This is the blog of Kal Spelletich. CONTACT: Spellkal (at) gmail.com + Art, technology, humans and robots, and, well, the journey http://www.kaltek.org/
“In the dark times, Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times”
-Bertolt Brecht
An upcoming art exhibit I am in:
the final letter in the [ ] alphabet OMEGA
Mamma Anderson, Ala Ebtekar, Francesco Clemente, Mildred Howard, Paul Kos, Susan Middleton, David Nash, Gay Outlaw, John Priola, Jose Maria Sicilia, Isabelle Sorrell, Kal Spelletich, Leo Valledor, Theodora Varnay-Jones.
Exhibition curated by Isabelle Sorrell
Opening Reception March 5, 2022, 5–7pm. Exhibition March 3 – April 30, 2022
CLOSING EVENT TBA.
I am showing two video pieces, one is a vitrine with a sunsetting sky. An homage to light, nature and space. The 2nd is a reliquary with a video of friends’ hands I asked to recreate praying gestures.
The Amazing Paul Kos has a solo Exhibit on the top floor gallery, this exhibit is downstairs.
Here is an etching of data from 2 illegally planted Avocado Trees I planted across the street from my home 16 years ago.
Position of the trees: Latitude:37°45’46.4″N Longitude:122°24’41.9″W I regularly plant trees and plants in abandoned spots in San Francisco. This is guerrilla gardening. I hacked a sensor to harvest data from each tree. This data was sonified and processed to two etching robots to scribe on a plate. The etching is being produced by Maeght Editions in Paris, France. , https://www.maeght.com/editions/
Tree #1. Is named Cassandra. I clipped two alligator clips to a leaf and a tiny branch and recorded data signals, They were sent as sound waves to a subwoofer with a scribe attached to the subwoofer speaker cone to create a sort of seismographic document of the trees life onto the plate. There are two lines of marks on the plate from two separate data harvests. These are lines 1. & 3.
Tree #2. Is named Helenus. I placed a sensor at the roots and at a leaf to record signals from this tree. The data signals from Helenus are translated via a sound sensor triggering a robotic arm with a scribe attached to it.
There are two lines of circular marks on the plate from two separate data harvests. These are lines 2. & 4.
As California burns and the ice caps melt I think, what I can do beyond cutting down on my own footprint on the planet. Many years ago I started planting trees and plants anywhere I can. Maybe the true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
Scaling the Cosmos: Global Human Positioning Night Sky Laboratory, a spectacular public experiment across the skyline, visible from space, illuminating the landscape on planet earth. Scaling the Cosmos will inspire wonder in audiences across the Bay Area while uplifting under recognized contributions to science by women and championing the importance of scientific literacy.
To realize this project, we will point a laser from atop the Salesforce Tower toward Mt. Tamalpais (14 miles away stretching across the San Francisco Bay and two counties), recreating Armand Hippolyte Louis Fizeau’s historic 1849 experiment calculating and measuring the speed of light. The experiment will also honor astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who made one of the most important astrophysics discoveries of the 20th century: the radio pulsar. Spelletich will transmit simple Morse Code, audio (soundsand stories, poems), messages to other life forms/Extraterrestrial Intelligence and other codified data through laser light to communicate messages addressing our existence in the cosmos alongside observations from the public. We would conduct our Art & Science Light Projection Experiments for one month of Thursdays.
Sample messages include: Be Here Now; As is the Microcosm So is the Macrocosm; C = 3×108 (the speed of light). Scaling the Cosmos will be a remarkable public event that makes tangible the obscure measurement of light, placing control of this wondrous technology and powerful communication tool in the hands of the public.
Fizzeau’s historic 172 year old experiment eventually allowed us to use the speed of a light wave as the length standard to determine the scale of the cosmos. Using contemporary and original 1800’s technology from lasers, light sensors, and satellite positioning, we will recreate this historic experiment. This is big picture science and art looking at deep time and space.
Bell Burnell’s discovery, which she made as a graduate student, eventually earned the Nobel Prize in 1974. It could one day form the basis of a “galactic positioning system” for navigating outside our solar system. But Bell Burnell didn’t collect the Nobel. Instead, the award went to her supervisor at the University of Cambridge, Antony Hewish. She is now rightly recognized as the pioneer who made this breakthrough discovery and an inspiration to those addressing gender-bias in science.
Here is a prototype of the project. Scaling the Cosmos will be 63,360 time larger
The project is also inspired by Spelletich’s observations of the Eiffel Tower — how it was used, and eventually saved, because it became a locus for cutting edge scientific experiments and optical communication from fiber optics to Morse code. Scaling the Cosmos activates the newest addition to the San Francisco skyline, the Salesforce Tower, with a call for public science that echoes the Eiffel Tower experiments in Paris.
AUDIENCE AND INTERACTIVITY Scaling the Cosmos will span across two counties and be visible across the Bay Area, reaching millions of people. In the lineage of the Bay Lights, San Jose Semaphore, Pi in the Sky, and other large-scale public art projects originating from ZERO1 over the past twenty years, Scaling the Cosmos will be accessible to viewers across a large geographic area at no cost. The beam of light will inspire awe in viewers of all ages, inviting them to rediscover the wonder of science.
Imagery of two lasers reflected and playing off of each other
The online presence of the project will solicit input from audiences and guide their open-ended inquiry into the history of science. We will give a live feed as we measure the speed of light and measure the exact distance from sky scraper to mountain. The project website will also host a series of interdisciplinary talks by artists, scientists, and philosophers that will expand on the history of science and contemporary understandings of science and culture.
Scaling the Cosmos is part of a series of works by Spelletich that celebrate the scientific method and reference foundational scientific discoveries with an emphasis on marginalized scientists. Spelletich recreates historic gravity, light, and sound wave experiments that allowed us to understand the scope and scale of our planet, our solar system, to know our beginnings and our place among the starsand the expansive entirety of the cosmos. These recreations and interpretations celebrate the scientific method and reference foundational scientific discoveries. With them, Spelletich aspires to inspire social engagement, both inside the gallery and to the outside world. Spelletich’s creations carry us back in time, to when the sciences and the arts were one, to the fundamentals of how the universe works, how we observe the cosmos, and how we determine humanity’s place within it.
In the contemporary context of politicization and polarization around science, Spelletich is working to celebrate science through art. With the firm assertion that science is real, Spelletich confronts flat earthers, climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers, and a resurgent eugenics movement with an aesthetic invitation to join in the collective practice of understanding the world around us.
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In which I experiment with the Burnell Galactic Positioning System at the Edge of the San Francisco Bay. Experimenting with space, light and sound on the edge of the precipice for 8 Minutes
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NOTES:
Notes: Salesforce to Mt. Tam. DISTANCE 14 MILES.
DIY Science DIY Scientist
Maps and mapping
Scale of the universe
Native American signal fires There is a long tradition of native people in the Great Basin use signal fires on major peaks to quickly transmit news across the basins (valleys). During the great surveys of the 19th century of the Bay Area to Nevada (some of the same peaks used by native Americans), from which to project light with mirrors to triangulate parallels of latitude). John Muir and Kit Carson guided Frémont during the first exploration of the Sierra Nevada range in California. (They were advised by Native people, as well).
Revealing a deep mystery Touching Our Sense Of Wonder and Awe
Exploring the Structure of the Cosmos
Between Scale and Eternity
Jocelyn Burnell is still alive.
Astronaut William Anders said that although the astronauts went on their mission to explore the moon, what they really discovered was the planet Earth. He added: “I think it’s important for people to understand they are just going around on one of the smaller grains of sand on one of the spiral arms of this kind of puny galaxy […] it [Earth] is insignificant, but it’s the only one we’ve got.”
The speed of light is one of the most well-established values in physics, traveling at over 186,000 miles a second, can be measured so accurately that the meter is now defined in terms of it. But before the 17th century, most scientists, including such giants as Johannes Kepler and Rene Descartes, considered the speed of light to be infinite, able to travel any distance instantaneously. Galileo Galilei was among the first to question this assumption and attempt to measure the speed of light experimentally.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” ― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science” – Albert Einstein We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. -George Orwell
James Hutton (1726–1797);[2][3] his “system of the habitable Earth Darwin Silent spring
The experiential nature of the experience of deep time has also greatly influenced the work of Joanna Macy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_Macy She is an international spokesperson for anti-nuclear causes, peace, justice, and environmentalism,[1] most renowned for her book Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World and the Great Turning initiative, which deals with the transformation from, as she terms it, an industrial growth society to what she considers to be a more sustainable civilization. She has created a theoretical framework for personal and social change, and a workshop methodology for its application. Her work addresses psychological and spiritual issues, Buddhist thought, and contemporary science. She currently lives in Berkeley, Ca.
Korten’s 2006 book The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community argues that the development of empires about 5,000 years ago initiated unequal distribution of power and social benefits to the small portion of the population that controlled them. He also argues that corporations are modern versions of empire, both being social organizations based on hierarchies, chauvinism, and domination through violence.
The Roman Catholic theologian Thomas Berry (1914–2009) explored spiritual implications of the concept of deep time. Berry proposes that a deep understanding of the history and functioning of the evolving universe is a necessary inspiration and guide for our own effective functioning as individuals and as a species.
How do we save what is left of the planet? How do we save humankind? The sciences and the arts are the key.
Documentation of a wind powered Banjo. Wind and even squirrels activate tree branches triggering banjo. As performed in the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina 8/2018.
This year, CCC hosts the Remote Chaos Experience (rC3) instead of an on-site event in Leipzig. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_Computer_Club This endeavor requires creativity, joy of experimentation and active support.
Title: Art, Science and Artistic Revolutionary Practices
Description: An interactive workshop/demonstration of my art and machines that are about sound, science, absurd engineering, interactivity and poetically inspired tech. I will talk a bit about my life as an artist and educator. Then demonstrate a number of my works while fielding questions.
How to build low-cost tech art for next to nothing. Hack Arduino sensors by not using an Arduino! Collaborate as often as possible, 3 people are a revolution and movement. Advice on showing your weird tech art. Why Art!? Because we can and are changing the world with it. By finding your voice you become empowered and discover your reason for being on the planet! Once you do that, there is no stopping you.
Bio: For almost 4 decades Kal Spelletich has built interactive machines and robots. Spelletich’s work enacts a liberated awareness and pushes his audience toward creative responses to technology in their lives. His work explores the interface of humans and science to put people in touch with philosophical interactive experiences.
A face-to-face event with 17,000 people will be neither responsible nor legally feasible this year. But after this tedious and painful 2020, we really deserve a nice finale! This is why the rC3 – Remote Chaos Experience will be held. As much as virtually possible, we want to convey the joy, content, togetherness and wonderful madness that make up a Chaos Communication Congress.
Hackers are used to remote work and online meetings. This makes our annual face-to-face meetings all the more important. Of course, it will be difficult to re-enact online all the things that make Congress what it is for us. But then someone said it would be impossible. Our ambition was aroused. Just like every year, we want to see the concentrated energy and creativity of hackers with dedication.
A video release by this fine gentleman, Dereck Higgins, an experimental composer in his own right, commenting on my release: https://youtu.be/rj1IsLeJt4M +
However, everything travels on cordeschi-like screeches, dark factory interior atmospheres, rhythmic flapping in loops, gamelan-like hammering (My Own Fibonacci System), pleasantly graceful short circuits (Tracks Of Machine Tool Motors). Overall, a devastating / symphonic vision far from the senseless accumulation of noise. Daje Kal! https://www.kathodik.org/2021/07/06/un-piccolo-mucchio-di-uscite-public-eyesore-eh/ +
+ ‘The Old World is Dying and the New World Struggles to be Born’ – doesn’t that remind you of the beast that Yeats slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? With ‘Now Is the Time of Monsters’, KAL SPELLETICH suggests that he feels the same way. For 38 years he has been working with sound machines of his own design at the interface between humans and machines, automatons, robots and uses the technology to feed back us to the basics: ‘Mud / Electricity + Intelligence = Life’, ‘Economics (Labor) / Pay = Slavery ‘. Whether there is a reference to Nick Soudnick and his ZGAmoniums in The Blessing of the ZHENGKE ZGA37 RG (eh? 115, gray C50), I don’t know, but Spelletich definitely belongs to the Gyro Gearloose Brotherhood founded by Russolo, just like Bryan Day itself, to the futuristic branch. Cracking cascades suggest a slot machine connected with delay, a wave thrower from the Intonarumori family, the rough rumbling torque afterwards a circling grater and hum. The swamp thing combines a dull throbbing loop with vibrato, in which an impression of paranormal voices wafts through. ‘My Own Fibonacci System’ brings a fast trotting and jingling motor skills with a fast pulse, followed by whirring, boring noise and an iron ball purring back and forth on a percussively struck rail. The B-side delivers more, dull throbbing and hissing friction, dark and almost solemn. As with a didgeridoo and iron-containing wooshes, Spelletich promptly designs a ‘Theory of Heaven’. But gods have always been difficult to distinguish from monsters in the dark. One of them slumbers his cthulhuesque walk to the roaring roar, followed by roaring horror to a fluttering beat. Something more is always suggested than just mechanics and automaton sound. The engine almost wants to shout something again, say something, the factory becomes a dance floor for beat patterns and piercing impulses. Finally, dull cascades of cracking mechanics and roaring rumors again drum and bounce. The machine reveals in the ear those hybrid, even chimerical features that are so beautifully poppy on interfaces and screens, every hour new and nerve-ticklish and, to put it with Lem, superimposed darn benign. [BA 109 rbd]
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I am excited to try this as an experiment for MY RECORD RELEASE PARTY. Everyone is invited. Those that purchase ahead of time are invited to join in for an improv noise sesh we are going to record livestream event and release, date in the next couple of weeks TBA.
“All of the sounds heard on this recording are from custom made machine/robot instruments. None of the sounds on this recording come from store bought instruments, samples, albums nor field recordings. The sounds come from sound machines I made. Let’s just call me a purist.
I often felt like I was coaxing my motorcycle to talk. Or training a puppy. This work can be utilized in many ways…. for instance put it on and do your housework. Vacuuming the floor or grinding coffee allows you to perform and collaborate with me!
These are compositions not so much songs. They are arranged sounds.” — Kal Spelletich, 2020
I recorded several albums in the 1980’s in Austin and in the early ’90’s here in SF. I have waited long enough to start back with this body of work..
And oh, the ZHENGKE ZGA37RG is a motor I very frequently use these days, it is truly a blessing!
What Spelletich has done here is like making compositions with your blender, a dripping faucet and a chorus of mewing kittehs. Truly a monument to ingenuity and madness meets FINDING poetry in a factory of chaos. We are lucky to have a record label on the planet with the foresight to acknowledge the exceptionally unique. -Luigi Carlo Filippo Russolo
Kal Spelletich: Machines. Recorded in San Francisco, June 2020. Mixed by Bryan Day. Mastered by James Plotkin. http://www.kaltek.org license all rights reserved
with assistance from a live studio audience controlling lights and a crawling Root Robot.
at CounterPulse San Francisco.
Tues, Oct 27, 7pm-8pm , 2020.
Edited 4:00 version of performance from 45:00
EDITED VIDEO OF PERFORMANCE
Control your surveillance You are invited to tend to the fragile equilibrium of life in an era of environmental emergency and mass extinction. Collaborate with the artists to operate robots and create sounds live, on stage, as we explore the intersection of surveillance, machines, and our sentient selves. Plant the wood for your coffin or a tree that remembers the touch of your hands when all human life is gone. 7pm: Reception7:30pm: Participatory Performance Come early to sign up to be a part of the experience.
Ronja Ver: Movement and voice
Kal Spelletich: Robots and sound
Some Excellent Photos HERE:
About the Artists Ronja Ver is a dancer, dance maker, teacher, mother, and activist. A perpetual student of performance as a way of participating in community and a tool for social change, they are deeply inspired by physical, social and mass movement, and its capacity to create meaningful impact on a personal and global scale. Ver holds an MFA in dance from Hollins University and is proud to be spinning underwater in Steve Paxton’s DVD Material For The Spine. http://soluja.blogspot.com/
For almost 4 decades Kal Spelletich has built interactive machines and robots. Spelletich’s work enacts a liberated awareness and pushes his audience toward creative responses to technology in their lives. His work explores the interface of humans and science to put people in touch with philosophical interactive experiences.
Matchbox is an art+tech interactive lab series, hosted at CounterPulse with partners ZERO1 & Kinetech Arts, that seeds collaboration beyond discipline.
Designed as public practicum labs, Matchbox pairs creative technologists with dancers and choreographers to spark critical investigations and seed cutting-edge works.
Matchbox is supported by the San Francisco Grants for the Arts’ Neighborhood Arts Collaborative. Accessibility services are funded. by the California Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Arts and Disability Center at the University of California Los Angeles. Live Audio Description by Rachael Dichter of Gravity Access Services is additionally generously supported by the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, and The Kenneth Rainin Foundation.
Title: Robots, Science and Artistic Revolutionary Practices Very surprised and HAPPY to be awarded the Steve Wilson Lecture Series. The series focuses on artists working in — art/technology/science/culture. The lecture series is open to all, both within and outside of the University. The Wilson Lectures involves a public talk on my work followed by Q&A Thursday October 22, 2020 2-3P.M. PST https://sfsu.zoom.us/j/84222471671?pwd=S0toMllHRGFRQUoxQldFSGQyU1VmQT09 ID: 84222471671 Passcode: 686503
Digital Media / Emerging Technologies College of Liberal & Creative Arts San Francisco State University This means so much to me Steve was a mentor, friend and colleague.
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3 talks this week
The world is crazy, let’s talk with a few hundred folks.
1. Tomorrow, Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at 4P.M. Pacific Daylight Time.
Virtual Educator Evenings by The Nevada Museum of Art Reno in conjunction with the concurrent exhibit I am featured in.
Join us for our virtual Educator Evening. This month we are joined by JoAnne Northrup, Curator of Contemporary Art, and Bay Area artist, Kal Spelletich. Spelletich has been a pivotal figure in the machine art and robotics community and frequently collaborates with scientists, engineers, musicians and audiences. Join us as he discusses his performative and interactive practice and how it may support classroom practices.
For registration support or questions, please email jacque.Dawson@nevadaart.org. Educator Evenings is a FREE professional development series on the first Wednesday of every month (excluding January and July) offering state-approved professional development hours for participation. https://www.nevadaart.org/event/educator-evenings-33/
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2. Thursday June 4, 2020.
My dear Mary Muszynski is holding court at 5:30 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time. https://withfriends.co/event/4621124/home_school_movie_land_journey_through_cinema_with_a_landscape_architect
All tix sale donated to @manna_foodbank & @yourrightscamp ——👆
A movie is a created world – a landscape that offers us the chance to escape, to be entertained or to contemplate real world issues. We are alone together when watching movies. In this discussion landscape architect and artist Mary Muszynski presents ideas about how to read landscapes in movies. We will slow down and take a different look at movies across the spectrum of cinematic history. She will use movie stills and clips from a broad range of genres from westerns to musicals to science fiction to art house & cult favorites. Seeing mountains, valleys, rivers, cities, the sea, etc. in movies we will set a framework to discuss on screen landscapes. Participants will have the chance to discuss their favorite movie landscapes and will receive a list of movies.
Artist Kal Spelletich on Art, Science and Robotics (Virtual)
by The Nevada Museum of Art Reno in conjunction with the concurrent exhibit I am featured in.
Bay Area artist Kal Spelletich is a pivotal figure in the machine art and robotics community who frequently collaborates with scientists, engineers, musicians and audiences to realize his projects. His work in Where Art and Tech Collide celebrates marginalized and overlooked scientists.
Join Spelletich as he discusses his work and process live from his studio. Expect robotics, lasers and chance accidents.
Registration required by June 3.
The Art Bite lecture series is supported by Nevada Humanities with additional sponsorship and free admission for students supported by the Core Humanities Program at the University of Nevada, Reno. https://www.nevadaart.org/event/artist-kal-spelletich-on-art-robotics-technology-and-humanity/
June 5, 2020 12 – 1 pm $10 General
FREE Members
FREE Student
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Dear friends, times are crazy, art is critical, health is tantamount and human lives are precious. May we all rise up to our best to help usher in this next phase of our existence.
Best,
Kal
Kal Spelletich's Art 