Do It Yourself
‘Circuit bending’ awaked my interest in electronics. The practice of modifying and altering electronic circuits to obtain new musical instruments characterised by spontaneity and randomness.
The process and techniques I do are to dismantling electronic machines of low-voltage or battery-powered, usually small sound generators or toys, and connecting wire between different points of the electronic board till getting interesting noises or effects. When an interesting sound alteration is founded, I keep it active through connections and components like knobs, potentiometers, switches and more.
Trial and error experimentation, many times resulting in burning or destroying the circuit or even getting an electrical shock. After many times, one start to learn which connections can be effective and which ones you shouldn’t touch at all.
My friends are always giving me all the toys they find at home and mine is full of them.
I have a particular affection for this red phone. It was the one that made me start with the circuit bending and all the handmade machines. I had already worked with electronic devices, even though had designed small ones at University. But this time it was different, it was the first time I took one device, removed its panel and started to look for all of its possibilities and alterations I could make.
That was in a toy-hacking workshop at Derek Holzer’s Macumbista lab, with the artist Tasos Stamou from Stamou Instruments.
Since then, it became an ‘addiction’. I am dismantling every device I find, trying to manipulate them, fixing them or giving them a second chance. Otherwise I take its pieces to reuse them in other projects.
This philosophy of giving a second chance to old things and all the DIY stuff is something that I learned from Corazón de Robota, a visual artist, dancer and electronics lover from Chile, who research through open technologies and recycled materials. In one of her Europe tours, she came to my place in Berlin and I joined some of her workshops. Besides, we were playing around with all her machines. You can see a picture below of all of the handmade devices that she carries in her suitcase.
I had to stop accumulating devices for the moment, since I barely have more space for them and I still have lots of ideas with the ones I already have. For instance, I want to modify and create visuals with the old videogame consoles SEGA Mega Drive and the Master System, which I keep with their joysticks and original controllers.
