"Untethered" at Eyebeam

The Untethered show at Eyebeam ended on October 25th, but you can still see a nice round-up it at wmmna.

Dead Star, Michel de Broin, 2008

Buttons, Sascha Pohflepp, 2006

Buttons is a camera without optical parts. When the camera’s button is pressed, the camera does not record an image, instead it records the time. It then wirelessly searches the Internet for photographs that were taken by someone else at the very moment of the button press. Pohflepp says:

After a few minutes or hours, depending on how soon someone else shares their photo on the web, an image will appear on the [camera’s] screen... In a way, it belongs half to the person who had pressed the button and still remembers that moment. Because of that connection, the photos are never dismissed as random, no matter how enigmatic they may be.

Blendie, Kelly Dobson, 2003-2004

From Dobson's statement on Blendie:

Blendie is an interactive, sensitive, intelligent, voice controlled blender with a mind of its own. Materials are a 1950's Osterizer blender altered with custom made hardware and software for sound analysis and motor control.

People induce the blender to spin by sounding the sounds of its motor in action. A person may growl low pitch blender-like sounds to get it to spin slow (Blendie pitch and power matches the person) and the person can growl blender-style at higher pitches to speed up Blendie. The experience for the participant is to speak the language of the machine and thus to more deeply understand and connect with the machine. The action may also bring about personal revelations in the participant. The participant empathizes with Blendie and in this new approach to a domestic appliance, a conscious and personally meaningful relationship is facilitated.