Darsha Hewitt / The World's Most Obsolete Portable Drum Machine

A listening session and Sample Salon with the Wurlitzer Sideman 5000 and Darsha Hewitt Manufactured in 1959 and often referred to as the cadillac of drum machines, the Wurlitzer Sideman 5000 is the world's oldest commercially available rhythm generator. Weighing in at 25 kg, this electromechanical vacuum tube operated instrument was revolutionary, allowing musicians to integrate a portable, non-human rhythm section into their performance. Although this machine is quite heavy and unwieldy in comparison to what DJs and electronic musicians carry to gigs today, it is a historically significant machine in the evolution towards portable electronic-music production. Though highly technically complex and completely obsolete Darsha Hewitt revived this machine and produced the first ever comprehensive technical documentation of the Sideman for the internet. The videos are technically rigorous yet framed as a beginner-friendly media archeological investigation into the world of electronics. The artist will conduct a demonstration/listening session with the machine and wire it up so that people can record samples of old fashion electronic ballroom dance sequences and mid-twentieth century machine noise.

About Darsha Hewitt

Darsha Hewitt is a Canadian new media artist known for her examinations of communication technology in the domestic sphere and her use of DIY aesthetics and practices as an artistic method. She makes electromechanical sound installations, drawings, how-to videos and experimental performances with handmade audio electronics. She works in the Faculty of Media at the Bauhaus University, she recently held a guest professorship in the New Media department at the Kunsthochschule Kassel and is presently a fellow at the Graduate School at the Art University of Berlin. She recently presented her work at: Elektra Festival (CA), Halle14 (DE), Modern Art Oxford (UK), WRO Media Art Biennale (PL), FACT (UK), CTM Festival (DE), and LEAP Berlin. Her recent experimental educational video series A Side Man 5000 Adventure, where she restored the world’s oldest Electronic Drum Machine for the Internet has been reviewed in several media arts forums such as Creative Applications and also the highly revered technical publicationMake:Magazine. Her performance of 20 Oscillators in 20 has been written about in Hacker forum Hack-A-Day and Create Digital Music. This work was also a field research subject in the Music, Digitization, Mediation: Towards Interdisciplinary Music Studies project based in the Faculty of Music at Oxford University. She has been awarded several commissions and production stipends from Canadian, German and EU funded Programs such as The Art and Civic Media’ program at the „Art and Civic Media“ of the Innovation Incubator at Leuphana University of Lüneburg and an International Production Stipend from The Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art, Oldenburg (DE). In 2013 she was nominated for the Marler European Sound Art Award (DE) and completed a Fellowship in the Sound Art program at Hochschule für bildende künste, Braunschweig (DE). Darsha is an avid technologist and educator. Her do-it-yourself electronics workshops are an integral part of her discipline and are presented internationally. In 2013 she founded the DARDI_2000 Mentorship Program in partnership with The Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM) in Amsterdam.

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Artist video

Krisjanis Rijnieks / Projection Mapping with the Raspberry Pi

Personal background, creating a projection mapping tool for the Raspberry Pi, my master's thesis, projection mapping workshops, further development of the projection mapping tool, invitation to join my next workshop.

About Krisjanis Rijnieks

Krisjanis Rijnieks is a media artist constantly somewhere between creative coding, projection mapping and digital fabrication. Originally from Riga, Latvia, has studied new media at the Helsinki Media Lab, now residing in Berlin, spending a lot of time at the Fab Lab Berlin, being friendly with Spektrum Berlin and organising Projection Mapping with the Raspberry Pi workshops. Once a year he runs a Digital Fabrication Studio course at the Aalto Fab Lab in Helsinki, he is also author of the book Cinder–Begin Creative Coding.

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Servando Barreiro / Live coding with puredata

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About Servando Barreiro

Servando Barreiro it's a nomad digital artist, creating graphics & sounds in forms of installations, performances and workshops.

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