Hsaio Hua ( 2007). 7-meter span. Carbon fiber reinforced
bamboo, electronics w/Bluetooth. Image courtesy the artist.
agation of behaviors within a group of individuals, especially in a sonic context. I’m trying to
provide the opportunity for these creatures to
create an exchange that could be considered a
form of music, not human music but more akin
to the soundscapes that emerge in nature. This
piece, currently titled Crawling Out of Darkness,
aka “the lil’ devils,” begins to hint at these possibilities in their sounds.
DM: Have the actions of any of your robots ever
surprised you?
MM: Days before shipping to Albuquerque
for the 2012 International Symposium for Electronic Art, one piece of Albireo literally blew
up, requiring a bunch of emergency electronic
surgery. Similarly, I recently smoked a motor
on one of the new pieces because of a programming error. My favorite surprises, however, are
in the sometimes musical interchanges that
arise between pieces, often accompanied by a
dance that I would not have imagined. Even the
SciArt in America June 2014
sounds are created in such a way as to be always
changing. The highly non-deterministic behavior of these pieces allows for a lot of unexpectable events. What I’m looking for now is within
that chaotic interaction, the emergence of
group behaviors—something that will become
more apparent as I’m able to produce pieces
with larger numbers of individual characters.
Basically the more out of my control I can get
things, the better.
DM: Are you planning any new projects for the
future?
MM: I have so many pieces in mind; it’s hard
to say which will be next. I’m really looking
forward to some more expansive landscapescale works, and especially in creating flocks of
ground-based creatures that can live together
indefinitely, migrating around a bit to follow the
sun, digging up the dirt, and making their own
peaceful little racket and ruckus.
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