It means taking electronic devices-- usually cheap toys or musical keyboards-- and doing random rewiring things to them so they no longer act in a predictable fashion. The more accomplished circuit benders will set up breakout boxes with exposed screws conencted to wires to points on the circuit boards of the original device so you can either short them out or just touch them (for the skin capacitance effect).
It _can_ be an art form, but it can also be irritating and pretentious. For an example, check GetLoFi.
I have mixed feelings about it-- on the one hand, neat! New noises from cheesy toys! On the other hand, it's usually some kind of irritating noise and the devices that end up being more interesting are far outnumbered by the devices that end up just broken.
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Date: 2006-02-06 04:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-06 08:04 pm (UTC)It means taking electronic devices-- usually cheap toys or musical keyboards-- and doing random rewiring things to them so they no longer act in a predictable fashion. The more accomplished circuit benders will set up breakout boxes with exposed screws conencted to wires to points on the circuit boards of the original device so you can either short them out or just touch them (for the skin capacitance effect).
It _can_ be an art form, but it can also be irritating and pretentious. For an example, check GetLoFi.
I have mixed feelings about it-- on the one hand, neat! New noises from cheesy toys! On the other hand, it's usually some kind of irritating noise and the devices that end up being more interesting are far outnumbered by the devices that end up just broken.