monome

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may 2026. twenty years.

behold, annotated selections from our photo roll. semi-linear, semi-narrative, dates and placenames approximate. of course no archive tells the whole story: computers vanish periods of history, things happen online, we forget to capture a moment because we were too distracted or overjoyed or totally freaked out. but somewhere within this collection a web of threads emerge. approaches and inclinations and absurdity and experimentation and dreaming and world-building. to celebrate many ways of being. clues to how we got here and perhaps where we might go.

october 2004, val verde — one of the few handwired prototypes, mostly salvage components, daringly/inadvisably fragile.

january 2005, los angeles — so many of us insisted on playing on the floor, even though the invention of flash photography revealed what a filthy proposition this proved to be.

september 2005, sun valley — an early encounter with profound quantities of wires and rainbows, an accumulation, old junk collected and priced in such a way that it would certainly never leave, yet somehow we brought a couple home, we'd understood and believed the story this place was telling.

january 2006, pomona — repetition and multiplication is one way. doing things by hand, not seeking optimization because scaling was never the intention.

february 2006, pomona — art in its natural habitat. a grid-and-old-computer electro-acoustic egg-tapping drum-machine.

august 2005, pasadena — our first ever circuit board promised that some day the wires maybe wouldn't fall out during a show. the wire debugging flurry was spectacular theatre but maybe not a sustainable career path.

september 2010, delhi — we had no idea what was coming.

december 2007, philadelphia — evidence of the thorough integration of work, art, and life.

march 2006, philadelphia — somehow we thought we would be able to resin-cast all of the enclosures at our worktable. moments after this photo the resin spilled out allover the place and there was hysterical laughter. we changed our minds.

february 2006, philadelphia — there is a legend that the first several hundred grids were solder-paste stenciled, hand-placed with tweezers, and cooked in a toaster oven. we can't confirm this, but if it were true that would be a truly questionable business model.

march 2010, pottstown — a rare sighting of the keypad spontaneous generator.

october 2006, philadelphia — cousteau saw that we needed some supervision and to relax a little bit, so decided to move in.

april 2007, los angeles — live on the dublab netradio with peter.

april 2006, san mateo — it was a sort of science fair, a mob of friends, someone would have an idea and vanish for an hour, coming back with a strange instrument or experiment that before that moment seemed unfathomable. it was a public display of figuring-things-out with immense enthusiasm.

december 2007, philadelphia — michael i am sorry we wrecked your bathroom with all of the silkscreening washouts.

july 2017, iceland — other showers.

march 2019, minneapolis — clouds make rain.

january 2008, philadelphia — early myco-evangelism.

october 2008, philadelphia — black walnut, harvested locally, milled by our friend jason.

february 2009, philadelphia — but then we inspected, sanded, oiled, sanded, oiled, inlaid spliced rubber, inspected, test fit, adjusted. fortunately there was really good music being made during this era.

july 2010, philadelphia — forreals we were running some sort of tiny-furniture shop and now we are slightly/wistfully transported if we happen to encounter the scent of teak oil or nitrile gloves.

march 2008, philadelphia — perhaps literally traumatized by branding. this was the last step and a misaligned hot stamp could really ruin the mood. maybe it follows that we don't put text on anything anymore. sorry!

april 2008, los angeles — the wires held but still didn't learn that other lesson.

march 2007, los angeles — these wires didn't quite hold. some early permacomputing, teaching a workshop which attempted to demystify computers by building an adder with relays. we eventually got it working, but this all certainly would've been easier with a huge operating system connected to a massive datacenter.

february 2016, monahans sandhills — farm to city to campsite to show to friends driveway to gallery to city to residency to family to truckstop to state park to farm.

march 2008, los angeles — overambition subjected to workshop attendees, we'd learn some basic electronics, design etch solder assemble a circuit, make felt from uncarded wool, concoct natural dye vats, and somehow put all it all together into a soft noisy object.

may 2008, los angeles — the internet really liked kelli's soft noisy tape machine.

july 2007, philadelphia — early demand and small batch dynamics created an intense resale market which we defused by offering an even smaller batch of custom grids with various colors and tilt sensors and handmade...