Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Maker Faire Rome: Kelly Heaton’s Natural Circuits”.
So, first off tell me: who are you and what did you bring to make a pharaoh? I’M tally, Heaton and brought electronic naturalism wonderful. What is electronic naturalism? So it’s a practice that I’ve been developing over the last 20 years, my fascination with analog, Electronics being so lifelike and um. I I developed this notion that, in the same way that you you know, naturalist, biologists in the past would study animals to understand them and and develop these like beautiful drawings and so forth. Why not do that also with electronics and electricity? So looking at, like the spirit dimension of what nature is, and so the circuit that I’ve developed are analog electronic for the reason that I’m interested in how Consciousness manifests from the body.
And so I’m basically using electronic Hardware to shape electricity into lifelike patterns. And you could say that it’s metaphorical or poetic, and it is, but it’s also not entirely hyperbole there and there’s an aspect where you know: analog Electronics really are lifelike and it’s fascinating what it can teach us about how we function as electronic bees? Yes, yes, absolutely so! For someone who is not super familiar with the difference between like analog electronics and digital electronics, would you mind, maybe expounding a tiny bit on how analog Electronics can be organic compared to like programming, a microcontroller yeah yeah when your program? Well, a computer, what to do linguistically unless you know what you want it to do like you, don’t just sit down and write code and it’s you know like and of course, when you’re developing a circuit, it’s the same way. I mean there are some rules about how you hook up capacitors and transistors and so forth. All of that being said with analog Electronics, I do not need to Envision how the system is going to function in advance. I need to make sure that I obey the rules of electricity and of physics, but then it’s really an experimental process to see like what happens when I slightly change the capacitance or slightly change the resistance um.
I don’t I’m not I’m not intellectually conceptualizing, that I’m experientially working with the hardware and seeing what kind of behaviors emerge from that. So it’s really the the two are beautifully compatible and you want digital when there’s a specific task that you want accomplished in a specific way, and you just write the code and say do this at this time in this order and so forth, with analog you’re working More with an emotional, intuitive engagement of electricity as a medium and that’s why, for me artistically, it’s just brilliant. I love it. Wonderful, that’s perfect! So uh Birds, I see most of your sculptures that you have here on the table are birds.
Is that a common theme as well as this, this custom, you did this custom for this event, didn’t you yeah, yeah, beautiful? Oh, that’s, gorgeous um, so are birds, a common theme in your work or or is it just a coincidence? For this event, it’s not a coincidence. Birds have become become what I’m known for for more than 20 years, and it took me a long time to figure out as an artist how to use electricity as a medium, and for many many years I mean really for most of my career. I would think to myself: you know if I could make a circus sing like a bird, then I’d really have something right, but I had no idea how to do it. In 2018, I went to Mexico on an artist residency at tortilla Escondida, and that is where I developed my first singing bird song circuits and from there you know, once I got that working it was just like so exciting. Like wow, I can make a circus sing like a bird. I I don’t know I haven’t been able to get over that enchantment um, don’t get me wrong. I love birds, but but it really comes from my just sheer delight and enthusiasm around. Finally, getting to a point where I can make an analog electronic circuit that that has a bird-like quality to it.
Wonderful give me just a second, so I’m just here geeking out on these and I got ta be curious like so. These are gorgeous. Do you do you sell these? If people wanted to get your Ark and they can they buy them or commission work from you or something so there’s two different ways that I work uh one is, you know as an artist which is my primary vocation and there I get commissions either from private Collectors or institutions or public spaces to make larger scale installations, like my circuit Garden, that was in New York last spring and is going to be there again in 2023, uh yeah so, and that was a Brookfield commission and then the second thing that I’m working on Right now is a company concept called circuit icon, where I take my circuits and change them into more of an artist design product, so I can produce them on larger scale and make them available to a broader audience. So then people could buy your art to have in their home exactly wonderful and will those be completed, pieces or kits or both or do you know, probably a combination of both and also you know like this pretty bird piece, that’s uh to me, the the circuits Uh themselves, the circuits themselves without any electronics and them are beautiful.
I love them just as an electronic printed Tableau, so I don’t know that you even necessarily need to Electrify them. I think they’re beautiful also just as objects yeah, so I see it as a range of different options from the objects that I personally make by hand. So those are unique and obviously have a more expensive price point, but the artist design products makes it accessible to more people and then as well the printed circuit boards, so it sounds like you’ve been experimenting for years.
You’Ve come up with this. This beautiful kind of musical artistic thing that is now kind of growing and into maybe a product is what would you like to work on in the future? What’S next for the artist didn’t you, my dream would be to work on large-scale printed circuit boards that I make myself so I laminate the copper onto a substrate. I do the etching myself and then I print or paint back into the works to make these just absolutely gorgeous large-scale electrified Tableau that that would be a dream commission for me. So that’s that’s. That’S really I mean I love all of it.
Don’T get me wrong! I’M excited about circuit icon too, because I want more people to be able to collect my work. I think that’s great to get it out there, but but yeah at the end of the day, like what really makes my heart pitter-patter is making art yeah yeah. Well, we’re makers. We always have like the next project like like eating away in our right.
So that’s exciting. Yes, okay, so um somebody looks at your work and they’re inspired and they’ve never messed with electronics before maybe they’re an artist. Where would you say that they should start looking to get started doing something like that? That’S a great question um! So there’s two things I would say to that. The first is that if you want something right now, you can definitely go to my website and also to hacking Majors musicians, a project I published with hackaday.
I I write a lot about my process and I put schematics there. You can also look at Forest memes. He has some great uh basic circuits that you can build to get to get started, but all that being said, there is a need right. I’M really committed in my career went time and resource permitting to make my schematics and my my understanding available in the public domain, because I feel like it’s so important that artists have access to this kind of information that they understand. You know how to build some basic oscillating circuits that they can then modify and make make work for their own practice and – and I feel like this approach to analog electrical engineering – is something that artists really can take in so many different directions. So um, you know I’m sorry that I that I don’t have it all cataloged uh yet, but that is something I am committed to doing over time. So you mentioned the general website that has all the information there. If they’re looking for you specifically, where could they find you online? So I have a website which is kellyheatingstudio.com.
You can also follow me on Instagram or Twitter. I’M Kelly underscore Heaton and something else to stay tuned for um, because my work right now is Art and it’s made by hand and therefore there’s not much of it. It’S hard for me to sell it to the General Public. I’Ve developed a concept brand called circuit, icon and circuit icon is going to be where I start making some of my circuits available to a broader audience as sort of artist design products. So that’s going to be coming in the uh in 2023-2024, so circuit, icon.com, um, yeah and so uh. You mentioned earlier one of your items: you’re working with Adafruit as a possible product.
Is that available now or is that something to look forward to in the future? Uh, that’s something to look forward to Yes, uh Adafruit and I are working together on one of my songbirds and I’m also in discussions with elector and Arduino about producing a version of my tree of life board. So uh, really the hold up is basically me um. Getting getting to work but yeah, it’s happening, it’s happening well.
Thank you very much for talking to us. Oh thank you. So much .