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current works of e.thompson

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Metaphors for Dead Pianos. by Hugo Solis is a large scale project that I was recently involved with. The products of this project are on display at:

The 20 Years of Jóvenes Creadores, Biblioteca Vasconcelos, Mexico City. November 28th 2009.

The Creación en Movimiento Show. ExConvento del Carmen, Guadalajara MX. September 26th 2009.

I assisted in the prototyping phase of these autonomous wireless pianos that react to the observer. My involvement centered around fabrication and materials issues with a lot of hours put into the milling of custom parts on a 3-axis CNC Mill. Please, see these photos of the installations provided by Hugo Solis.

I Have 3 Pairs of Pants With My Brother I Share. is a work commissioned by Alex OHGE of OHGE_LTD in Seattle, WA. It consists of car parts, lumber, video screens, 3 channel underwater video, and 4 channel underwater audio. It is like a submarine. I made this work in collaboration with Aubrey Birdwell. We had one month to make it, we did our best. This was a group show with Stefan Moore also of Seattle. Magnolia Video provided the video screens.

Cleaning Out The Dead is a work produced for my BFA thesis show. Massive construction and installation assistance was provided by Zeb Ringer.

Wizard Fingers is a work in progress. It consists of a pneumatic drum set, a bar chime set, and soon an electro-mechanical air organ. The software that runs the system uses Markov chains for a stylistic creative seed and a yet-undetermined AI algorithm to make aesthetic descisions about the music created by the system. Wizard Fingers is designed to be an autonomous improvisational music system. The end result is a system with many potential performance options. In collaborating with Hiroki Nishino, Wizard Fingers has been used in conjunction with live dancers. The dancers improvise their dance, and using custom RFID hardware and software designed and built by Hiroki, the movements of the dancers and indeed their very interactions have been used as control signals to improvise with the system...

Wizard Fingers Plays Nice with Zeus' Beard is a new work exploring the connections between dancers and technology. This piece utilizes Wizard Fingers as an accompianist for a live dance performance. By utilizing RFID and accelerometers the dancers will be linked to Wizard Fingers and in control of it's performance, allowing the dancers to decide when the music will progress. This should provide a free musical structure for the dance. Providing more room for improvisation combined with choreographed segments, without the strict timing of prerecorded audio.

Coyote is a current work in progress exploring the edge of recognition in the human mind. Through the use of a reduced resolution display (16x16 LED/pixels by 3 layers Red, Green, and Blue), the viewer is forced to struggle for recognition of an all too familiar yet still obscure actor. The audio component of the piece is similarly reduced and regognition is fleeting at best.