Daniel McNamara
Embedded Systems in Art
Who is Daniel?
- I'm a visual artist, musician and technologist
- In pursuit of projects that allow me to integrate my varied interests
- I like exploring music creation outside of traditional teaching and how to integrate it with visual and tactile mediums
- New media artwork has been a principal platform for this combination of skills
- I specialize in artistic embedded systems design
Who is Daniel?
- Learned about the gigantic amount of ways that people create art beyond painting
- Gain fabrication chops
- Introduced to the coding gateway drug Max MSP
- Start trying to make music robots despite not knowing anything
Who is Daniel?
- Expand network of music weirdos
- Build tech chops; learn to appreciate necessary evils
- Gain further perspective as to the importance of artists gaining technical skills
Who is Daniel?
- Externally it seems so niche but it provides opportunities for a wide range of skills, interests, and investigations to be implemented
- It provides an artistic outlet for people to gain skills that they can use in other industries
I Appreciate Music Tech because...
Why Embedded Systems?
- An escape from the Laptop!
- Physical computing: see you later QWERTY keyboard!
- Develop tools for a specific purpose
- Big community, low prices
- Lots of options
- Restrictions encourage creativity
Tools to Know
Arduino
- Large community
- Good documentation
- Best place to start to reduce the learning curve
Tools to Know
Teensy
- Arduino’s suped up cousin
- Practically the same
- Less documentation and community
Tools to Know
Bela
- Audio-first micro-computer
- Designed specifically for sound and music projects
- Runs advanced music languages
Solenoid Drum Machine
2012
Boards of Canadarm
2013
MOD/MOM
2016-2018
Art Arcade
2017
Roulette
2015 - ongoing
