Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down -----This work consists of an aluminum hand in the thumb up position. The hand is mounted to a box so it can rotate to show thumb up or thumb down. When a viewer pushes a button on the box, the hand randomly goes up or down. By using a microcontroller, I was able to control whether the work would display thumbs up or thumbs down. More importantly, by using the microcontroller I was able to have multiple patterns in which the thumb would move. For example, when a viewer pushes the button, the thumb may start to go toward the up position, but at the last second go to the thumb down position. Because microcontrollers can randomize actions I was able to program the piece to randomly choose from different patterns of movement. Microcontrollers enable me to produce works which exhibit complex behaviors.
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