Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Dorkbot One

Electronics meets music meets ears at Whistle Stop on Wednesday

Locust guitarist Bobby Bray will be a curator at the inaugural Dorkbot event Wednesday at Whistle Stop in South Park.  - Image by Cari Veach
Locust guitarist Bobby Bray will be a curator at the inaugural Dorkbot event Wednesday at Whistle Stop in South Park.

Dorkbot: “people doing strange things with electricity.” It was founded by Douglas Repetto 15 years ago as a music and technology conclave in New York and has since spawned meet-ups in about 140 cities worldwide.

Repetto, now director of the Sound Arts MFA program at Columbia University, learned much of his craft at Cal Arts in the ’90s under Tom Erbe, the current Studio Director at USCD’s Department of Music.

“I’ve always been involved in DIY electronics,” Erbe says. “In the ’70s, synths were really expensive but you could go to Radio Shack and build things out of fairly simple components. Then, around 1984, I realized that programming would be the way to go for building interesting, economical DIY stuff.”

Sponsored
Sponsored
Tom Erbe and Bobby Bray tinkering with the Eurorack.

With that recognition, Erbe created SoundHack in 1991, one of the first freeware sound softwares for Macintosh. Erbe has been considering a San Diego Dorkbot collective for the past five years, but it wasn’t until he assembled a number of professors, musicians, and DIY electronic enthusiasts that the idea took hold. One of those enthusiasts was Bobby Bray, a 2011 USCD graduate who studied with Erbe in the Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts major in Music.

“I learned a great deal from Tom,” says Bray, who will be the first of a rotating cast of Dorkbot curators. “It started as a mentor/student relationship. Now I’m curating him and I’m a teacher at a few different institutions, so it’s kind of coming full circle.”

Using software developed by USCD’s Miller Puckette, Bray has designed one-of-a-kind effects pedals that he will be showcasing following Dorkbot.

Past Event

Dorkbot SD

  • Wednesday, January 13, 2016, 8 p.m.
  • Whistle Stop Bar, 2236 Fern Street, San Diego
  • 21+

“At this point we have pretty much every academic institution in San Diego involved,” Bray says. “It’s academic, but it’s also just the right time for this city. We are strategically having the first Dorkbot event before Open Oscillator [an open-mic style electronic monthly] because there’s a convergence of people doing these similar things. It develops a community, and now it includes the academic community.”

Keynote presenters include Erbe, who will be discussing his recent switchover from software to hardware and digital versus analog, as well as Elle Mehrmand, an L.A.-based performance artist and UCSD graduate who will talk about “organic sensors, wet interfaces, and using the body as a way to talk about how we have already become cyborgs.”

The free Dorkbot event is Wednesday, January 13, at 6 p.m. at the Whistle Stop Bar.

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Now what can they do with Encinitas unstable cliffs?

Make the cliffs fall, put up more warnings, fine beachgoers?
Locust guitarist Bobby Bray will be a curator at the inaugural Dorkbot event Wednesday at Whistle Stop in South Park.  - Image by Cari Veach
Locust guitarist Bobby Bray will be a curator at the inaugural Dorkbot event Wednesday at Whistle Stop in South Park.

Dorkbot: “people doing strange things with electricity.” It was founded by Douglas Repetto 15 years ago as a music and technology conclave in New York and has since spawned meet-ups in about 140 cities worldwide.

Repetto, now director of the Sound Arts MFA program at Columbia University, learned much of his craft at Cal Arts in the ’90s under Tom Erbe, the current Studio Director at USCD’s Department of Music.

“I’ve always been involved in DIY electronics,” Erbe says. “In the ’70s, synths were really expensive but you could go to Radio Shack and build things out of fairly simple components. Then, around 1984, I realized that programming would be the way to go for building interesting, economical DIY stuff.”

Sponsored
Sponsored
Tom Erbe and Bobby Bray tinkering with the Eurorack.

With that recognition, Erbe created SoundHack in 1991, one of the first freeware sound softwares for Macintosh. Erbe has been considering a San Diego Dorkbot collective for the past five years, but it wasn’t until he assembled a number of professors, musicians, and DIY electronic enthusiasts that the idea took hold. One of those enthusiasts was Bobby Bray, a 2011 USCD graduate who studied with Erbe in the Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts major in Music.

“I learned a great deal from Tom,” says Bray, who will be the first of a rotating cast of Dorkbot curators. “It started as a mentor/student relationship. Now I’m curating him and I’m a teacher at a few different institutions, so it’s kind of coming full circle.”

Using software developed by USCD’s Miller Puckette, Bray has designed one-of-a-kind effects pedals that he will be showcasing following Dorkbot.

Past Event

Dorkbot SD

  • Wednesday, January 13, 2016, 8 p.m.
  • Whistle Stop Bar, 2236 Fern Street, San Diego
  • 21+

“At this point we have pretty much every academic institution in San Diego involved,” Bray says. “It’s academic, but it’s also just the right time for this city. We are strategically having the first Dorkbot event before Open Oscillator [an open-mic style electronic monthly] because there’s a convergence of people doing these similar things. It develops a community, and now it includes the academic community.”

Keynote presenters include Erbe, who will be discussing his recent switchover from software to hardware and digital versus analog, as well as Elle Mehrmand, an L.A.-based performance artist and UCSD graduate who will talk about “organic sensors, wet interfaces, and using the body as a way to talk about how we have already become cyborgs.”

The free Dorkbot event is Wednesday, January 13, at 6 p.m. at the Whistle Stop Bar.

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Escondido planners nix office building switch to apartments

Not enough open space, not enough closets for Hickory Street plans
Next Article

Raging Cider & Mead celebrates nine years

Company wants to bring America back to its apple-tree roots
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader