Analog Electronic Crow / July 8, 2022 by kelly heaton

The universe is made of energy, frequency, and vibration. Electricity is the Qi of life flowing through humans, birds, and circuits alike. My new "Analog Electronic Crow" (2022) is an evolution of Deep Fake Birdsong from 2020 in which I explore the power of electrically oscillating circuits to manifest intelligent behaviors. This circuit has only six oscillators: five astable multivibrators and one modified Hartley. It's battery operated so you can carry it around. Stay tuned for a product launch this Fall!

Moth Electrolier / June 25, 2022 by kelly heaton

New footage of my Moth Electrolier from 2019

In this sculpture, analog electronic circuits generate patterns of animated light that mimic the flight trails of moths around a bulb. The circuits are made with a series of oscillators connected together to form pseudorandom patterns, and these patterns are used to clock shift registers. This is why the animation occasionally "flutters" before continuing along the sequential trail. The wings of the moths are dyed velvet that were embroidered with an old industrial machine according custom CAD files. The translucent plastic sphere is laser cut acrylic that was heated and shaped into spiral patterns. The sculpture attempts to depict living nature in all of its magical, electrical movement as well as its delicate fragility. As electronic technology increasingly shapes our built environment, it is harder to distinguish between biological and machine intelligence. The construction of circuits that mimic life-like behaviors is part of my "electronic naturalism" practice to demonstrate just how similar circuits and living organisms can be -- without any code or recording to inform the behavior, just the physical assembly of electronic devices that vibrate when exposed to voltage. This and several other sculptures from the same time period (Birds at My Feeder and Electrolier (Summer Night)) were created during the same time as I published my Hackaday project, "Hacking Nature's Musicians." A diary with process images and associated schematics can be found on the following pages:

hackaday.io/project/161443-hacking-natures-musicians
hackaday.io/project/163201-electronic-sculpture

Moth Electrolier and Birds at My Feeder are a celebration (and demonstration) of the open source hardware and Makerspace movements that were happening around this time in history. I used various unusual techniques to create these works, including an old embroidery machine, laser cutter, thermoformer, Blender (open source 3D modeling software), and a bricolage of electronic hardware techniques from my earliest foray into printed circuit board design. I would like to thank NovaLabs Makerspace (formerly in Reston, VA) for the various equipment and education that I used to make sculptures during this time.

Printed Circuit Bird, 2021 / December 2, 2021 by kelly heaton

Printed circuit bird, 2021. I created this work of electronic art to demonstrate the principles by which consciousness originates. The bird's circuitry is entirely analog electronic, which means that her song is not recorded but *generated* by adjustable vibrations in the circuit that forms her body. She is designed to vibrate when exposed to electricity, and we hear the resulting (audible) waveforms as a bird-like sound. Her circuit contains five analog electronic oscillators that are coupled together with a combination of resistors and capacitors. The vibrations of one oscillator affect the others, thus causing a degree of complexity and unpredictability that we wouldn't expect from such a simple circuit. It would be difficult to model this analog system because there are so many possible states, as I will attempt to explain below.

In the video, you see me adjusting variable resistors that affect the frequency, amplitude, and symmetry of the oscillations. The resulting changes in vibration are heard as tonal variation and patterns of sound, or "syntax" of the bird's song. In other words, we can hear the frequency, amplitude, and temporal structure of the waveform as it changes within the bird's circuit. Residual capacitance adds to the unpredictable nature of cause and effect. It is not only which knob I turn or how much, but *when* I make the adjustment relative to the state of the entire connected circuit. These are the continuous, interconnected, analog principles from which life-like behaviors arise. The late roboticist and neuroscientist William Grey Walter experimented with similar principles, notably demonstrated by his tortoise robots.
She is like us — we are electrical beings, too. The neural activity of a human brain is an aggregate of billions of oscillating neurons affecting each other to form thoughts and feelings. While each individual neuron is very simple, the complexity of the neural system is unfathomable. As Nikola Tesla said, "If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration." These physical laws are the basis of mind and our conscious universe.

What is an NFT? / November 23, 2021 by kelly heaton

Initialize la valise, 2021.

(sound on) What is an NFT? I've been pondering this question for awhile and decided to make a short film about our strange moment in cultural history. Considering the conceptual nature of NFTs, I consulted the ghost of Marcel Duchamp for his perspective.

Human and machine intelligence are merging, but not without a dollop of stupidity --which may ironically be the lasting signature of humankind, assuming computers cannot fathom how we fleshers can be so delightfully ludicrous.