Half performance artist, half software engineer, Golan Levin manipulates the computer to create improvised soundscapes with dazzling corresponding visuals. He is at the forefront of defining new parameters for art.
Why you should listen to him:
Having worked as an academic at MIT and a researcher specializing in computer technology and software engineering, Golan Levin now spends most of his time working as a performance artist. Rest assured his education hasn't gone to waste, however, as Levin blends high tech and customized software programs to create his own extraordinary audio and visual compositions. The results are inordinately experimental sonic and visual extravaganzas from the furthest left of the field.
Many of his pieces force audience participation, such as Dialtones: A Telesymphony, a concert from 2001 entirely composed of the choreographed ringtones of his audience. Regularly exhibiting pieces in galleries around the world, and also working as an Assistant Professor of Electronic Time-Based Art at Carnegie Mellon University, Levin is unapologetically pushing boundaries to define a brave new world of what is possible.
His latest piece, Double-Taker (Snout), is installed at the Pittsburg Museum of Art.
"Golan Levin's work combines equal measures of the whimsical, the provocative, and the sublime in a wide variety of online, installation and performance media. "Onedotzero
Blog Posts on TED
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Digitally fabbed house for New Orleans rises at MOMA – July 15, 2008
If you were inspired by Neil Gershenfeld's TEDTalk on the FabLab -- where you can build just about anything you can dream of -- read on:
Larry Sass, from MIT's department of architecture, is leading a team that's building a digitally fabricated house in a vacant lot next to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. yourHOUSE is composed of thousands of interlocking pieces, cut on a ShopBot -- a computer-controlled milling machine about the size of a conference-room table.
yourHOUSE is a ground-up rethinking of how we make a house. Sass and a team of students analyzed the traditional New Orleans shotgun house, using digital imaging tools and old-fashioned research, such as interviewing people who live in these wonderful little homes. They modeled a way to build a house out of parts that could be created on-site and assembled in days without nails or screws. For the MOMA project, the parts were cut from recycled plywood on two ShopBots in Virginia and trucked to New York, where Sass and his team have been slotting them together to make a classic NOLA cottage, complete with front porch and lacy wooden trim.
You can follow the research and construction on MOMA's blog. Sass's team reports every Thursday on the MOMA site with build details and photos. ShopBot has been posting videos from the project too:
The MOMA exhibit, "Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling," opens July 20 and runs through October 20, 2008. Four other amazing small or manufactured homes are also part of the exhibit, including the beautiful Cellophane House from KeiranTimberlake and the adorably precise micro-compact home.
Photo above from ShopBot
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Wordle, an addictive new web toy – June 18, 2008
Jonathan Feinberg, a sometime collaborator of artist Golan Levin (watch Levin's TEDTalk), has given the world an addictive new web toy. Wordle turns any block of text into a word cloud -- like a tag cloud but prettier. It's hard to stop using it once you start. TEDTalks transcripts produce these handsome results:
ABOVE: Erin McKean redefines the dictionary
ABOVE: Murray Gell-Mann finds beauty and truth in physics
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Golan Levin on TED.com – April 20, 2007
Engineer and artist Golan Levin pushes the boundaries of what’s possible with audiovisuals and technology. In an amazing TED display, he shows two programs he wrote to perform his original compositions.
