Prosthetic Ass (Latteier, 2000)
Interview/Article by Jonah Brucker-Cohen
In the apple of aesthetic interventions into accepted technology, projects that accomplish us catechism how we absorb and use agenda accessories are generally those that advance our attention. Application this assumption as a starting point, Toronto, Ontario-based artist, Amos Latteier creates plan that explores the lighter ancillary of technology. Poking fun at aggregate from accumulated software presentations with his PowerPoint performances to creating homebrew prosthetic limbs with the Prosthetic Ass , his plan examines the subtleties of DIY ability and the abeyant affecting appulse of simple devices. Re-purposing customer electronics in adroit ways, his project, Calculator Haikus , creates balladry from backward calculator displays to accent how a antic access can generally crop abrupt results. On the software side, his analytical PowerPoint lectures apply the banal presentation software to actualize cool relationships amid eyewitness and speaker. Gizmodo bent up with Latteier to altercate his aesthetic practice, aesthetic philosophy, and aim to animate balmy applesauce into affiliated teaching methodologies and banal software and hardware. Interview and photos afterwards the jump...
Name: Amos Latteier
Age: 35
Education: BA Brown University, alone out of a MFA affairs at SFSU
Affiliation: absolute artist
URL:http://www.latteier.com/
GIZMODO: How did you aboriginal become absorbed in architectonics automatic objects?
AL: I like to advise myself things and to experiment. That said, I am not a craftsman, and I'm not actual acceptable at architectonics things. Like a lot of people, I accept a lot of brainless ideas, but what makes me altered from a lot of humans is that I sometimes accept the time and activity to try and chase those account up. A lot of of the machines that I've congenital accept the acidity of amusing and low-tech top academy science projects. In accession to architectonics machines, I aswell do PowerPoint performances. In both practices I am fatigued to account of teaching and learning, humor, and an cool and optimistic inventiveness.
GIZMODO: Your project, "The Prosthetic Ass", (which uses a chainsaw motor as a walking aid) is an absorbing animadversion on the use of electrical accessories as beastly aids in accessible space. What were you aggravating to accomplish with the project?
AL: This activity is based on a animation depicting a automatic "prosthetic ass" in the 1978 book on cybernetics, "Robots On Your Doorstep: A Book About Thinking Machines". The animation bidding to me the action and applesauce of a walking cybernetic backpack. I aswell admired the pun of ass as donkey and ass as base . I capital to see if such a apparatus could be built, and what would appear if the pun was fabricated physical. It angry out to be a alarming and ungainly apparatus that couldn't absolutely backpack abundant weight. However it did accomplish a big burst at the science fair area I aboriginal demoed it. Happily it didn't aching anyone.
500 lb Potato Array (Latteier, 2000)
GIZMODO: With "500 lb. Potato Battery", you absorbed up 500 lb. account of the vegetables to a baby complete system. What was the catalyst abaft this activity and did it in actuality action the way you meant it to?
AL: For this project, I took a acclaimed brand academy science agreement and blew it up to a huge scale. Originally I capital to use the potatoes to calefaction oil to accomplish French fries, but I couldn't get about abundant activity out of them for that. I concluded up accepting them accomplish complete if a acquaintance offered to backpack my activity about in the aback of a U Haul truck. Accepting the potatoes accomplish complete angry out to accurately accompany the acquaintance of exploring the potatoes in the amid amplitude of the aback of the truck. One botheration with the activity was that the electrical access amid the potatoes were actual delicate, so if the barter hit a cavern I had to absorb a continued time award shorts and acclimation the wiring. Another sad allotment of the activity is that the potatoes were rendered inedible by getting acclimated as a battery, so I couldn't eat them at the end of the project.
Call of the Wild (Latteier, 2004)
GIZMODO: In "Call of the Wild", you were attempting to use the corpuscle buzz as an enabling technology for audio attributes tours. How important is the use of adaptable accessories in accustomed environments?
AL: This activity has added anticipation abaft it than some of the others that I've done. I adulation pigeons and added burghal wildlife and I capital to actualize a activity to advice humans apprentice about and acknowledge these animals. I aswell capital to abode the means in which humans and animals are affiliated by aberrant calm beastly history and accustomed history. Corpuscle phones were a abundant best for a few reasons. Corpuscle phones are actual agnate to audio bout machines. Abounding humans already accept them, so this activity fabricated use of technology after acute me to body anything. Finally, corpuscle phones are commonly acclimated to yield humans abroad from their surroundings, so it was fun to actualize a way to use them to affix humans to their environment. You can accept to the audio tours on my web site.
Calculator Haikus (Latteier, 2000)
GIZMODO: "Calculator Haikus" takes the simple affectation of the calculator and makes haikus from the upside down display. What are you aggravating to say about the artlessness of technology?
AL: This activity comes from my memories of spelling HELL (7734) and BOOBIES (5318008) application calculators in average school. I wondered what added words could be spelled, so I wrote a actual simple computer affairs to analysis the dictionary. It turns out that there are about 100 words. Given this aberrant and baby vocabulary, I wondered what could be written. The accessible best of argument was haiku, back they are so short. The activity explores what happens if you advance a brainless calculator ambush as far as it can go. I absolutely adore the fun means that humans can abusage accustomed technologies.
30 Minute Hovercraft (Latteier, 2000)
GIZMODO: 30 Minute Hovercraft was an agreement in architectonics a hovercraft from agenda and a exhaustion in beneath an hour. What was your catalyst for architectonics this project?
AL: This activity is basically just a top academy science activity presented as art. In fact, I didn't originally anticipate of it as art. At aboriginal it was just something fun do to with my roommate's boutique vac. At the time I lived in a barn so there was lots of allowance to ride a hovercraft. Then I bought a blade blower and started demography the hovercraft to parties. As you could imagine, it was absolutely a hit. Later I entered it in an art appearance mostly because they were alone accepting two-dimensional artwork, and a lot of of what I had was sculpture. I ample that if you afraid the hovercraft to the bank it could calculation as two-dimensional.
GIZMODO: What projects are you currently alive on? How are they agnate or altered than your accomplished projects?
AL: One activity that I'm currently alive on is a blast activity area humans use the buzz like a karaoke apparatus to almanac their own beef songs to the tune of Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Yield It". You can almanac songs about austere things like the war in Iraq, or being like how your freeholder will not anytime adjustment stuff. Then you can accept politicians to forward your songs to. This works because a lot of politicians accept animadversion curve area you can leave them letters about your concerns. The activity will aswell accept a website area you can accept to songs that humans accept recorded.
Another activity I'm alive on is a achievement about the history of zoo architecture. I'm absolutely absorbed in a guy called Karl Hagenbeck who revolutionized zoo architectonics aboriginal in the Twentieth Century. He affected the use of moats rather than bars, and showed animals in naturalistic settings. I wish to analyze this history with abounding added things including the videogame Microsoft Zoo Tycoon, and this history of animals in film. I'm absolutely absorbed in how spaces for beastly affectation accept acquired over the endure century.
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