installation, print, painting, photography and sculpture. We're all surrounded by things and concepts that are huge and unknowable in their entirety. The Iraq war is one example- it's so much bigger than any one person at this point, and as a single human we can have difficulty approaching the subject in a workable way. Or, technological progression- it moves so fast and touches so many parts of our lives, but the average person has very little input to direct and control it. We get caught up in these events and ideas without comprehending fully their true meaning, and the most common course of action is to ignore large parts of the problem and simply deal with what's in front of us. Michael Una is building a radio transmitter to beam voices into space, ensuring that some part of the show's audience lives on forever in the vast heart of the universe. Sarah Perez takes on Debt – something that usually falls outside of our understanding in its ever expanding and seemingly unconquerable nature by making a sculpture that uses her own money -literally. Gretel Garcia and Una will be collaborating to create an installation made out of multiple digital clocks that will be programmed to flash 12:00 simultaneously – reminding us that time is always at our back. Painter nikki hollander puts pop culture under her scope and uses the forum of the art gallery to confront the public with the unavoidable eye of paparazzi. Others like Shawn Stucky and Marc Salha will be tackling issues of politics and religion in prints and paintings. * Image credit, Clockwise from upper left: Postcard design by Stephen Shapiro, screenprint by Shawn Stucky, illustration by Damien James, sculpture by Sarah Perez.

Participating Artists:

Arielle Bielak Gretel Garcia nikki hollander Damien James Blake Parish Lewis Sarah Perez Holly Sabin Marc Salha Stephen Shapiro Shawn Stucky Kyra Termini Michael Una

Musical performances by www.momentsound.com

Deadline Projects is proud to announce that its anniversary show is sponsored by Chicago's own Goose Island Beer Company! We thank them for their support of the local arts community.

  ¶ 4/02/2008 02:53:00 PM 0 Comments

  Seven-pointed star I drew this shape to guide the layout of some LEDs for a sound-reactive wearable visual display, and the shapes looked nice all by themselves: More in-progress shots to come.  ¶ 3/31/2008 02:14:00 PM 1 Comments

  Cyclical AC on/off device I just completed this little device and it's working pretty well. It switches incoming AC power on and off in a cyclical pattern, about 1.5 times per second. A battery powers a small worm-gear motor, which pushes a levered switch with its' eccentric cylinder. The switch completes the AC circuit. Simple, I know, but I get kind of nervous when working with AC and I wanted this to be safe and effective. The whole thing is contained in a plastic box, so no chance of accidental contact. This will be a key part in a project for the upcoming Deadline Projects show, Bigger Than Your Life.  ¶ 3/21/2008 04:19:00 PM 2 Comments

  SYNC Fest pics and video SYNC Fest was probably one of the most awesome experiences of my life- the people were awesome, my set was near-perfect, and it looked and sounded incredible. The venue was excellent as well. It took place at the University of Michigan's Duderstadt Center, which houses all kinds of awesome computer-based artmaking labs: The opening acts were both pretty amazing, too. The University of Michigan's Digital Music Ensemble did an interpretation of Stockhausen's String Quartet for Helicopters. Four people played string instruments, while four remote-control helicopter pilots tried not to kill anyone, and some tech folks processed the audio and video live. It was pretty amazing: Bill Van Loo and J. Schnable kicked out the smooth ambient grooves, with some excellent video to match. I headlined the evening, apparently: And, as I was packing up my gear, they handed me a DVD of my performance. It's pretty amazing- I had no idea it was going to look this good. I highly recommend that you watch the video in full-screen and with either headphones or decent speakers that reproduce bass:
Michael Una performing at SYNC Fest 08 from Michael Una on Vimeo. Big thanks to Heather Konzman, who orchestrated an most excellent evening.  ¶ 3/18/2008 03:30:00 PM 1 Comments

  Audio snippet Here's a little bit of audio from my SYNC fest preparations this week: All loops recorded live.  ¶ 3/12/2008 09:44:00 AM 0 Comments