Pest (noun):
A destructive insect or animal that attacks crops, food, livestock, and other resources etc. Informal: An annoying person or thing – a nuisance
*As defined by humans
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You are a pest, one of the most expansive, destructive, and wasteful of creatures. Together with your own kind you will run yourselves extinct. Eventually you will run out [...]
Host (noun):
An organism that is infected with or is fed upon by a parasitic or pathogenic organism. The term can also be applied to a plant supporting an epiphyte. An animal, plant, human, or greater entity (organism), that nourishes and supports a parasite; the host typically does not benefit and is often harmed by the [...]
The Track Series is an exploratory body of work comprised of photographic, videographic, and motion capture images, and rapid prototyped sculpture mapping the habitual travel patterns of bess beetles. In order to accurately capture such patterns the bess beetles are each affixed with their own trackable “backpack.” These are made from a self-adhesive hook and [...]
How Will We Build is an exploratory ongoing process involving laser etching selections of google earth screen captures of the city of Chicago that are historically rooted in city planning, politics, and densely populated areas into pine boards. Termites are introduced into a controlled environment and begin to form their own city patterns by eating [...]
Chew is a short video made in collaboration between myself, Marlena Novak, and Jay Alan Yim in response to the theme of “Plat du Jour.” Having enjoyed buying and preparing fresh local foods for many years, we were pleased to see the slow food and locavore movements finally evolving in U.S. Cities, such as Chicago. [...]
Eat me is an experimental sound piece that facilitates a proof of concept for larger thesis project. Termites are given the artist’s birth certificate and as they eat the paper they in theory produce approximately two liters of usable hydrogen gas. In turn the termites are decomposers producing a viable energy source but destroy the [...]
Windsolar Sound is comprised of three custom sound units that are installed in the woods on various trees. The units are solar powered and controlled by the wind. The flex sensors of each unit are attached to leaves on the trees and based on the way the wind blows and moves the leaves various sounds [...]
The Subsequent Sight series is realized through the implementation of a wearable micro camera and recording mechanism that was placed on a dog. I felt this would help to capture the perspective of the dog’s world and concerns. This system supported a wireless high-resolution recording unit and a covert micro camera, weighing less than one [...]
Only A Mother Could Love is a digitally manipulated photographic series that humorously investigates the notion of pet owners taking on the facial characteristics of their animal companions and vice versa.
Date // October 2008 – Ongoing
Ladybirds is an installation that is conceptually rooted within notions of time, space, and death. It allows ladybugs to control a six channel audio composition and play it in real time. Each small environment is affixed with a sensor and when a dominant ladybug mounts the sensor a specific sound assigned to that environment is [...]
Infinitesimal Measures is responsive environment that addresses many of my concerns for insects and their containment (physical and emotional) within our progressive human society. This piece utilizes 49 custom contact microphones wired in multiple circuits and audio software to amplify the footsteps of the common house cricket. This piece has several intentionalities. Infinitesimal Measures acts [...]
Tippy Talk is an interactive environment designed for a domesticated parakeet named Tippy. Tippy is housed in an environment with six robotic parakeets who house infrared sensors in their chests. As Tippy interacts with the robotic parakeets each bird says an english phrase. The environment aims to teach Tippy how to speak english via the [...]
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In this first prototype I have created a toy (resembling that of a traditional dog toy found in pet stores) that houses a programmable interface. The current interface is a deconstructed wiimote housing a three-axis accelerometer. It is activated through the head movements of the dog during the act of play. These play [...]
Orificial Resonance promotes the communication between humans and plants. A sensor detects a human presence which triggers the power of an amplification system to allow a human participant to speak to the plant in its enclosed environment. As the plant receives the sound vibrations from the human’s voice, the small leaflets on the telegraph plant [...]
Proto-sky is a site-specific collaborative installation designed, created, and installed by both graduate and undergraduate students from the University of Illinois at Chicago under the instruction of Drew Browning. It is located in the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Innovation Center Haptics and Prototyping laboratory. It is a programmable LED ceiling comprised of 50 megabrite [...]
A prototype leading up to my PARTNERED: We are All Pests Series. A generative digital drawing device that is dependent on the amount of hydrogen being produced by termites eating paper waste in a controlled environment.