Artist Statement

Chiroptera_Domus, which is Latin for Bat house, seeks to merge a functional habitat with an expressive art form. A pair of Heterodyne Bat Detectors mounted to a roof of a custom-built bat house, mounted on the roof of the Albuquerque Museum of Art & History, listen for the ultra sonic signals of bats feeding and navigating the local vicinity. Detected signals are recorded and played back randomly as a sound composition during the exhibition. The Bat Detectors use the heterodyne principle to monitor bat echolocations. The detectors can be tuned to monitor frequencies from 10kHz to 130kHz. The detector inputs inaudible high frequency ultrasound and converts it to frequencies between 100Hz and 12kHz that are in a range humans can hear. The bat detectors microphones have been mounted onto a pair of poles with weather resistant housings. Since the ultrasonic signals being monitored are highly directional the microphone poles use servomechanisms to pan slowly from left to right scanning the vicinity in different directions. danmillerart.com/Chiroptera_Domus_3.html

• Daniel Miller (USA) integrates robotics, media and electronics, exploring systems and ecologies. Currently, Associate Professor in Sculpture, The School of Art & Art History and he is also a member of the Public Digital Arts faculty cluster at University of Iowa. He teaches sculpture courses that integrate robotics, mechanical fabrication and electronics. Previously, he is Adjunct Associate Professor, Art & Technology Department, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, since 1997. Miller received his MFA in 1997 from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago in Time Arts, he received a in BA Sculpture in 1994 from Hope College, Holland, MI, USA. danmillerart.com

  
  Support from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Albyquerque Museum of Art & History