Audio &visual artists and inventors from the Midwest gather to share their recent homemade experimental electronics projects, instruments, videos, and robots at this DIY convention/lab. Circuit Benders, Toy Hackers, Tech Pirates, and Recycling Junkies will have an opportunity to perform, demonstrate, and lecture about their recent work in the fast-growing art of Acquired Technology.

A gathering of extremely talented and creative hackers took place on Saturday, May 16th, at Lizard’s Liquid Lounge. 3058 W Irving Park Rd., Chicago IL.

Big stuff going down.  Here’s a glimpse….

Video coming soon…

See the full gallery here.

Nick Collins is the author of The Art of Hardware Hacking and a Professor from the Department of Sound at the School of the Art Institute.  He recently released the second version of his book and was speaking/performing/signing at Quimby’s Books in Wicker Park, Chicago.  He graciously signed my “Rare first edition” and I got to chat about some of his new oscillator/sequencer projects he documents in the book.

The Chicago Symphacking Orchestra (CSO) was also on hand to perform and a nice blend of hackers/noobs in the audience sharing ideas.  A fine atmosphere.

Thanks Nick, Good stuff in here.

In the spirit of earth day and keeping old toys out of the landfills Tommy Stephenson and Patrick McCarthy hosted a free bending workshop in Chicago on Saturday, April 25th.  It was great to know that this community is alive and well and growing in the midwest.  It was cool to meet Austin (aka Creme Dementia) who had a slick electronic bird calender tweaked on the workbench.  He also had a selection of his contact mics for sale.  I picked one up and from messing around with it for a about 15 minutes I realize that I ‘m going to want to purchase several more.  Tons of potential for amplifying objects.  It was also great to meet Alex Deeba from Get LoFi.com.  He has a ton of sweet project kits for sale on his site.  He was sticking one of his precision oscillators into an old school game boy to tweak it’s clock.  Good stuff.

I’m glad I stumbled upon this event… looking forward to others.

Here’s a few pics from the evening.