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Circuit Bent Instruments

I have enjoyed circuit bending simple electronic devices to create sound art sculptures since 2013. This page highlights some of the most successful of these endevours. Please note that my work with circuit bending video game consoles including the NES, SNES, and other devices is covered in other project pages.

Bruin Guitar

Circuit Bent "Bruin" guitar toy which features pushbutton triggers and a pitch potentiometer.

Blue "Farmers" Keyboard

Circuit bent blue keyboard with several bends including a pitch potentiometer, an "overdrive" button, and several one-shot triggers.

"Parents Battat" Cat Keyboard

Circuit bent "Parents Battat" keyboard with several bends including a pitch potentiometer, a microphone input jack, and several capacitive one-shot triggers.

Related Works and Further Reading

This work relies heavily on circuit bending and hardware hacking techniques. Some of my writing on these topics can be found HERE.

I have created several projects that are related to these instruments including the Circuit Bent SNES project discussed on this page HERE.

Furthermore, the Computer Music installations leverages circuit bending techniques to control an orchestra consisting of hard disk drives, CDROM drives, and Floppy Disk drives. The Computer Music installation is discussed on this page HERE.

I have additionally created a number of interfaces for controlling circuit bent instruments and other devices for live performance with the Voltage Slammer Project (discussed HERE) and the Discovery Synth Interface (discussed HERE).

References and Related Works

While I have not written about these projects in peer-review or formal publications, there are several publications, resources, animation-duration projects I myself have created which are related to these instruments.

[1] Victor Zappi and Andrew McPherson, “The D-Box: How to Rething a Digital Musical Instrument,” in Proceesings of the 21st International Symposium on Electronic Art, 2015.

[2] “Q R Ghazala’s Tape Canvas | GetLoFi – Circuit Bending Synth DIY.” http://getlofi.com/q-r-ghazalas-tape-canvas/ (accessed Feb. 15, 2017).

[3] R. Ghazala, Circuit-bending: build your own alien instruments. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, 2005.

[4] A. M. Fernandez and F. Iazzetta, “Circuit-Bending and the DIY Culture,” Escole de Communivações e Artes, Universidade de São Paulo, 2011, Accessed: Apr. 19, 2017. [Online]. Available: http://www2.eca.usp.br/nusom/sites/default/files/KISMIF-Alexandre%20Fernandez%20e%20Fernando%20Iazzetta.pdf

[5] Reed Ghazala, the Father of Circuit Bending: Sound Builders. Accessed: Feb. 15, 2017. [Online Video]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHDL9iGxDPM

[6] G. Hertz, “Methodologies of Reuse in the Media Arts: Exploring Black Boxes, Tactics and Archaeologies,” Digital Arts and Culture 2009, Dec. 2009, Accessed: Sep. 25, 2016. [Online]. Available: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/5r8842r6

The discovery synth was purpose-built as a physical interface of the Raspberry Pi audio-video synthesiser I developed during my MFA studies at CalArts to realising sonic art installations using the platform. This interface was used for the installation Yin-Yang which is discussed on this page HERE while the interface is introduced HERE.

Furthermore, I have written on topics similar to this work including interaction with electronics and technology within sonic art HERE, and the use of circuit bending and hardware hacking techniques to create novel interfaces and installation scenarios HERE.