robotcowboy

aka Dan Wilcox aka danomatika

Dan Wilcox is an artist, engineer, musician, performer who combines live musical performance techniques with experimental electronics and software for the exploration of new expression, often through themes of science fiction, space travel, cyborgification, and far futurism. His father was an aerospace engineer, he grew up in the Rocket City, and has performed in Europe and around the US with his one man band cyborg performance project, robot cowboy. Dan currently lives in Denver, CO USA and is the 2015–17 Visiting Teaching Assistant Professor at the University of Denver’s Emergent Digital Practices Program.

About his work:

robotcowboy is a wearable computing platform to explore new types of man-machine music & artistic performance. Embedded computing, custom software, and audio electronics are utilized to build portable, self contained systems which both embed and embody the computation on the performer.

This cyborg approach is both empowering and compromising as new sonic capability & movement are offset by the need for electrical energy: elements of tension between human and system. robotcowboy shows are always live and contain aspects of improvisation, feedback with the audience, and an inherent capability of failure, i.e. the “live” in live performance.
In its first incarnation, titled Cabled Madness, it is an attempt to meld rock with realtime algorithmic composition tools into a dynamic live show. A MIDI guitar, crazy control devices, various masks, and synchronized visuals make for a new new wave experience.

The second robotcowboy incarnation, Onward to Mars, updated the cyborg suit into a space suit worn by the first human on Mars. Sent on a one-way journey, the Astronaut must overcome the very real dangers of a hostile environment to discover the “music of Mars.”

The upcoming and as yet unnamed third incarnation of robotcowboy returns it’s focus on music and gesture while continuing the focus of embodiment in computation. Expect a computer music meet the energy of rock & punk. The future is bright, do you have room to wiggle?

Links

robotcowboy.com

Cabled Madness

Videos

SubOptimal

“Onward to Mars” – Pittsburgh CSA Preview

The Body, The Circuit, The Computer and The Voice: robotcowboy

VIA presents Robotcowboy vs. Robotcowboy