DIY Electronic Sound Workshops with Nicolas Collins [SOLD OUT]
Friday, September 15, 2023 at 1:00pm
The Disengineering Lab, Room 220, Exley Science Center, 265 Church Street
FREE! Workshop limited to 20 participants.
Saturday, September 16, 2023 at 10:00am
The Disengineering Lab, Room 220, Exley Science Center, 265 Church Street
FREE! Workshop limited to 20 participants.
In two do-it-yourself workshops co-sponsored by the Wesleyan student group The Disengineering Society, Nicolas Collins ’76, MA ’79 will guide participants in prototyping three different devices.
“The Victorian Oscillator” uses a battery, a file, clip leads, a speaker, and resonant objects (a cup, bowl, drum, or cymbal) to quickly create a live electronic ensemble. "The Inductive Coil Pickup" can be used to pick up the stray signals that ooze out of telephones, computers, and pretty much any other electronic appliance. "Almost a Cracklebox" turns the homely LM386 amplifier integrated circuit into a touch-controlled glitch-oriented instrument. If time permits and energy holds, the workshop will conclude by introducing the pleasures of soldering as a means of moving prototypes from breadboards to circuit boards.
The workshops are limited to 20 participants. To request a placement, please fill out this form.
Nicolas Collins ’76, MA ’79 studied with Alvin Lucier at Wesleyan in the 1970s, and subsequently has collaborated with numerous musicians in the experimental and improvised music scenes. He was Artistic Director of STEIM (Amsterdam, Netherlands) in the 1990s, and is currently a Professor in the Department of Sound at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Research Fellow at the Orpheus Institute (Ghent, Belgium). An early adopter of microcomputers for live performance, he also makes use of homemade electronic circuitry and more-or-less conventional acoustic instruments. His book Handmade Electronic Music—The Art of Hardware Hacking, now in its third edition, has influenced emerging electronic music worldwide. Collins has the dubious distinction of having played at both CBGB and the Concertgebouw. For more information about Collins, please visit www.nicolascollins.com.
Read more about other events that are part of Nicolas Collins’ Residency at Wesleyan.