LEKTROLAB - Circuit bending at Lovebytes 05

CIRCUIT BENDING WORKSHOP AT LOVEBYTES 05
[15-04-05]

Circuit-bending is the process of modifying consumer electronics or toys for artistic [usually musical] purposes. LektroLAB's Beginner Circuit-bending workshop taught the basics of how to crack open your Casino, attack your Atari and smash your Speak and Spell, "bend" their circuits and produce unique and individual musical instruments for your next DJ or sound project.

http://www.lektrolab.com/

http://www.lektrolab.com/

Paul Davis, Lekrolab
"My specialism is reprogramming old video game consoles, like Nintendos and Ataris. Typically what I do is take a game and open the game cartridge up and inside are the chips that have the info about how to play the game. I take them out and put in my own and get it to do what I want it to do. Then I'll usually use the console, instead of as a game devise, as a video devise to generate video for installation and sound.

I actually don't do a lot of circuit bending in my own art but I think it's really useful for getting people involved and experimenting in electronic art. It's so tactile and hands on, it's not intimidating this way and you can actually be hands on and get nerdy if you want, and it's a fun thing to do and you can make cool sounds straight away.

For example, with this talking toy, you might be able to manipulate the way the speech comes out, distort it. You could turn this one into a noise piece, or a musical instrument. Typically inside all these things is one small chip that makes the sounds and there's a few other components connected to the chip and the batteries.

What they should be able to do with all these is find a component in there that tells the chip at what pitch to play the notes and sounds at, take that out and then put in a resistor that you can change the value of, the speech, the distortion, sometimes different notes and even feedback. You could take the speeches off and solder on a jack lead so you plug it into your guitar amp or mixer."

Paul Davis & Emma Davidson, Lekrolab

Emma Davidson, Lekrolab
"We've been running workshops for 4 years under the name of Electrolab. We're based in London. We do a whole range of subjects in our workshops such as DJing workshops, Vjay Workshops, Gameboy Music Making Workshops, Circuit Bending Workshops, Nintendo Game Console Hacking Workshops, and all kinds of stuff. We do them for promoters, in schools, for places like the Royal Festival Hall, the ICA, and the Haywood Gallery, as part of their education unit. We also do them just because we want to do them as our own kind of fun business hobbie type thing.

I started off a long time ago with 2 other girls. We started doing Djing workshops as a response to girls partaking in music at the time, there were none and we couldn't work out why. We couldn't work out whether it was because they were scared of technology or whether they were being pushed aside, or if they weren't interested. And girls started coming to our workshops.

The trouble is, with a lot of these things, you don't actually know what's going to happen until you've pulled them apart. Some things work better than others, you just have to be open minded about what you come out with. These toys are good to learn the basics that you can then apply to something more complicated."

Paul Davis demonstrates circuit bending basics

Charlotte White, Brighton

John Grant – Student, York

"I've come especially for the circuit bending workshop. I heard about Lovebytes from my instructor. I'm doing music technology. I make electronic music and jazz compositions. With this toy I'm hopefully going to get it to stop talking and when it gets hit, get it to do something a little bit more interesting. Like weird tones and crackling. As it is it's irritating because it won't shut up and says "play with me". It's fun, but I want it to be a bit more interesting, then I'll give it back to my son."

Tom Castle and Richard Bradley, Sheffield

Tom Castle, Sheffield
"It's been interesting, not managed to get much out of the things I've pulled apart but Rich and I have done this before, in our own time, so we've got a bit more direction now. We know more about what's going on now with these crazy wires but it still seems a bit random."

Richard Bradley
"It's been enjoyable and frustrating because sometimes you get a really good noise out of something just for 10 seconds. You get those little moments and then it's back to prodding around not knowing what you're doing. I made it go off on a stream of consciousness rant but I can't get it to do it again. I'm in a band and we play xylophones and stuff and the whole toy thing is linked, so I might use it."

"I used to live in Sheffield and now I live in Brighton, I came up especially for the festival. The only girl here! This was one of the main things I wanted to do because I want to get into building electronics and robotics that make and record sounds. With this first words talking smart kits, I have no idea what I'm going to do! I picked it up in a charity shop. I'll probably be sticking a meter to the crocodile clips then sticking them onto different parts and making noises. I'm definitely looking forward to the Lopez performance as I make a lot of work with sound, not just for the composition but also the environment.

LATER: It's all gone wrong, I spent about half an hour unscrewing about a million screws and then one of the wires frayed and it didn't do anything. Now I've got a new toy that does a few things. I've definitely learnt quite a lot though. I'll start buying things from charity shops and messing with things now."

Charlie Hope, Sheffield (left)

Daniel Maga "I'm just fiddling around trying to get robot voices, pure guesswork!"

Charlie Hope "I'm not sure what I'm doing, it WAS a keyboard."
LATER: "In 3 hours I've managed to make this sound out of a keyboard!!" (strange low drilling buzzer sound)

http://www.lektrolab.com/