Selected Media and Stories

Grouping 1: Informational Appliances / Public Domain Publishing

::: Gottesman Broadcaster(2009)

I had a three month residency at Columbia University Teachers College looking into the ways copyright and other restrictions affected education and libraries. I talked and listened to many on campus (students, faculty and admins). It seems the connecting of people was the most important function of the institution. I built a instant publishing youtube videobooth. It ran for 6 months.
Link: youtube.com/tcgottesmanfeedback (460 individual videos)
Link: sample video 1 (juggling 00:28)
Link: sample video 2 ("what's going on?" 00:43)
Link: the end of my introductory residency talk (13:51)
Link: broadcaster system doodle

::: Brooklyn Mobile(2009-2010)

I built several prototype mobile videobooths and spent time on the streets of Brooklyn talking with people and helping them record video messages. I experimented with giving the service away and with charging money. The project has generated over 1000 public domain videos on the brooklyn mobile youtube channel. It was a really good time.
Link: Intro video compilation(09:54).
Link: Press Video 1(02:59).
Link: Press Video 2(04:21).
Link: twvee doodle
Link: youtube.com/brooklynmobile (>1000 individual videos)

::: One Minute Per Day (2009-present)

I wrote a simple schell script to make timelapse movies of my computer screen to monitor my computer use habits. The videos are uploaded online as an exercise in public speaking. I created a blog post to help others who might want to do the same. The blog post contains completely free and open source solutions for Mac OSX, Linux and Windows computers.
Link: Instructional Blog post and sample video
Link: youtube channel (>200 videos)
Link: initial project blog post

::: Daily Timelapse Movies(2009-2011)

June 2009-Jan2011, I carried around a garden timelapse camera that looks like a shampoo bottle. I took daily timelapse movies of my day and posted them to the public domain. Using free unix/linux command line tools, I wrote custom shell scripts to compile six months worth of daily movies into a single feature length film.
Link: blog post and sample movie
Link: youtube.com/usemoreproduct (>500 movies)
Link: Excerpt from 6 month compilation (10:00)
Link: timelapse and art as a mirror (01:32)
Link: how to remix using free command line tools post
Link: Snip and Layers blog post

::: Central Square Wall PDTV(2010) - (w/ Geoff Hargadon, Gary Strack)

The Wall at Central Square is a public graffiti wall in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I installed a surveillance camera that auto uploads daily timelapse movies to a youtube channel. This was meant as a reward to graffiti writers who take their time to create a mural on the wall.
Link: Hello World Video(0:45)
Link: Sample Video (01:25)
Link: youtube.com/centralsqwallpdtv (>200 videos)
Link: doodle

::: AllAsiaTwvee(2011)

For a small rock club in Cambridge, MA, I made a timelapse media server. A $100 used PC (installed linux) with custom software connects to a simple webcam and microphone. Each day it makes a audio and video timelapse movie and uploads the video to a public youtube channel. A monitor in the space shows an endless loop of timelapse movies from previous days.
Link: instructional blog post and intro video
Link: youtube.com/allasiatwvee
Link: timelapse memory wall doodle
Link: video preview of timelapse proto.

::: boranj(2009) - (w/ Sean Levin, Jeff Lieberman)

We invented a word and built a website to try to spread it and track its use. It's not perfect, but it rhymes with orange.
Link:boranj.com website w/ stats

::: Hoyt and Wyckoff Public Gallery(2010)

I created a gallery under some scaffolding on the side of a boarded up building. I gave myself a six month residency. I would regularly post drawings and sketches on the walls. I used temporary means such as thumbtacks and magnets to attach my work so anyone who walked by could take what they wanted and also to avoid any issues with police or property owners. I had an opening and movie premier on the sidewalk in front. The gallery was one block from my apartment and a good way for me to engage my local physical community with my art. People posted thank you notes and their own artwork.
Link: Action photo

Grouping 2: Kinetic and Robotic

By training, I am a mechanical and systems engineer. I have a bachelors, masters, and ABD in mechanical engineering from MIT, with a specialization in robotics and feedback control systems. The world is always in motion and I like to put things together.

::: Quartet(2008-present) (w/ Jeff Lieberman)

Jeff and I designed and fabricated this machine as part of the ABSOLUT MACHINES and ABSOLUT VISONARIES campaign. The machine is a six meter long with 213 motors and solenoids which are coordinated to play music by launching rubber balls off of marimba keys, playing an array of wine glasses with robotic fingers, and drumming out rhythms on ethnic percussion. The fourth member of the quartet is the visitor. The installation ran for 3 months in NYC, 18 months in Austria at the ARS Electronica Center and 3 months in Berlin at a pop-up gallery. It is scheduled to be shown in Madrid in Spring 2011. We received several awards including PrixARS Electronica Award of Distinction(2008), London Design Museum, Design of the year nominee(2008).
Link:Movie (03:32)
Link: Project webpage with additional movies/photos

::: M2(1999-2002) (w/ G. Pratt, J. Pratt, D. Robinson, A. Parseghian)

I was the lead mechanical and electrical designer for this humanoid robot for walking research. This was the subject of my master's thesis in Mechanical Engineering at MIT. The work was done in the Leg Laboratory under Prof Gill Pratt.
Link: Wired Magazine Cover
Link: The truth about walking robots.(00:26)

::: Ekib (2000)

The ekib is a fitness counterrevolution. On one side, it was simply a subtle change to a bicycle that would make people double take as I rode down the street. It was also a way for me to play with the format of informercials which I consumed so many of in my TV watching youth.
Link:Infomercial Video and source material. (11:58)

::: Weightloss (2009) (w/ Eric Gunther, Jeff Lieberman)

We've put a man on the moon. We've created an artificial heart. We've transmitted information to each other by pulsing electricity through metals. How can we be so capable and still find it so difficult to get along with each other? Weightloss is a two person interactive electro-mechanical sculpture which requires you to physically resonate with another. When you succeed, it triggers an optical illusion which defies your perception of a solid object.
Link: Project Page with additional photos and movies

::: Recycle Robot (2005)

Recycle Robot is the perfect consumer - a cardboard automaton that reuses and recycles all day long. It's made from post consumer content -- old cardboard boxes, shipping tubes, surplus motors and switches. It diligently recycles every box it uses, and it only uses recycled boxes.
Link: Project Page
Link: Video (02:44)

::: fotron2000 (2003) (w/ Jackbackrack, Jessica Banks)

The fotron2000 is a robotic photobooth that paints custom portraits for each visitor. The hand built photobooth enclosure contains a computer with custom vision software, a modified polaroid camera, and a robotic arm with LED lights at its endpoint. Like drawing with sparklers or the streak of taillights on the highway, the hidden robotic arm paints with light onto long exposed polaroid film. In our modern world, humans have automated everything, so we created fotron2000 to automate the creation of personal artistic portraits.
We did the Juan MacLean album cover art, won the MIT Student Mural Contest and the installation was shown at Eyebeam's 10th Anniversary(2007), Artbots(2004), and Christopher Henry Gallery NYC(2008).
Link: Photo Gallery

::: Totemobile (2007) (for Amorphic Robot Works)

I worked for artist Chico MacMurtrie/Amorphic Robot Works on this 10,000 pound, 55 foot tall abstract transforming sculpture. My work included all types of engineering and logistics to help this sculpture make it from a small warehouse in Brooklyn to the Citroen showroom on the Champs-Elysees in Paris.
Link: Totemobile homepage
Link: Animated gif
Link: Animated Gif #2

::: Thoughts on war and the MIC(2009)

This video is a personal reflection on my history of research robotics being supported by military funding. It was shown in the Odysseus Project:Finding Home. Art @ 12. Boston 2009.
Link:Video(~10m).
Link:Nervegarden online exhibition

Grouping 3: Other

::: The Holy Toaster(2005-2009)

I found the holy toaster in the back of a thrift store and miraculously it produced an image of Jesus on every slice of bread it toasted. After two successful gallery showings, I was able to engineer a solution to replicate the effect. I sold 50 kits online and released the plans into the public domain.
Link: Infomercial (01:26)
Link: Holytoaster webpage
Link: Project History(02:24)

::: Collision events (2001-present) (w/ Jackbackrack, William Tremblay)

In 2001, I organized and hosted the first Collision event at MIT. The event was a mixture of technology art installations and performances. I continued to co-organize and co-curate the events for many years, hosting the work of over a hundred Boston area artists and engineers. The events and associated group have continued to live under the leadership of two successors (jackbackrack and William Tremblay). The 16th show will take place in February 2011 at Axiom Gallery in Boston.