About
Casperelectronics was established in the summer of 2000 in Providence, RI.
Since I started casperelectronics I have built instruments for dozens of musicians across the globe working in genres ranging from techno and sound scape to rock and hip hop. These clients include:
- Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Fantomas, and more)
- Kevin Rutmanis (The Melvins)
- Danny Elfman (ex Oingo Boingo, currently composing film scores for Tim
Burton and other films including Spiderman and RedDragon) - Mark Hosler (Negativland)
- Rahzel (The Roots)
- DJJS1 (Rahzel’s traveling DJ and partner in crime)
- BT (father of trance)
Pete with Mike Patton, 2005.
Media credits and related experience include:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor of Design, Hampshire college. Teaching classes on creative electronics and circuit bending.
- “Bent” festival at The Tank in NYC. Featured artist 04′, 05′, 06′ and upcoming 07′. On 07′ planning commity
- TechTV’s Screen Savers television show. On site interview and presentation 03′.
- New York Times. Article on “Bent” festival, photo and quote 04′.
- New Haven Advocate. Interview 05′.
- Slashdot.org. Featured site.
- Swedish public access television show on innovative design called “showroom”. Interview in casperelectronics studio 05′. Video posted here.
Pete with Rahzel’s DJ, DJJS1, 2005.
The History of casperelectronics
As far back as I can remember I’ve had a sort of artistic appreciation for electronics. Or more accurately, I was interested in what electronics looked like and not so much in how they worked. Circuit boards looked like little cities and schematics were just neat looking patterns. Like many of us, I loved taking apart broken radios, speakers, blenders, etc to see what was inside but had no intention of putting them back together.
This interest remained a passive one until I started studying sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design in 97′. I was doing quite a bit of installation art at the time where I was focusing on creating complete environments. Every object in the environment was a considered part of the whole piece. The clock on the wall, the radio on the table, the table itself. I started seeing these everyday objects that we are surrounded by as objects that could be manipulated and infused with my own artistic agenda.
The thought of learning electrical theory was a daunting one so my first forays into the world of electronics and electrical manipulation were pretty simple and required more duct tape than solder. In one installation I used a hidden TV as a constantly changing, colored light source. In another I plugged a tape deck playing a tape loop into a walkie-talkie which transmitted the signal to another walkie-talkie across the room. They were fun little projects but I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that there was no way I could learn how electronics actually worked.
Pete Edwards being interviewed by a Swedish television station, 2005.
It wasn’t until after I graduated in 2000 that my side interest in analog audio synthesis and my lack of money to buy any analog synth gear drove me to start experimenting with a children’s electronics learning board. Around the same time I also met someone who was making music using a Speak&Spell that he had rewired to create some of the strangest sounds I had ever heard. He told me that he had “no idea what he was doing.” He just randomly soldered points on the circuit board together and it started making weird sounds. I figured I’d give it a shot and was amazed to find that it was really that simple. I didn’t know what I was doing, yet I was getting amazing results. I was hooked.
Luckily (maybe it was fate?) I found an ebay auction for 20 Speak&Spells and I made the investment. About a month later I sold my first Modified Speak&Spell. A few months and a few more sales after that I made a simple website to show off some of my creations and casperelectronics was born.
I worked with the Speak&Spell for about a year and got to a point where I actually DID know what I was doing. I could isolate certain effects and maximize their capabilities but that’s also when I started getting bored. It stopped being about exploration and became more about repetition. I soon found that clients had their own ideas to bring to the table and I started taking great joy in figuring out how to bring their ideas to fruition.
Because much of the work I have done has been a collaboration of a clients ideas and my own, I’ve found myself creating devices I never would have dreamed up on my own. With every new client came a new idea and a new challenge.
Over the past 7 years I have worked for dozens of different artists, musicians and collectors and have modified hundreds of different electronic devices ranging from children’s toys to car horns to talking wrist watches.
The work shown on this site is just a sampling of the variety of work I’ve done since I started casperelectronics. I hope you find the work on this site to be inspiring on some level or if nothing else, a source of novel entertainment.