10th May 2009: Discovered the artist and technologist James N Sears and his website: http://jamesnsears.com/ He has done some amazing work with Chua's circuit in building it into a synthisizer. There are some very interesting ausio files and a mindblowing video showing the oscillator readout in synch with the audio. Very encouraging.

Some notes on Chaos: chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems – that is, systems whose states evolve with time – that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, which manifests itself as an exponential growth of perturbations in the initial conditions, the behavior of chaotic systems appears to be random. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved, this behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos.

24th May 2009: Chaus circuit arrived from Hungary but first tests produce a very high frequency around 10 - 15khz and is not useful for hearing strange attractors. Perhaps changing capacitors and or resistors may help. Would like to source a powerful variable inductor or else build an inductorless version.

Have also been trying to work out the software app. Pure Data. Loooks promising and may prove to be a solution for EEG signal routing/processing. There are a few patches that come with that have some oscillators and have been experimenting with those.

Have borrowed an oscilloscope and have been tying out how to work that. I have produced a video peice based on videoing the oscilloscope screen close up on a varying phase space waveform. Sound was produced with a Pure Data oscillator patch

Olimex in Plovdiv, Bulgeria sent an email saying the EEG boards have been shipped, should arrive in a few weeks. Need to have EEG electrodes built soon, need to decide on active or passive electrodes.

Been thinking of the EEG signals as modulators of another waveform, as wave shapers. Need to do some experiments using 5 - 30hz waveforms and see how they effect other signals/oscillators. Run some simulation experiments, could use Pure Data for that.

Have been reading N. Kathryn Hayles book Chaos Unbound, there is an excellent summary of chaos math, will persist with that book.

Tried the Chaos software in the book Chaos a Software Collection for the P.C. but unfortunately none of the programs mapped to the soundcard. I thought that perhaps they might so that experimenters may connect to an oscilloscope and see the waveforms and I might be able to exploit those sonic possibilities, but alas...

The EEG circuits have arrived from Bulgaria! Looks like good quality workmanship too, I have joined the open EEG forums and have been communicating with people about the process of assembling the device. I have gathered the components, chemicals etc for contructing the active EEG electrodes and will build those shortly.

 
analog and digital PCB's from Bulgaria

Have begun making the active EEG electrodes which has involved learning to etch my own pcbs, it is fine and exacting work and I am not certain I will have functioning electrodes on the first attempt. I may need to try again and do it better, hopefully using finer tools: fine tipped soldering iron, good clamp or vice and a magnifying glass on a stand. The etched circuits look quite attractive and have suggested the notion of using the same technique to create objects de art.

the circuit design is printed onto glossy paper as dark as possible

the design is ironed onto the copper pcb surface

cut out and sanded, ready for the etching bath of ferric chloride

the etched circuit with black toner removed with acetone. ready for hole drilling

Performed with VOLT for the first time using the Fustigator as an instrument. I was just playing through my stereo system so the sound was not quite up to level. Video was Taken by Motoko on a stills camera and is only two breif clips I have looped to extend the peice.

Volt Live at None, Dunedin. 20/06/09  

I have constructed a new synth using similar oscillator circuits to the Fustigator, this unit has an input built into the box and the fustigator can be put into it to create 8 controllab le oscillators all going at once, a wild sound indeed.

Mini Fustigator and closeup on its oscillator circuit

Performed with Edie Stevens in her installation/performance Library of Babel playing the new mini fustigator through an old effects unit I have recently managed to get going (Zoom 2002) I played it from my studio at None which was directly adjacent to the installation area so that the sound could be heard through the thin walls, the other musicians were just through the door though you cant hear them in this recording, this is pure mini-fustigator

Did an experiment where I used the audio output from an old software tape playing on a tape deck and passed that into the input on the mini fustigator. The resulting hideous racket is documented here: 

3D Stunt Rider Modulation

Have just spent two weeks shifting house and studio, my studio has shifted from None Gallery in Dunedin out to my new place in Port Chalmers. The studio is smaller but will not cost any additional money.

New studio at Burns St, Port Chalmers

Have constructed a small portable instrument, the Twiddlebox, again using the oscillator circuit but very poertable. Played it with VOLT at the Cellars Bar gig through the Zoom 2002 and it performed adequately. It runs off a 9v battery and has a power on/off switch to ensure battery life.

The Twiddlebox

Prepared Bass.
Swapped two oscillators for a broken bass guitar, looks liked it was smashed in one of those manouvers made famous by The Who. I have made a one string bass with built in 'Fuzzy Dicer' effect I have built from the Nicholas Collins book Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking. The bass has a flashing light that modulates the oscillator to gate the distortion. The photoresistor can also be played manually. I have performed it with VOLT at the Cellars Bar Gig and at Chicks Hotel jam night much to the shock of thetrad/ blues players there.

Prepared Bass, recorded 21/08/09 Port Chalmers  

I remember when I was about 18 having this idea for an 'Earth Battery' and actually built one in my parents backyard. I got some lead and zinc plate metal and buried them in the soil, wired them up and measured the voltage coming off. I think they yeilded about half a volt but would run indefinitely. While working on the EEG machine I recalled this invention and just on a whim thought to try it out in my backyard in Port. As I didn't have lead or zinc I just put in two iron rods and measured the tops of them with the voltmeter at 0.3volts. I realised that this wasn't a battery effect as there was only one type of metal and a battery uses two so the voltage must actually be in the ground. I then built a preamp kit and hooked it up to a small battery powered amp I had made earlier to sonify the voltage. A substantial wide frequency hum was heard, documented here:

This sound is the directly amplified small current running in the soil in my backyard

Inspired by this I took the laptop, the 'electrodes' and preamp to two different locations in the countryside only to fing the signal was tiny in comparison and barely detectable with my current tools. I realised then that what was happenning in my backyard was mains hum 'pollution' from the houses. Subsequent online research bore this out. If I really wanted to be able to sonify the much fainter naturally occuring signals I would need a much more powerful portable preamp. This is the one I was using:

   
Jaycar preamp kit 'Prechamp' amplifies signals by about 40 times and plugged into portable battery powered handmade amp and found speaker

Online research revealed further information; the signal in the ground is called Telluric Currents and is sometimes used by geologists to analyse rock formations. There are definite patterns covering the whole earth and the exact origins of the signals is NOT KNOWN! More research revealed that certain rock types particularly lava rocks, display a constant measurable voltage. The artist Duncan Laurie used this phenomenon to make his research and installation Rock Music. The source of these signals is even more mysterious, some think they may resonate individually in response to gravitational energy that pervades the galaxy and may emanate from black holes. This research and thinking has opened up a new branch of research and practice, that of the sonification of naturally occurring signals. The EEG is such a signal as well as other forms of bioelectricity such as that found in plants and trees. The existance of these signals is well known to science and has been the subject of much psuedo-science and mysticism. What may be common place to the scientist often appears almost as magic to the artist.

In order to access these signals I need a much more powerful portable amplifier, as nothing like this is commercially available or is both offshore and expensive I set out to construct one according to plans I found on the internet here. The contruction of a device that will make the invisible signals visible has a poetic likeness to the magical construction of 'the tool of the craft' and has taken on a ritual aspect. This is reinforced by the technical challenge of the circuit itself and that the plans do not include simple instructions, the location and value of each component must be infered from the schematic itself, and the circuit board etched by hand.

 
Etched circuit board without and then with components, construction took about 15 hours to this still unfinished stage

2nd Sept 2009
Finished High Gain Amp but its still not working. Gonna try a few things like rewiring the power supply but have found a single Integrated Circuit that has four times the amplification ability and costs about a dollar. Its called an Instrumentation Amplifier and can amplify a signal 10,000 times.
Further research has also strongly suggested using lowpass filters to get rid of mains hum i.e. to roll off everything over 50hz...maybe essential.... link

10th Sept 2009 - Mains Hum Installation:

Activation involving electrodes placed in the ground to pick up pervasive electrical pollution induced by mains electricity. The resulting signal is then fed into a hand made oscillator circuit forming a playable instrument. Public and advertised event at Dunedin Polytech Art School

 
mains hum documentation

16th Sept 2009:
First build of new instrument amplifier circuit has failed to work, need to seek some more expert help. Have emailed head of electronics dept but no reply, plenty of other people to try.

Have commited to doing an installation at Chicks Hotel Port Chalmers with Sally Macintyre/Radio Cegeste on Oct. 16th will use the mains hum concept and develop it further.

Have wrote blurb for promotion of event thus:

Large raw electrodes placed in the soil of Chicks Hotel's basement are
massively amplified to produce a rich textural lively mains hum, which
is used as the input signal for four handmade gated oscillators,
forming a performable instrument. Ambient light within the venue is
collected on solar panels that power oscillators creating a real time
sonification of the lightscape. Microphones from outside the building
carry live sounds from the close-by container port. These multiple
sources are combined to create a real time en-situ re-imagining of the
building's internal electric field, lightscape and external
soundscape.