About

Photo by Kari Orvik Tintype Studio

Grant Patterson creates digitally fabricated and illuminated interactive art that examines our relationship with technology. He graduated from Stanford University with a BS in Computer Science and has over a decade of hardware/software industry experience in circuit design, embedded systems programming, Linux sysadmin, web user interfaces, and mobile apps with internet-of-things connectivity.

While humankind’s technological revolutions produce objects of incredible power and value, they require great costs from people and our planet. Modern products use raw materials that are dangerous and environmentally destructive to collect. They are manufactured and delivered by workers paid less than a living wage in problematic conditions. These products are designed to entice us, take our money, hoard our data, obscure the truth, fail early, and sit in trash heaps for millennia.

Grant believes we must use the fruits of society’s technological progress to produce works of transcendent beauty and splendor. We can create technological wonders that shake participants to their core, challenging their assumptions and perspectives. These works will promote societal change and enable healing from trauma.

Grant works toward this goal by creating art that incorporates software, digital fabrication, and LED illumination. His works range from wearables to warehouse-scale installations. He engages viewers to control and participate in the art. His work appears at art festivals, corporate events, permanent installations, and private collections. Grant is available for commissioned works and consulting in the art / technology space.

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Portfolio

Lightischord: Participants wave hands over a Leap Motion controller to trigger harp glissando sounds and DMX flood lights. Community Award at Oakland Autumn Lights Festival 2022. JACK Audio Connection Kit, Open Lighting Architecture, LeapMotion SDK.

i2i: Browser-based video chat with real-time background removal, placing participants behind a virtual table. Real-time networked physics simulation with drag-and-drop support for most 3D model file formats. BodyPix TensorFlow segmentation, Seriously.js stream processing, Agora.io video chat, Cannon physics engine, Three.js 3D rendering.

FlowState: A real-time collaborative art experience great for social distancing. Everyone draws on a shared fluid canvas. Output to LED wall. Try it here.

Clockwork Eye: Five laser-cut gears rotating out of sync create moiré patterns and a rainbow of colors.

Low-Poly Skunk: 172 laser-cut triangles in birch and walnut woods. Each piece is beveled to exact angles to ensure proper fit and glued by hand. Tail rotates into a “spraying” position.

Jigsaw Stained Glass: Laser-cut transparent acrylic. Interlocking shapes hold without glue or fasteners.

Scared Little Boy: Interactive laser-cut interlocking acrylic LED sculpture. 1024 LEDs, custom controller and software, 68″ / 172cm.

Brickolage: 400 LEDs controlled by a browser-based multi-touch application. Works with any tablet over wifi. FadeCandy driver. Appears monthly at Loves Company in San Francisco, fourth Fridays at Underground SFGitHubTry it here!

Learn more about The Flight Attendant and data we’ve collected.

ETIPADO: Extremely Tall Image Processing And Display Object. A 25-foot saccadic persistence-of-vision LED display with real-time camera input. Learn more.

Equanemone: Touch-responsive walk-through volumetric display. Solar powered. Appeared at Burning Man 2015 in an 8×8=64-tentacle configuration, 3200 LEDs total. Version 2.0 was installed at Sierra MeadowsGitHub!

Neurotiq: Hardware and software integrating an Emotiv Epoc EEG headset, RFduino wireless microcontroller, and RGB LEDs in a 3D-printed headpiece. Brain states are visualized in the LEDs.

Photouch: Intuitive iPad app to control professional entertainment lighting wirelessly. Simplifies complex DMX control for the casual user to walk up and start playing.

iPad => Bonjour over Wifi => QLC+ => USB => DMX. GitHub!

Blume: Bluetooth-controlled LED bulbs to repurpose salvaged LED strips from an old art project. GitHub. Project Vision.

BlinkyBra: Fully custom wearable with 32 RGB LEDs, Arduino, sound sensitivity including 6-channel spectrum meter, controller, rechargeable battery. GitHub!

IMG_0800

MindOMeter: iOS app to display brainwave data from consumer EEG headset via Bluetooth. Learned iOS development in the process. Now on GitHub.   http://mindometer.com

DJ Spacecat – 2008 to present

See our GitHub page for more project source code.

Contact

Email hi@revoltlabs.co for more information.

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