Rob Cruickshank


Selected Artistic Resume

Exhibitions of Electronic-based Artwork

2008
May
Adjustable Landscape at Harbourfront Centre, Toronto
Landscape based automata.
Adjustable Landscape (by Rob Cruickshank)
2007
April
Sheep Problem at Fly Gallery Toronto. Electronic automata, with a touch controller. By placing a hand on the gallery window, the viewer sets into motion a number of mysterious occurrences, including a glowing sheep, which falls over, and rights itself.

Sheep Problem
2006
Sideways Circus, with Veronica Verkely part of Mods And Rockers, at Harbourfront Gallery, Toronto
Curated by Sally Mckay
A circus of automata, driven by a collection of broken and modified childrens' toys. Controlled by a touch interface.

circus
2005
January
Spiral Inscriber at Fly Gallery Toronto.
Spiral Inscriber is a cybernetic painting. It takes a familiar shape: a rotating platter, and a pivoting stylus. This form recurs many times in 20th century media, from the gramophone to the hard drive. It is now obsolete, and already seems quaint. In addition to exploring effects of visual perception, Spriral Inscriber is a celebration of, and a farewell to this form. The platter is hand-painted with a phosphorescent pigment. The stylus is a near-ultraviolet LED, controlled by a servo motor. As the platter rotates, the stylus is moved across its face and illuminates, leaving a vivid, yet ephemeral trace. Spiral Inscriber Page
2004
June
Music for Incandescent Events:Hanlan’s Sunset
(With Sarah Peebles)
“Music for Incandescent Events: Hanlan’s Sunset” highlights the daily event of sunset at the site of a wading pool which is currently filled in with earth and flowers. The sky’s changing light at dusk is measured by sensors which trigger stored fragments of sound derived from the tones of the shô (Japanese mouth organ). The piece assembles a unique audio composition with each sunset, played through loudspeakers encircling the wading pool, while rays from the sun are simultaneously fragmented and assembled via an array of small mirrors within the wading pool garden.
Presented as part of Wade
October
Music For incandescent Events (With Sarah peebles) DeLeon White Gallery rooftop garden, Toronto. Presented by The Mcluhan International Festival of the Future.
2001
Mediaterra festival, Fournos, Greece. “AudioTerra” In collaboration with Mike Steventon, Michelle Kasprzak, and Jerry Jarosz, created a portable installation piece for the MicroMuseum segment of the festival. “AudioTerra” was self-contained in a suitcase, and involved a microcontroller, a light sensor array embedded in living grass, and an audio amplifier and speaker. Wrote software for the piece, adapting code that I wrote for “SenseBus”
1999
SenseBus collective show, Interaccess, Toronto. Developed much of the hardware, software, and mechanical components of this piece, involving microcontrollers, photosensors, motors, audio and MIDI. Together with Mike Steventon and Paul Davies, co-ordinated the activities of the SenseBus collective to produce an interactive, collaborative installation.
1998
Space Probe group show, InterAccess, Toronto. “Transmit/Reflect” Collaboration with Wendy Whaley. Microcontroller controlled kinetic/light sculpture, stereoscopic video installation, stereoscopic photography
1997
XXX ARTlab group show, InterAccess, Toronto. Collaboration with Wendy Whaley on a work later shown as “Transmit/Reflect” . Microcontrollers, servomotors, laser, and stereoscopic photography.
1996
Sonic Circuits Festival, Music Gallery, Toronto “A Few Things They Didn’t Teach in Plumbing School” Sound installation in lobby. ABS pipe with electromechanical control, and an audio feedback system.
1993
Artcamp Hakushu, Hakushu ,Japan Collaboration with Sarah Peebles (Canada/USA) and Hirotoshi Sakaguchi (Japan) on an audio component to Sakaguchi’s installation “Water Circulation Vessel”. Designed solar powered digital audio hardware, assisted Peebles with sound design and recording, and installed on site.
Other exhibitions:
2002
Images Festival of Film and Video, Toronto Group show “Flomo” Exhibited photo based installation “FlomoFluidic”
1996
Futura Festival , France. Electroacoustic piece “Starting from the House and Working Outwards” progammed.
Other activities:
2006-present
Member of i/o media, an electronic audio/visual performance collective based at InterAccess.
1999-present
Member of the Board of Directors of InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre. Currently Chair of the facilities committee.
2000-present
Electronics workshops, InterAccess, Toronto Developed a hands-on introduction to digital electronics for artists. An intensive two-day workshop, this has been offered several times, and is an ongoing project. Currently, there are two levels; the first is an introduction to electricity and basic digital logic, the second introduces combinational logic, counters, and provides an introduction to the 555 timer. A third level is in preparation, which will deal with simple microcontrollers.
Jan 2002-present
Art Interface Device project, InterAccess, Toronto Is a member of the team designing the Art Interface Device, a microcontroller based interface to allow artists to create interactive electronic artworks.
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