An electronic sculpture I have created, “What it is without the hand that wields it,” will be on display March 31st through April 4th at the University of Oklahoma School of Art.
Acrylic glass, medical bags, custom electronics (based on Atmel microcontroller)
Violence is an inevitable, mechanical function of the human brain, hard-coded down through time by culture, genetics, and evolution. Mediated experiences of killing change our perception of violence and death. As players die in a public video game server for Counter-strike, a popular online first person shooter, the electronic solenoid valves spray a small amount of fake blood. The trails left down the wall create a physical manifestation of nebulous kills.
In simple terms it is about manifesting experiences that are purely virtual, or only ‘real’ in a psychological sense, into the physical world - physical computing.
Custom electronics based on an Atmega8/168 micro-controller are connected to a PC running a dedicated Counter-strike Source server. Players across the internet can connect and play live on the server, and each time a player dies, EventScripts and a java applet written in Processing sends serial commands to the micro-controller, telling it to spray fake blood.
To connect and play on the server while it is being exhibited during the week, launch Counter-Strike Source and type this command in your console:
“connect 129.15.76.103:27015″
