TEDx Windy City

What is Circuit Bending?

Circuit Bending is the art of recycling discarded consumer electronics, usually children’s toys, guitar effects units, inexpensive battery-powered musical instruments, portable CD players, etc. by adding wires, knobs, and switches to control new connections within the device’s pre-existing circuitry to create unique musical instruments.

What is Roth Mobot?

Roth Mobot is the Chicago based Circuit Bent musical duo of Tommy Stephenson and Patrick McCarthy. Roth Mobot’s “recursive jazz” controls the random juxtaposition of improvised dark ambient drones, languid melodies, randomly discovered rhythms, percussive accidents, the humorous language of toys, and common discarded electronic audio and video devices.

Roth Mobot has been performing musical duets on their own Circuit Bent devices and homemade electronics at galleries, theaters, festivals, bars, social events, clubs, and on the radio since 2005.

They never play the same piece twice, only rehearse in front of a live audience, and always bring new devices “hot off the workbench” to every performance.

They were featured at TimeOut Chicago Magazine’s Inaugural Ball at Chicago’s Union Station, the PACedge Festival at the Athenaeum Theatre, Collaboraction’s Sketchbook 7 festival at the Steppenwolf Garage Theatre, the annual BENT Festival in New York City & Minneapolis, The Intuit Gallery’s Annual Fundraiser Ball, the AIGA’s Annual Meeting at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Circuitatastrophe festival in Cincinnati, and were hired as “Circuit Bending” consultants for Collaboraction’s highly acclaimed “The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow” at the Chicago Dramatists, and occasionally were the show’s opening act. In 2008 they conducted the first “virtual” Circuit Bent performance by performing live in Chicago and “beaming” their show to the BENT festival in New York City via the Internet. They have just been invited to lecture and perform at the OFFF festival in Paris in June of 2010, which they also plan to webcast.

Their work has been written up in The Chicago Reader, The Chicago Tribune, TimeOut Chicago, Pioneer Press, The Daily Candy, FlavorPill, and numerous blogs. They have been the subjects of multiple video and radio documentaries.

Tommy and Patrick were the founders of the The Guild Of Acquired Technology (aka The G.O.A.T.) in Chicago, and were responsible for booking Guild lectures, demonstrations, and performances that stressed the ecological responsibility of recycling discarded electronics and e-waste. They host the annual Midwest Experimental Electronics Showcase in Chicago, a performance and installation platform for new and established artists and inventors from around the country.

Tommy has been at the center of the Circuit Bending movement for over a decade. Along with frequent custom commissions, he has designed and created devices for members of noted musical groups as the Animal Collective, Umphrey’s McGee, the Benevento Russo Duo, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, and Mike Gordon of Phish. His specialties include speed bending, mercury switches, capacitor cascades, and rehousing devices in trash-picked containers.

Patrick McCarthy has been conducting Circuit Bending workshops in various Galleries, Schools, and Corporate Seminars, since 1999. Patrick has conducted workshops and lectures at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, DePaul University, The University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, Columbia College, The Association for Computing Machinery, Lake Forest Academy, The National Museum of Mexican Art, and Accenture Technologies.

Patrick is the Director of the Chicago-based community arts organization, The Rubber Monkey Puppet Company, curates the Midwest’s “Deus Ex Machina” Contraptionism festivals, and teaches the Circuit Bending courses at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago.

Tommy and Patrick make themselves available for any correspondence and questions regarding Circuit Bending and experiential electronics. They may be reached via their web site, www.RothMobot.com.