Andrew Carson

What exactly is interactive art? How do I blend mechanics and aesthetics? How are my original notions affected by the outside world? Am I isolated, or am I part of a comfortable genre? These are the questions I have pondered throughout my artistic career. Born in Boulder Colorado in 1962, I began to experiment with the tools I still use today at a very young age. Each yearof maturity brings me more motivation to mine my past, sometime verydistant past, for clues to my future. My palette includes electronics, illustration, the camera, and mechanical systems, all woven together to interact with thespirit of the human being.

I personally execute every step of myprocess, which includes design, engineering, prototyping, metal cutting, pounding andfinishing as well as glass and cement casting.

I have an assistant that helps with sandingas well as shipping.

Every one of my designs starts in a roughsketch on a napkin or the backside of adiscarded piece of paper. A good sketchbegets a good piece, and over time when Iam looking to do something new, I look tomy piles of sketches and execute from themost intriguing. From there I work digitally. Sizing the parts, figuring the mechanics, reflecting the rotations and clearances. When the design is done Ibreak this digital sketch up into pieces and print them at full scale. From thisstage I drill and cut the parts and begin to assemble the final piece. There
are no “found parts” in my work. I design and make every piece, includingthe glass balls, the hubs and the transitions.

It is not easy to weave functionality with form. Not many of the things Idream are realized, and not every realization matches the rough concept instyle and grace. Embarking on each new project destroys my fantasy of itsideal potential; replacing it with a reality that can be frighteningly vivid orpainfully dull. There is no book I refer to. I create my original pieces today, based on the cruder ones I made yesterday.