In December of 2023, I brought artwork to Art Basel Miami for the first time. It did not go unnoticed! Art historian and videomaker, Julia Schroeder, spotted it and approached me about doing a short video about my work. Over the Spring of 2024, we conducted a number of interviews and sifted through project documentation and last Friday, June 21st, the finished video popped up on the web.
It focuses on my adventure of bringing the Kittolith to Miami Art Week and displaying it in The Maze installation at Hotel Faena’s beachfront. Full story here.
Refurbished Catoliths with new bases and “KISS” (Kittolith Interactive Sound System) adapted to the Catolith
It’s only natural that cats should have kittens, and plastic cat statues should therefore have their progeny too. The Coven of Catoliths gave birth to a Litter of Kittoliths.
After 5 years of design and production I feel that the Catolith is at last nearing its potential. The newly refurbished Catoliths that were just installed at KALW with their LiDAR based interactivity, battery operation, independent control via Raspberry Pi computer, and lighter more mobile wooden base actually exceed what I imagined for this artwork 5 years ago.
Below is a table showing the progression of techniques from one iteration of Cathenge to the next.
Component
New Catolith (2024)
Kittolith System (2023-24)
Catolith System (Patricia’s Green 2022)
Catolith System (BMan 2019)
Interactivity
LiDAR (“Time of Flight”), Raspberry Pi
LiDAR (“Time of Flight”), Raspberry Pi
Passive Infrared
Capacitive Sensing by Theremin Barney
Purring
Solfeggio Tone Based
Solfeggio Tone Based
Purr Data interactive composition by Jacob Tonski
Purr Tones by No.e
3D Printing
PETG/CR-10 S-5 Self-Printed
PETG/CR-10 S-5 Self-Printed
PETG/CR-10 S-5 Self-Printed
PLA by Titanic Design
3D Modeling
“Voxel Modeling” for 2-ply model with “shiplap” joints.
“Voxel Modeling” for 2-ply model with “shiplap” joints.
“Voxel Modeling” for 2-ply model with “shiplap” joints.
No joining system!
Base
Wooden Base
Wooden Base
Concrete Base
Concrete Base
Sound
Transductive Speakers/Inverted Sub Mounted in the Base
Transductive Speakers/Inverted Sub Mounted in the Base
Transductive Speakers/Bazooka Sub
Car Audio Stuff
The Vision of Cathenge
From the beginning, the vision of Cathenge and of the Catolith Cat Statue has been exceedingly difficult to realize because it combines lighting effects and interactivity in very specific ways and is dependent on the large format 3D printing to achieve. However, each installation of Cathenge succeeded in communicating this vision in different ways, but never completely to my satisfaction, and that’s why I have continued working on the project.
The goal has been to express the concept of “Holofelinity: Universal Cat Consciousness”. Holofelinity is the magical power of the Ancient Lyran Space Cats to manifest their minds over matter and to transform themselves into any shape. This is expressed in the artwork as “Harmonic Purring” (AKA; “Purrbration of Holofelinity”), an evocation of the capacity of the Space Cats to purr their visions into material form.
Ancient Lyran Space Cat materialized as Bastet idol levitating pyramid using chromatic spectra of the Purrbration of Holofelinity.
The Kittolith
In order to reach this goal, it was instrumental to create a smaller version of the Catolith, the “Kittolith”:
The Kittolith at Miami Art Week
Because the Kittolith presents as a single statue instead of a circle of statues (as in Cathenge) it has been necessary to condense the interactive harmonic purring system into one sculpture. This has been done using LiDAR. People interact with the LiDAR beam extending from the collar of the Kittolith and trigger different frequencies (“Solfeggio Tones”). The infographic below shows how the Kittolith works with the use of Solfeggio sound healing tones:
From Kittolith to Catolith
The “Kittolith Interactive Sound System” (KISS) was adapted for use in the Catolith. The photo gallery below documents our process of creating the New Catolith. Essential to this process was the design and construction of a new wooden base for the Catolith.
CAD drawing of wooden Catolith base
This new, lighter base not only facilitates a wider range of possibilities of exhibitions because of its much reduced weight (compared to the previous concrete bases), but also resolves acoustic issues since the wooden base acts as a ported speaker cabinet for the subwoofer installed in the base. Below is a gallery of photos of the new Catolith and its new base under construction:
The exhibition will be up through August 1st 2024.
(Eventbrite link at bottom of page to reserve free tix)
Public broadcasting station, KALW, recently moved their radio station’s studios to the heart of San Francisco’s financial district where they reside in the ground floor lobby of the historic Mills Building located at 220 Montgomery (Montgomery and Bush). The spacious lobby provides a new and exciting arts and events space. KALW executive director, Ben Trefny, is curating a series of art exhibits in the lobby.
The KALW lobby space features large storefront windows looking out on busy Montgomery St. which are a perfect place to perch the Catoliths. Two Catoliths will be placed, one in each large window, on either side of the entrance to the radio station where they will be seen by motorists and pedestrians alike, and, of course, by visitors to the station. These Catoliths will feature their hallmark interactive purring (Purrbration of Holofelinity).
Cathenge by David NormalInfinity Box by Matt ElsonSculpture by Brenden DarbyPainting by Jesse Pemberton
In February we completed the “New Prototype Kittolith” and debuted it at the Space Cat Cavalcade. This 5′ tall Catolith was printed by Re3D in Houston, Texas. The sound and lights were created by Theremin Barney, Artur Pyrogovskyi, and Aaron Winette. In this video I am demonstrating the motion detection based sound/light interactivity that Barney engineered using passive infrared sensors. The cat itself is a speaker. A kind of transductive speaker is affixed to the perimeter wall of the cat statue and the entire plastic cat vibrates to produce the sound. The sounds are solfeggio tones that Artur programmed in a randomized cycle to be triggered by the voltage signal transmitted from Barney’s motion detection circuit. This is still a work in progress, but we are developing this system to be used in the ring of six Catoliths that will be installed at Patricia’s Green.
Creality CR-10 S5 large format 3D printer being modified for Cathenge production.
I’m setting up a print farm of 7 of these CR-10 S5 printers. This is the first one which I am testing modifications on. This printer has a 500*500*500 mm build space, however the stock print bed only heats a 300*300 area, so I have upgraded this with a 500*500 heat mat. I also added the crossbraces since I anticipate that as the print grows tall and the load heavy that the z-axis will need all the reinforcement it can get.
Next up: I will replace the bowden style extruder with a direct drive extruder for greater printing efficiency and capability.
These feet of a “Mini-Kittolith” are one of the very first things I printed since resolving to undertake on my own the printing of Cathenge for Patricia’s Green myself.
I’ve opted to print Cathenge myself. It’s a big undertaking – typically people print something the size of an action figure, but it’s possible to do much larger things, and so I’m printing all 6 Catoliths. Doing the printing myself gives me the latitude to experiment with the design and the technique and that is essentially what artistic control is about.
I was able to source high quality yet inexpensive large format 3D printers (Creality CR-10 S5) which give me a 500*500*500 mm build space to work with. I am setting up seven of these printers at my studio in Stinson Beach. Using all seven printers at once I estimate I can produce one cat in 3 days. I’ll begin production of Catoliths by the second week of April and hazard to guess I’ll finish all six Catoliths within a month.
Of course, I get to keep the printers which opens up a whole new world of artistic possibilities for me. Building on my long experience in 3D modeling, I envision new “Crazyological” sculptures 3D printed and embellished with paint, lighting effects, interactivity and/or kinetics. It’s quite exciting!
This 3D printed Catolith prototype “Kittolith”. Printed by Christopher Christensen. This prototype features motion activated interactive purring by Theremin Barney. Ultimately, we settled on touch sensitivity through “Capacitive Sensing” as the mechanism of interactivity for the large Catoliths at Cathenge, Black Rock City 2019.
