Art Installations And Environments

Edge bar, san francisco, CA, Dragula viewing party

Designed and fabricated modular, portable,, low-voltage, DMX-controlled, load-bearing video display columns with integrated modular high-impacts.

Under the hood At The Edge

By day, I'm a designer, fabricator, and so on. But by night, I'm a DJ, and I work with some of San Francisco's most notorious entertainers to make sure our shows go off as planned.  Working directly for, and observing guests who are interacting with props and environments I've built, is the part of this work that I enjoy the most. As a DJ, I've learned to read a room, and I do the same whenever I turn on a new prop. Watching how an audience reacts to what I've built is incredibly educational!

The most difficult part of this project was the electronics. Each column is actually a small video screen, and the wiring was not only complicated, but also had to be made to be robust enough to withstand repeated transport, setup, and strike at a venue.

My favorite part of this project was watching how people reacted to it. Entrancing audiences is something I really enjoy, and whenever I'd turn the pillars off during a show, we could actually hear the "ohhhh!" of disappointment from the crowd. So we just left them on. 

Generative skills:
  • CNC plasma cutting 
  • MIG and TIG welding 
  • Architectural design
  • Structural engineering
  • Electronics design and fabrication
  • Firmware design and programming
  • Lighting design and fabrication
  • Plastics molding, casting, and finishing
  • 3D part design and printing

Artifacts created:

VERGE 2022, San Jose, CA, Outside

Designed and fabricated large letter-shaped high-impacts for VERGE-22 event. Designed and fabricated plinths for the high-impacts with integrated LED uplighting.

Under the hood At VERGE 2022 Outside

A few years ago, I created some pieces of software for a popular graphics program that allow me to realize very quick and efficient CAD/CAM workflows. I used those tools to create this installation, and they allowed me to complete the work within a very short build timeline.

The most difficult part of the project was...actually keeping up with myself. Because the software I wrote allows extremely rapid part production, it's very tempting to skip ahead. I use iterative design techniques, and part of that is...I can't skip ahead too far, otherwise I can't make my process learn from itself.

The best part of the project was watching people taking selfies with the letters, or climbing on them to take selfies. Group shots were fun to watch. And there were even a few full-blown parties in front of the letters. The guests loved them!

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VERGE 2022, San Jose, CA, Inside

Designed and fabricated a portable,  decorative, modular load-bearing truss system for use as a convention exhibit and to service temporary performance spaces.

Under the hood At VERGE 2022 inside

The work for this installation had begun as part of a performing-arts project, but got repurposed when a client was made aware that it was available.

The most difficult thing about creating these truss beams is finishing them. It takes rather a lot of elbow grease to clean one of them after assembly.

The best part of creating this exhibit was actually seeing it work the very first time out of the shop. Everything for this show was built so quickly that there wasn't time to do much test assembly. Seeing this installation assembled and standing on its own was a powerful vindication of the design theory that enabled its creation...and is part of a "story arc" in design that goes back to 2005.

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Webcast Stage

Designed, assembled, lighted, and rigged a green screen sound stage for live performance acts to webcast during the pandemic.

Under the hood At the "green room"

The COVID-19 pandemic was a huge interruption in many peoples' lives. Performers the world over were among the most directly affected, because their venues were shuttered and their shows canceled.

My part-time job was closed for over a year, with all our equipment standing idle and all the employees furloughed. I decided that I couldn't let that stand, that I *wouldn't* let it stand, because as long as I had skills and resources, there was something I could do. So...I drove to work one day, and assembled our truss beams into a green-screen sound stage.

Performers from all over the San Francisco Bay Area used this stage to stream live shows, during the pandemic.

I wrote low-latency video streaming server software and created cloud-based stream sources, so that performers could stream shows that were disallowed by services such as YouTube and Twitch. These servers also allowed us to coordinate large groups of performers, some as far away as Ontario, Canada, into single live performances, without the minute-plus time lag that is common on RTSP servers.

Having audiences back again, meant that performers could take to the stage again, and start earning income.

Because, after all,...the show must go on!

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Aeria 3

Designed and fabricated a dance-floor environment with a pendant DJ booth, for musical acts; designed and built high-intensity LED dance floor lighting; designed and built fire effects towers for dance floor.

Under the hood At Aeria 3

This work is part of a "story arc" in design that goes back to 2005. This is Aeria, version three ("A3") and was the first environment I designed completely with software. The intent was to make the finished environment look like the renderings. This meant that I would have to write software that would export the digital model geometry in a way that would allow us to fabricate real-world replicas of the digital models. Once completed, the software spat out the numbers we needed in just a few seconds, and we had parts ready to assemble back in the shop the next day. Main fabrication was completed in less than four weeks.

The most difficult part of this project was getting the geometry-export software written and functional. I'm a good programmer, but the system I was writing code for is notoriously difficult to interface to.

My favorite part of the project, was standing in the space created by the three pylons, after we'd assembled the structure. The curved walls reflect sound inside the structure, giving it a sense of space, and this amplifies the presence of the structure itself.

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Aeria 1, Spin Camp, Pyropolis, TX

Designed and fabricated a single-pylon support structure for aerial acts; designed and support structures ("green room") for performers to use, during shows.

Under the hood At Pyropolis

This was the first project I ever used a Kickstarter for. Although I wanted to use the configuration shown in A3 above, it would not have worked so well for us in this setting. This structure would show me how dependent I would become on CAD/CAM software for doing work, and was the very first time I attempted to render a 3D model in real space.

The most difficult part of the project was doing the initial renderings so that I could cut out the pieces on a CNC plasma cutter. Getting the projection of a 3D model onto a 2D surface by hand was quite daunting, given the tools of the day.

The part I enjoyed the most was going up to perform my own aerial act. The tower was very elastic, and I really enjoyed how the spring action of the entire structure ate up the impacts from drops!

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EDC fire effect towers

Designed and fabricated fire effects towers that were used at the Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) in Las Vegas, NV.

Under the hood At EDC

EDC. It's definitely a thing unto itself. Pasquale's brainchild was really hitting its stride, and so my employer at the time was asked to produce a series of fire effect towers for one of the midways at the festival. He passed the job along to me, and I created the design, cut out the parts, and put everything together.

The most difficult part of the production was that there were very many small obstacles to overcome, and a very short deadline for what turned out to be a very large project.

Of all the projects I've done, this one taught me the most about overreach.  If something feels too complicated, too noisy...it's smart to start cutting out pieces that add complexity and take time. 

This is especially true if you have no experience doing some fabrication task -- which is only most of special effects design and construction -- you need to ask yourself, is this really necessary, or could it be done a different way? 

Prioritizing the jobs during a construction cycle is also important. For example, it may be important to management that certain tasks get done, because those tasks are visible to management, but in terms of the overall body of work, it may be that those tasks must come after others, in order to ensure the project's success.

Opulent Temple

Designed and fabricated a dance-floor environment consisting of a DJ booth, video screens for visuals, and elevated dance platforms, with fire effects on both the DJ booth and dance floor.

Under the hood At Opulent Temple

This project was the ground-breaker for me, in terms of large-scale design. It was my school, my test lab, and my playground for new ideas. I got to watch how people responded to things, tried to break things, jumped up and down on things, and made world-class music in things I'd built. So many lessons, so little time...I learned how to learn here, before moving on.

The hardest part of the project was actually getting the finished pieces out of the semi they were stored in. They were heavy -- very heavy -- and were difficult to manage. Then again, they were very, very strong, and needed to be!

The best part of this multi-year project -- and why I still do design work -- is watching an audience lose their sh1t. Seriously. The beat hits, the lights flash on, the hands go up, and everyone within 500 yards starts screaming like fans at a ball game. There are things that get me out of bed in the morning, and that's one of them.

At the end of the day, the people that all of us on the production team work for, are not our bosses, or investors, or company management...it's the guests. 

They are the ones we truly work for. 

They trust us with their safety, with their good time; that their entertainment dollars and attention are going to good use. They're counting on us to take them there, to that divine moment, when the hands go up, the lights go on...

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