Matthew Venn » design

standing waves – an interactive installation

matthew venn — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:38:29 +0000

I’m working with Martina Sprenghart (fashion photographer) to produce an installation for her latest work.

The exhibition is in in the Mall Galleries: 17 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5BD http://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/. Please come along on the 10th. Feb. between 15:00 – 20:00.

Click the photo to see the story of the installation’s development.

full colour concrete moodlamp

matthew venn — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:08:58 +0000

A weddding present I made Charlie and Rachel a few years back. I hadn’t got round to putting up some instructions till now. Check the instructable here.

laser tripwire

matthew venn — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:46:09 +0000

I made a laser tripwire for Fluxx theatre company. The system was installed at the Soho Theatre.

Chris wanted something that would be interactive and amusing for the audience. As the audience entered the space to sit down, they broke the invisible tripwire and a random farmyard or DIY sample was played over the PA.

Here’s what they said:

MATTHEW VENN is an inventive and industrious artist exploring a range of approaches to improvisation. His particular skils in working with technology allowed him to create a unique laser-based interactive device for use during Fluxx’s ten-year anniversary series of shows at the Soho Theatre in 2008. The device – generating sounds triggered by movements of spectators – proved a great hit.

shelf design

matthew venn — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:14:35 +0000

Nikolay and I made some shelves at the last working weekend for our big new house. We had these big pieces of wood, and not much else. We didn’t want to spend loads on brackets so we worked out a way of using the wood as the shelf and the support all combined! Nikolay got totally involved and started using the Golden Mean and other maths to design his geometric shelves!

first exhibition of audible photos!

matthew venn — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:09:36 +0000

The first outing of audible photo frames is happening on the 29th June at Chisenhale dance space. The photos are of improvised performances from the last few months of “Sunday Surprises” – a performance event celebrating cross-art form improvisation.

Right now the system uses pedals to trigger the sounds, and we are not using illuminating photo frames. When we have hired the system a few times I will add the illuminating frames.

If you are interested in using the system or collaborating on a new project, please contact me!

midi controlled gas organ

matthew venn — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:08:07 +0000

I got the puredata patch to respond to midi, so now we can sequence the gas organ. For the flame and flesh event we’re going to have some performers who want to play their electric violin and cello with the gas organ. Martin came in and played a sequence (top right photo) which we recorded, and you can hear here.

reusing phone chargers to make beautiful mood lamps

matthew venn — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 20:16:15 +0000

Linda was throwing out a whole bag of phone chargers. I thought there must be a cool way to reuse them.

When I was in Bulgaria I was inspired by Maria’s lovely candle lamp shades. This is my electronic version with bike spiral shades!

check out my instructable for the scoop!

lighterthief back up!

matthew venn — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 12:24:47 +0000

yes it’s true! go to www.lighterthief.org right now to really believe the power!

This project looks like it might be revitalised soon in a web2 stylee.

experiment 1 : the gas organ

matthew venn — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:53:33 +0000

I’ve been working on the wiimote -> puredata -> bluemelon controlled gas organ for a while now, and we are getting ready for a full test on Monday.

We have a big event called ‘flame and flesh’ happening on the 22nd February at Corsica Studios. Come along and check it out!

update!

the test went really well! We have good intuitive control of the organ using 2 wiimotes. I’ve also got a basic random mode going down too. It was great seeing Shawn dancing with the controllers because the sound was so well linked to his movement. I began to be able to recognise and predict what the sound was going to do as he moved. I think the use of wiimotes is going to really make waves in synchronising music, movement, visuals and who knows what else. Exciting!