Workshop participants will learn how to create a Halloween Wonderbox like this one, which features a blinking skull, a spinning wheel and a talking spider, as shown in this video.

Pataphysical Studios and the Mill Valley Library invite you to join the “Make Your Own Art Wonderbox” workshop, on Saturday, October 17, 2-4 pm.

This two-hour workshop is aimed at kids ages 8-12 (and their parents, if they want to join). You don’t need any technical experience to participate, and the class is designed for up to 12 children (any number of observers are welcome). Update: this workshop is now full.

This session will show you how to create your own interactive art — like the Halloween Wonderbox shown above — using simple electronics to make characters light up, move and/or play sounds — even speak to you!

The workshop will be led by Fabrice Florin (a.k.a. Dr. Fabio), who was a multimedia pioneer at Apple Computer (and more recently for Wikipedia), and who is one of the founders of Pataphysical Studio. Other teachers are Jean Bolte (a.k.a. Dr. Figurine) who worked on the X-Ray Skull with  Dr. Canard, and her daughter Natalie Frederick (a.k.a. Dr. Canard) who built the X-Ray Skull and is our resident poet at Pataphysical Studios.

We will start with a demo of a working wonderbox we created at Pataphysical Studios. We will then show our Halloween Wonderbox Video, introduce the wonderbox kits. Participants will then break up in small groups of 2-3 to work together, using these instructions. The goal is for each group to complete a first rough wonderbox by the end of the workshop.

The Mill Valley Library will provide all materials, including kits from our partner KitHub, to support these goals:

• LEDs to light up your box
• Switches to turn them on
• Motors to make things move
• Sound chips to play/record audio
• Diagrams with easy instructions

A ‘wonderbox’ is an interactive art experience that features playful characters in miniature dioramas. Characters include singing flowers, alien invaders,  X-ray skulls and  more. Each wonderbox twinkles with lights, plays sounds and/or makes characters move. These scenes take place in boxes that are 9” by 9” by 6” — the standard size used for the Pataphysical Slot Machine.

Pataphysical Studios is a community of artists, technologists, teachers and students.We are part of a growing ‘art maker movement’ that is changing creative expression, technology and education everywhere. We are inspired by ‘Pataphysics, “the science of imaginary solutions”.

We will exhibit the Pataphysical Slot Machine at the Mill Valley Public Library every weekend in October 2015. Come see see it during open hours, Saturdays and Sundays from 1pm to 5pm!

These free events will all take place at the Mill Valley Public Library:
375 Throckmorton Ave.
Mill Valley CA 94941
415-389-4292 ext. 3
millvalleylibrary.org

We hope you’ll join us — and learn how you too can become an ‘art maker’!

Fabrice Florin (a.k.a. Dr. Fabio)
Jean Bolte (a.k.a. Dr. Figurine)
Natalie Frederick (a.k.a. Dr. Canard)