I worked with the amazing artist Kerry Tribe on two pieces for her solo show at the Arnolfini museum in Bristol, UK. We developed the concept and executed both projects together, Milton Torres Sees a Ghost and The Last Soviet.

For Milton Torres Sees a Ghost we designed a system using two reel-to-reel decks and a massive loop of tape. An interview with Milton Torres, an American RAF pilot who saw a UFO, is recoreded and played on one deck then travels over 200 feet to another deck, which erases and plays the erased feed. Each deck has an oscilloscope to display the audio visually. Using rollers (made with the rapid-prototyping and electronics help of Pylon Technical) the long loop of tape is run along the walls of the gallery, making a very engaging sculptural and kinetic piece. There’s lots more info here on Kerry Tribe’s site.

For The Last Soviet, I built a 1/12th scale model of the interior of the Mir base block for use in a short film about Sergei Krikalev and his stay on the Mir during the last days of the Soviet Union.

The model was built into a rig, mounted on an engine hoist, and then filled with mineral oil to give the illusion of microgravity, while allowing the functioning of electronic devices (LCD screens, lights, etc) inside the model. The film is shown on a loop in the gallery. I also did a lot of analog video distortion effects using, among other things, a DVD player, an old Apple II, cables, and a glass of water. Again, more info is on Kerry’s site.

Film stills from The Last Soviet