Michael Una

Upcoming shows

2008-04-24T11:48:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. Next Wednesday, April 30th I'll I’ll be performing a live looping audio set as part of the Butterfly Social Club’s Re:Vivify Wednesday series. There will be live video, artmaking, bodywork, fortunetelling, and probably a whole lot of hip urban hippies.

9pm, 722 W. Grand, next to the Funky Buddha Lounge.

Be there or be a hippy-hating Republican.

The next day I'll be driving up to Minneapolis for the Midwest leg of BENT Festival. It'll be three days of circuit-tweaking excitement.

I'll be exhibiting my Beat/Bleep bikes, giving a workshop on building your own Drum Robot Friday, and playing a live set on Saturday with my band Memory Selector.

Local Minneapolis blog l'etoile has an interview with Memory Selector as one of their weekend event picks, which can be viewed here (at the bottom).

If you're in Minneapolis or Wisconsin, I highly recommend you check it out.

Robot Drummer

2008-04-22T07:32:00.000-07:00

In preparation for my upcoming workshop at BENT Fest Minneapolis, I've been assembling and implementing the HighlyLiquid MSA-R MIDI decoder kit.

A preview of the results:

Robot drummer from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Zigzags

2008-04-18T12:30:00.000-07:00

Zigzag_v1 from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Excerpt from live show, 4/5 at Happy Dog Gallery

2008-04-15T08:41:00.000-07:00

Michael Una at Bigger Than Your Life from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Grid Transformatiions

2008-04-11T10:43:00.000-07:00

A sketch of a little idea I'm working on for BENT Fest video projection.

Grid interference patterns from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Electromechanical sound generation

2008-04-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

Jejunum

2008-04-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

Last night when most sane people were asleep, I was drawing this diagram of the small intestines for my clients here in LA. It turned out so pretty I thought I'd share it:

Show this Saturday

2008-04-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

For its first anniversary, arts collective Deadline Projects presents this multi-media exhibition of works tackling big issues, like space, time, religion and debt. Plus, the opening is sponsored by Goose Island!

I will have one interactive piece in the show, and I'll be playing a live musical set starting at 7:30pm. More live electronic music will follow, by Moment Sound.

SATURDAY, APRIL 5th, 2008
7PM-MIDNIGHT
HAPPY DOG GALLERY
1542 N. MILWAUKEE
CHICAGO, IL 60622

One night only.

Bigger Than Your Life
A one-night art event not to be missed: Deadline Projects's one-year anniversary show!

Deadline Projects is proud to present Bigger than Your Life, a multi-media one-night art exhibition. This time around, Deadline Projects attempts to grapple with ideas that are bigger than our brains can handle and make sense of them using installation, print, painting, photography and sculpture.

We're all surrounded by things and concepts that are huge and unknowable in their entirety. The Iraq war is one example- it's so much bigger than any one person at this point, and as a single human we can have difficulty approaching the subject in a workable way. Or, technological progression- it moves so fast and touches so many parts of our lives, but the average person has very little input to direct and control it. We get caught up in these events and ideas without comprehending fully their true meaning, and the most common course of action is to ignore large parts of the problem and simply deal with what's in front of us.

Michael Una is building a radio transmitter to beam voices into space, ensuring that some part of the show's audience lives on forever in the vast heart of the universe. Sarah Perez takes on Debt – something that usually falls outside of our understanding in its ever expanding and seemingly unconquerable nature by making a sculpture that uses her own money -literally. Gretel Garcia and Una will be collaborating to create an installation made out of multiple digital clocks that will be programmed to flash 12:00 simultaneously – reminding us that time is always at our back. Painter nikki hollander puts pop culture under her scope and uses the forum of the art gallery to confront the public with the unavoidable eye of paparazzi. Others like Shawn Stucky and Marc Salha will be tackling issues of politics and religion in prints and paintings.

* Image credit, Clockwise from upper left: Postcard design by Stephen Shapiro, screenprint by Shawn Stucky, illustration by Damien James, sculpture by Sarah Perez.

Participating Artists:

Arielle Bielak
Gretel Garcia
nikki hollander
Damien James
Blake Parish Lewis
Sarah Perez

Holly Sabin
Marc Salha
Stephen Shapiro
Shawn Stucky
Kyra Termini
Michael Una

Musical performances by www.momentsound.com

Deadline Projects is proud to announce that its anniversary show is sponsored by Chicago's own Goose Island Beer Company! We thank them for their support of the local arts community.

Seven-pointed star

2008-03-31T12:14:00.000-07:00

I drew this shape to guide the layout of some LEDs for a sound-reactive wearable visual display, and the shapes looked nice all by themselves:

More in-progress shots to come.

Cyclical AC on/off device

2008-03-21T14:19:00.000-07:00

I just completed this little device and it's working pretty well.

It switches incoming AC power on and off in a cyclical pattern, about 1.5 times per second.

A battery powers a small worm-gear motor, which pushes a levered switch with its' eccentric cylinder. The switch completes the AC circuit.

Simple, I know, but I get kind of nervous when working with AC and I wanted this to be safe and effective. The whole thing is contained in a plastic box, so no chance of accidental contact. This will be a key part in a project for the upcoming Deadline Projects show, Bigger Than Your Life.

SYNC Fest pics and video

2008-03-18T13:30:00.001-07:00

SYNC Fest was probably one of the most awesome experiences of my life- the people were awesome, my set was near-perfect, and it looked and sounded incredible.

The venue was excellent as well. It took place at the University of Michigan's Duderstadt Center, which houses all kinds of awesome computer-based artmaking labs:

The opening acts were both pretty amazing, too. The University of Michigan's Digital Music Ensemble did an interpretation of Stockhausen's String Quartet for Helicopters. Four people played string instruments, while four remote-control helicopter pilots tried not to kill anyone, and some tech folks processed the audio and video live. It was pretty amazing:

Bill Van Loo and J. Schnable kicked out the smooth ambient grooves, with some excellent video to match.

I headlined the evening, apparently:

And, as I was packing up my gear, they handed me a DVD of my performance. It's pretty amazing- I had no idea it was going to look this good. I highly recommend that you watch the video in full-screen and with either headphones or decent speakers that reproduce bass:

Michael Una performing at SYNC Fest 08 from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Big thanks to Heather Konzman, who orchestrated an most excellent evening.

Audio snippet

2008-03-12T07:44:00.000-07:00

Here's a little bit of audio from my SYNC fest preparations this week:

All loops recorded live.

SYNC Fest

2008-03-10T14:39:00.000-07:00

Is going to rock your world, Ann Arbor!

Ready for SYNC

2008-03-09T20:45:00.001-07:00

This upcoming Friday, March 14th, I'm going to be performing a live looping electro-acoustic improvisational thing at SYNC festival, which is run by the University of Michigan.

I've been practicing every day for the last two weeks getting ready for it, and things are coming along well. At this point the kinks have been ironed out, and I'm just working on my stage moves and keeping a good flow going.

For anyone who'll be in Ann Arbor on Friday, the show starts at 7pm.

I've uploaded a new song called "The ease of being" here that was just recorded about an hour ago during my practice. It's a small sample of the approach I'm taking with this one:

For the geeks out there, everything was recorded spontaneously into Ableton Live. MIDI programming was generated by incoming audio, and I used a homemade footcontroller to record the loops, then tweaked some things using a joystick I've conifgured. Also, you'll hear some spacey laser-type sounds which were generated by a little device I set up, which I'm calling the "Flash radio oscillator":

This has been really fun getting the performance together, and I'm reminded that I was doing the same thing last year around this time for a set of shows at the Subterranean and in Minneapolis. In my opinion, my live musical expression has grown by leaps and bounds and conitnues to evolve in many ways. One year has made a huge difference, and I'm ready to rock this party.

Pics from UIC's Design Visualization Lab workshop

2008-03-07T08:09:00.000-08:00

Last Monday, February 25th I gave a talk and a workshop on circuit bending and hand building.

I worked out a short powerpoint presentation giving an overview of electronic theory and why circuit bending works, then conducted a hands-on workshop where the students got to crack open some toys and experiment with them.

Later on, some of the students succeeded in building an optical theremin from scratch. Overall, I was very impressed with the students dedication to learning the skills at hand, and their perseverance in building the circuits. They were much more successful than I was during my first attempt at circuit building. Having a breadboard helps...

Some photos from the event:

Also, for those interested, here's my powerpoint talk:

Talk at UIC

2008-02-19T09:26:00.000-08:00

Next Monday, February 25th, I'm going to be giving a talk and workshop at UIC's graduate studies' Design Visualization Laboratory:

I don't think it's open to the public, but I wanted to show off Tesia's excellent flyer design. W3rd.

Beat/Bleep Bikes showing in LA

2008-01-28T11:31:00.000-08:00

If you like bicycles and art and a possible collision of the two, please stop by the Bike Oven, 3706 N. Figueroa St., on Feb. 8 for a smashing good time.

Here, There and Everywhere, a group art exhibition at the Bike Oven, brings together the work of 10 diverse artists from LA, New York, Chicago, and California whose experience on two wheels has affected their ways of being, seeing and experiencing the city.

LA based artist Lisa Anne Auerbach’s fleet of red unicycles, originally part of her Unicycle Rental Shop at High Desert Test Sites, to Chicago’s Mike Una who creates funky outer-space disco beats by riding a bicycle, from Davis and Davis’ Instructions for Female Subjects (Sexercycle), to Brooklyn’s own Taliah Lempert who will paint a custom commemorative portrait of your favorite bicycle for a reasonable fee.

More details can be found here.

MGFest 2008

2008-01-21T14:47:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday I exhibited two of my audio sculptures as part of MGFest 2008. My pieces were a nice contrast to the primarily video-based works making up most of the festival, and I think they were a hit because of it.

Here's Octophonopod, installed here to fill the room with sound. I think in the future I will try to keep the pods clustered closer together:

Octophonopod at MGFest 2008 from Michael Una on Vimeo.

And here's Snowy Day, which was especially popular. People just stood around and stared, which I think it my intention for a lot of my work: getting people to lose track of time while contemplating the dynamic nature of vibrations.

Snowy Day at MGFest 2008 from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Unfortunately, as the night wore on, the amplifier circuit became saturated in milk and began to malfunction. I was lucky that the malfunction was visually interesting, but next time I think I need to waterproof the electronics.

How to make a mic flag

2008-01-14T09:07:00.000-08:00

I'm cross-posting this here and on createdigitalmusic.com, because I'm pretty happy with the results.

We've all seen newspeople interviewing the "average guy on the street" with this sort of device affixed to the handle of their mic:

Ever wanted to add a veneer of professionalism to your otherwise ameteurish audio/video production? It's easy! Here's how:

First things first- you could just buy a blank one, but where's the fun in that?

The CDM staff wanted a mic flag for use at the upcoming NAMM show, and I couldn't say no to a MAKE-type challenge. Liz McLean-Knight clued me in to this instructional Youtube video:

I found the video to be a bit overly complicated, but it gives you the general idea. You need a small box with a hole through the top and bottom, and you pack the interior with foam to hold the mic snugly. No sweat (theoretically).

I've had this little metal project box hanging around for a long time, and it was the perfect shape. A bit of measuring, guessing, and heavy Dremel action gave me a nice mic-sized (if irregular) hole through the center. After a quick consultation with Peter, the decision was made to emulate the feel of this vintage NBC flag:

Two coats of black paint later, I was ready to affix the CDM logos. A little bit of paint touch-up, making sure the foam is perforated to allow the mic tight passage, and ta-da! My Superscope condenser is a little slim for the flag, but Peter's Shure Beta 87C should fit like a glove.

All we need now is a big, foamy windscreen for those hard-hitting reports...

Give the gift of Geek

2007-12-12T08:30:00.001-08:00

I, along with several others "in the know," have contributed to a recommended shopping list for that A/V geek in your life, which can be found here at createdigitalmusic.com.

Whether your budget is $15 or $15,000 (some people went a little crazy with the wish lists), you will most certainly find something to inspire a most excellent object-lust.

My favorites:

This space-pod chair has a built-in hifi sound system, with A SUBWOOFER ALREADY EMBEDDED INSIDE IT TO VIBRATE YOUR ASS. Seriously. it'll set you back a cool $1899 plus shipping. But you get your choice of colors, upholstery fabrics, the whole shebang.

Synthesizers.com has a module-of-the-month club where they will send you a kit to build a modular synthesis module every month for a year. Plus a rack, power supply, and the nice faceplates and everything. It's like $120 a month, but somehow totally worth it. One module per month seems like just the right pace.

So check out the full list and drool.

This is for you

2007-12-06T13:44:00.000-08:00

I took my sweet time documenting this show, but here's a short interview with me talking/showing my psychophysical sculpture This is for you at the Deadline Projects show of the same name.

The video was shot and produced by the talented Peter James of 4AM Productions.

This is for you from Michael Una on Vimeo.

Here's a few photos taken by a photographer from going.com (whose name I can't remember but he was a super nice guy):

All photos from the show can be seen here.

Dorkbot in NewCity

2007-12-06T11:57:00.000-08:00

NewCity (a local free paper) has a brief article on the last Dorkbot meeting, it's on page 2 of the print edition:

Click here for the article on NewCity's site.

A good time was had by all.

Dare You Accept The Circuit-Bending Challenge?

2007-10-13T15:01:00.000-07:00

The Circuitmaster over at Getlofi.com and I were talking the other day and came up with a fun idea:

More info can be found here.

Pics of Octophonopod at ArtXposium

2007-09-24T11:06:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pics of the completed Octophonopod installation. About 350 people came to the show between Friday night and Sunday afternoon.

The show itself was great- a huge variety of work by over 65 artists, the vast majority of which was of a high quality. I met a lot of fun people and hung out with Irene Perez's Spanish mother, who spoke very little English. A good time was had by all.

I made a short video documenting the piece's creation:

Here's the 'pod packed into crates for transportation, along with the power supply, amps, tools, and other assorted necessities:

And here's the finished installation:

Big thanks to Anni Holm (right) for organizing the show, and to Brian for helping run it, along with Irene Perez (left) who also let us crash at her house with her physicist husband and two friendly cats.

Show this weekend

2007-09-17T08:20:00.000-07:00

This weekend I will be exhibiting my piece Octophonopod as part of ArtXposium. It's going to be huge, with over 60 artists exhibiting. I highly recommend that you check it out.