Wave Puppet

Translating powerful physical forces to an anthropomorphically comprehensible and safely inanimate form, Wave Puppet is a marionette of the ocean's surface directed by the math that underlies all waves. Wave Puppet is an open-framed cube containing a flexible sheet suspended horizontally. The sheet hangs from 36 vertical steel rods, evenly spaced in a grid pattern. Each rod is attached to a computer-controlled servo motor through a mechanical linkage. When a motor actuates, the point on the surface of the sheet connected to the rod rises or falls, deforming the sheet. When this motion is coordinated by computer, complex wave patterns are generated, capturing the dynamics of liquid in a purely mechanical form. Additional complexity arises from the inherent imprecision of the motors, at once enhancing the puppet's similarity to water and calling attention to its simulated nature. A motion detector signals the approach of a viewer, beginning the puppet show.

William Tremblay is an artist and interactive media programmer. His work addresses issues of human interaction with the technological world: the choices we make and the prices we pay. He tends to create machines and large scale installations. His work has been shown in numerous venues, among them the Kitchen in New York, Boston's Computer Museum, the List Center for Visual Arts at MIT, the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston, Artbots 2004 in Harlem, NY and Art Interactive in Cambridge, MA. He is co-inventor of the Virtual Reality Chair, for which he holds a patent. He attended the Studio for Interrelated Media at the Massachusetts College of Art and currently collaborates with the Collision Collective. He lives in Boston where he opportunistically employs robotics, video and other technologies in ways they were never intended to be used.

Rob Gonsalves is an artist, inventor, and engineer. Ever since his parents brought home a Tandy Color Computer in 1982, Rob has been hooked on programming. He honed his interests in the arts, music, and computers in the Boston area. After attending Northeastern and UMass Lowell, he joined Avid Technology as their 15th employee. As the senior consulting engineer at Avid, Rob specializes in programming effects for video and film post-production. He holds 27 patents in this field. Rob has often collaborated on art projects with his friend William Tremblay. Examples of their work are Telepresence, a 1992 installation at Boston's ICA, Y2K Pops!, a 1999 installation for First Night Boston, and Janken, a 2005 installation for the Boston Cyberarts Festival.

http://www.williamtremblay.com/art/wavepuppet

Acknowledgements: Thanks to jackbackrack and CollisionCollective, Mayor Thomas Menino and the City of Boston, and Cecille Lemley of Boston Art Windows. Special thanks to Jennifer Lim and Georgina Lewis.