What’s circuit bending? Glad you asked:
West Coast vs. East Coast vs. Third Coast: now it’s on, circuit bending fans. If you’re in California or Minnesota and were cranky that New York got the awesome Bent Festival and you didn’t, it’s your turn this week. Thursday through Saturday, Bent is moving out to Los Angeles, then on to Minneapolis for the 19-21 before returning here to NYC. And for the whole world to enjoy, hardware inventor Gijs Gieskes’ latest creation, involving a hacked, sequenced Sega MegaDrive. Details on both after the jump.
If you are in L.A. this week:
Bent Los Angeles Schedule
Bent LA press release
Prefer your circuits to be kept all proper and not, um, bent? In addition to the CD hacking, alternative misbehaving interfaces, an “exquisite corpse” exercise with circuits, and circuit bending artists, there are workshops for “straight” circuits, too. Think basics of electricity and chips.
After that, it’s Minneapolis for the Third Coast:
MN’s Bent features workshops on parallel ports and “Analogue Drum Machine Hacks and Mods.”
Then Bent comes back to New York, where we’ll be comparatively cynical and unfriendly, and make harder-edged music. Okay, not really. But we’d better throw down to keep up with our Californian and Midwestern brethren.
Info on the New York show, local guides, and circuit bending in general as an introduction — with plenty of info if you’re in neither New York nor Minnesota nor California:
Speaking of the world beyond America, our friend Gijs Gieskes sends his latest mad-scientist creation, a Sega Megadrive with a Sequencer. Direct control over gaming via a homebrewed, circuit-bent interface:
Technically Create Digital Motion fodder, but let’s enjoy the hacked Afterburner anyway.
Gijs could be his own category here on CDM; see our past stories, with workshops and sequenced Game Boys and Casio keyboards.