Peter Venuto could be called a mad scientist, though his concoctions aren’t of the chemical variety. He builds his own circuit boards and light machines that extravagantly flicker on and off to the beat of songs blasting from his computer.
His creation, the Electric Rainbow Machine, looks like a wind turbine with six propellers that have LED lights stuck on them. It took six months to make and is pieced together with remnants of a fan bought from Canadian Tire, computer parts from electronic havens like Active Surplus and a whole lot of imagination.
“When you’re customizing your own electronics you can choose every detail,” says the 39-year-old with a grin.
Based in the middle of Kensington Market, Venuto’s studio/apartment is eclectic to say the least. The cupboards are covered with tinfoil, in one corner there is a pile of keyboards, home-made shelves littered with books and vinyl records line the walls and in another corner is his control station. Beside his wireless Mac keyboard is a box full of exposed computer wires making the circuit board that controls the Electric Rainbow Machine.
“This is the equivalent of electronic Lego,” says Venuto, pointing to the circuit board. Every wire and chip has a purpose he says and it took a lot of trial-and-error to get the Electric Rainbow Machine up and running. Basically, the circuit board senses sound which is converted into digital message that appears as bright multi-coloured lights on the Rainbow Machine propellers. The two devices are connected via printing cables.
“Learning electronics gives you the power of the alchemist,” he says. “[From] my understanding, the idea of the alchemist is an attempt to synergize the best attributes of the artist.”
And synergize he did. After graduating from OCAD in 1997 with a degree focusing on electronics, Venuto moved to Montreal and then New York City. Originally wanting to start his own lightshow karaoke band, he created the “Trashlites” machine. He popped holes into a trash can lid filling them with tiny LED light bulbs. Venuto premiered his creation to an enthusiastic audience including San Francisco band Deerhoof. While in Amherst, Massachusetts in 2005, he played his Trashlites during a Deerhoof concert and hooked up with them again in 2008 at their Canadian Music Week set at The Phoenix.
Although Venuto enjoys playing venues, he always wanted to have his own space to host light shows. So when the apartment next door became available, Venuto hopped on the chance to rent it out. What was once a kitchen now houses the Electric Rainbow Machine and is separated from the living room by PBC boards (the plastic that’s tough enough to resist bullets). The former living room is filled with yard chairs every weekend to house his light show screenings. Named the Rainbow Palace, the venue’s muse is the laser shows that would happen at the Toronto McLuaghlin Planetarium in the 1980s and 90s which Venuto would go to as a teenager.
“It was strictly another way to experience the music,” Venuto recalls. “The first one I saw was Laser Beatles [a laser show to Beatles soundtracks] and it blew my mind because it seemed like one of the only sanctuary zones where you weren’t forced to do something or there wasn’t some kind of social pressure where there was some kind of forced action expected on your part…It merged with this rec-room vibe. What do you do when you’re growing up anyway? You can’t go out, you’re totally restricted, you’ve got no rights so your only escape really, for a lot of people, is music.”
Venuto wants the Rainbow Palace to also be an escape from people’s every-day lives and one of his goals is to expose people to new music. Each show plays different musical genres ranging from psychedelic Zeppelin to dub step to indigenous music.
“I personally regard it [the Rainbow Electric Machine] as a device to investigate. A self diagnostic tool to stimulate different perceptions, different kinds of feelings,” says Venuto. “I want to explore to see if there are different kinds of feelings and potential we haven’t experienced yet…It [the light show] does trip you out and I think tripping out is naturally good for you. Every little child spins around until they fall on the ground because they are using motion to just take a little vacation from their mundane existence.”
To attend a Rainbow Palace light show you have to sign up for a free membership on the website and reserve a seat which is only $7 for an hour-and-a-half long show.
Scavenging guide
Peter Venuto has a strong do-it-yourself ethic so he spent a lot of time shopping around for different hardware and electric parts to make the Electric Rainbow Machine a physical reality. For all you inventor hopefuls, here are Venuto’s favourite places to shop:
Active Surplus – 345 Queen W. at Beverley and Quefen
Active Surplus is something akin to the Rosetta Stone for the tinkerer. The originator and pioneer of Toronto surplus electronics is a staple for the maker and even for the remotely curious. I make it a point to make a pilgrimage to Active Surplus with visiting musicians. American ones usually leave quite stunned, because there are truly few places as well endowed in the electronics surplus department as Active Surplus.
Above All Electronics Surplus – 602 Bloor W. at Christie and Bloor
Two former employees of Active Surplus who are taking care of the surplus electronics needs of Annex West
Creatron – 255 College St. at College and Spadina
A must stop for those who are truly hardcore about electronics. The owner, Lawrence, is a true visionary/electronics guru who is in many cases the sole distributor of many hard-to-find electronics and microcontroller components. Creatron also specializes in all things “Arduino”, for you MAKE-zine readers out there. Arduino has become one of the most popular microcontroller platforms out there. It’s causing somewhat of a DIY electronics frenzy out there and for good reason!
Solways – 26 Earnest at Lansdowne and Bloor
Although open to the public, you would never know it. Amidst the endless din of scavengers dropping off endless amounts of urban detritus in busted-ass pickup trucks, you can go through the main entrance into a world that is still one with the early ‘70s. The merchants of this metal emporium, if asked with requisite respect, will grant you access to the warehouse area, something like 25,000 to 50,000 square feet of somewhat organized metal, copper, aluminum, stainless, you get the idea. They weigh it for you and you pay relatively little.
Guide compiled by Peter Venuto [rssbreak]
