iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

#Opportunity! The Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology has announced its 2026-2027 residency program, focused on "AGENCY", providing both local-to-NYC as well as virtual residencies for US-based artists. Deadline is Sunday, Oct 11! eyebeam.org/focus/agency

eyebeam.org

Current | Area of Focus | Eyebeam

Eyebeam supports artists who make radical, independent work about the way technology shapes our lives.

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Reposted by Golan Levin

loackme @loackme.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

frames assembled with #Plottimation, courtesy of @golan.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/gola...

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Our lab has a Viking Jade 35 that we did all our testing with. I'm interested to learn more about your open hardware, please send links when you have them! This reminds me that PEmbroider is overdue for a tuneup :)

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

PSA: I have updated the p5js+MediaPipe tracking demo for late 2026— this repairs several breaking changes by vendors (ahem). It now uses p5 v2.3.2 and MediaPipe v.1.0.0. Ready for your students! openprocessing.org/@golan/2760298 editor.p5js.org/golan/sketch... cc @openprocessing.bsky.social

openprocessing.org

MediaPipe_2026! - Golan Levin - OpenProcessing

Track face, hands, body pose, and body contour with the Google MediaPipe trackers. Uses MediaPipe v1.0.0 and p5.js v.2.3.2.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Norman McLaren's "Dots". Maya Deren's "Meshes of the Afternoon". Peter Campus's "Three Transitions". In my sculpture class, a screening of "The Way Things Go" by Fischli & Weiss.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Lovely marks. I'm reminded of Tim Knowles' "Tree Drawings" (c. 2005-2007) www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/28/kn...

cabinetmagazine.org

Artist Project / Tree Drawings | Tim Knowles

The limbs limn

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

I did the work for the students in my upcoming "Experimental Capture" course at CMU, which is concerned with using technologies to see the world in new ways. We have a lot of unusual imaging/sensing equipment (thermal, ultrasonic, high-speed, 360°, etc.). I can't predict how students will use it.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

I'm pleased to announce the release of a browser-based tool for viewing, reconstructing, and exporting 3D data from a GelSight Mini tactile sensor. This unusual $500 device connects like a regular webcam, but can be used as a depth-scanning microscope for surface texture: github.com/CreativeInqu...

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Ah, I didn't find this. Thanks for the link.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

For each joystick it produces a 12-bit X, Y, and R (radius) value which is unique for every location in a 2-meter hemisphere around the device. The conversions for angles are straightforward; with a little trig the device essentially provides spherical coordinates.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Thanks Andrés for corresponding, and for flagging this. The LightForm indeed sounds like a very similar situation. I can't tell you how much this kind of thing enrages me. Getting a FLOSS stack for this sounds like a larger undertaking than the Sensel Morph, but: "things are becoming easier".

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Reposted by Golan Levin

craig @fahner.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Introducing p5.plotterControl, a library that enables live control of pen plotter hardware from p5.js github.com/craigfahner/...

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

I appreciate this, but I'm not sure how you can know that the spa is "hot" from that photo, unless you were there with the capybara.

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Reposted by Golan Levin

Kyle McDonald @kcimc.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

we built a tool to traffic private jet emissions during the world cup and other events. it's pretty bad 🤮

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Reposted by Golan Levin

Blair Neal @laserpilot.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

I have to do a lot of napkin math for interactive installations and just realized i could make a multitool for common things. Welcoming comments! laserpilot.github.io/interactive-... -Monitor placement, LED simulation, projector, sensor, speaker positioning

laserpilot.github.io

Interactive Installation Multitool

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

@softmoon.world @charlotte.fyi Thank you both for your poignant observations. May I cite/quote you?

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

As a postscript, I feel obliged to mention that cracking the Morph involved disassembling a Windows binary, and that I don't know shit about how to do that. As conflicted as I am about AI, part of my wonder here is how it can help us recover what's slipping away, instead of recycling what isn't.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

I can't look away from these lost interfaces. I want to document them carefully and return them to the commons before they disappear: to empower artists, preserve public knowledge, and keep capable hardware out of landfills.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

I'm increasingly interested in how reverse engineering can be a form of cultural stewardship. Every abandoned instrument, sensor, or HID controller contains knowledge that can disappear long before the hardware itself fails.

Screenshot of Processing (at right) communicating with p5.js (at left) over WebSockets.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

My work fully restores open access to the device, providing the first completely open-source implementation of the Sensel Morph's raw pressure data pipeline. It provides full access to device data over OSC, Syphon, and WebSockets, via both Processing and Python — without requiring the original SDK.

Screenshot of Processing (at right) communicating with Touchdesigner (at left) over Syphon and OSC

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

The Morph is one of the most expressive pressure-sensing interfaces ever made. Unfortunately, Sensel effectively abandoned its SDK by 2020. Even worse, they used closed-source decompression code in its USB protocol. As operating systems evolved, the Morph was effectively condemned to become e-waste.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

The Sensel Morph offers a 185×105 pressure image (with ~14 usable bits of dynamic range); up to 16 contact ellipses; and a labels image with temporally coherent tracking IDs. It even has a 3D accelerometer. It transmits all of this data at up to 150 Hz, depending on settings.

The Sensel Morph pressure image (185x105, nominally 16 bits), showing a handprint

The Sensel Morph labels image, showing contact IDs assigned to pixels

Composite of the pressure, labels, and contact ellipse data from the Sensel Morph, showing response to a hand

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

I'm thrilled to announce another liberated device: A fully open-source interface to the remarkable Sensel Morph touchpad (2017), featuring OSC, Syphon, and WebSocket transport in both Processing and Python. github.com/CreativeInqu...

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

This is resonant with Robin Sloan's great short essay, "An app can be a home-cooked meal": www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-c...

robinsloan.com

An app can be a home-cooked meal

I made a messaging app for my family and my family only.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

I'm not certain "I'm" solving these puzzles. But I am definitely getting shit done, and there's nobody else but ghosts in the room.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Awwwwww Yeaaaaah. This is huge progress.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Ha. Good new stuff in the oven.

Screencapture of a terminal window with an LLM saying "Big breakthrough from disassembly: labels decompression is plainly an RLE stream".

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

I'm a software guy, if I did it your way I'd be out $30 and sniffing the magic smoke

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

The Gametrak is a wonderful controller but unfortunately does not behave like a normal RS232 or HID device. It only streams useful data after a shibboleth: ASCII `Gametrak`, then `45 23`, then periodic `46 XX` keepalives where XX is generated by a rolling key algorithm handshake curse. Now you know.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

I first learned about the GameTrak from @rebeccafiebrink.bsky.social around 2016? in one of her influential Wekinator workshops. Rebecca has cut the path for demonstrating how expressive controllers like the GameTrak, coupled with machine learning, can serve musical inclusion and exploration.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

I learned about it from her! Her Wekinator project was very influential.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

I don't think you'd find what you want; it's a very lengthy, winding, and interactive conversation with a lot of dead-ends, and a great deal of my middle-aged intuition guiding the process. It more closely resembles guiding a diligent student, than giving commands to a genie.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Others have been here before; a handful of artists have used it in Max/MSP, and my effort built on libgametrak, an older C library by Géry Casiez. My contribution was to create and publish a collection of shims for popular creative coding protocols, inclusing OSC, MIDI, and WebSockets.

"Capturing Movement in Sound" (2024) by Richard McReynolds, performed by Jodi Ann Nicholson. https://richardmcreynolds.com/blog/2024/1/8/yx7md3hbz8mngcy14oat54rgljgknf

Jenn Kirby, Duet for 3D Printer and Gametrak (2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9OYlnF-eto

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Today I liberated the GameTrak (c.2004), an unusual 3D sensor featuring two XY joysticks with retractable tethers. It’s ~$20 on eBay and very expressive: 6 channels of 12-bit data at 75Hz. It now emits data for #Processing and #p5.js over OSC, MIDI, WebSocket, and stdout. github.com/CreativeInqu...

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

I find myself strongly drawn to reverse engineering for the public good. It not only empowers others (a student could use these devices to "make an interactive installation that responds to the temperature/wind", etc.); it also can give this crap a new life, hopefully outside of a landfill.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

This evening, building on the work of others, I helped liberate the TEMP_er1 USB temperature sensor. This is an inexpensive (~$25), unbranded, white-label HID device that does one thing well. Now its data stream can be accessed in Python, #Processing, and via OSC. github.com/CreativeInqu...

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

To the best of my knowledge, the data streams produced by the MS6252B anemometer have not been documented by the manufacturer or elsewhere. Reverse-engineering the data streamed by the device took about 30 minutes with Codex.

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Golan Levin @golan.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

On Monday evening I liberated the MS6252B digital USB anemometer. This is a nice wind/humidity/temperature sensor, about $130 on Amazon (www.amazon.com/MS6252B-Hand...) with shit/nonexistent software. Now it talks to Python and #Processing: github.com/CreativeInqu...

The MS6252B Handheld Digital Anemometer (at left) in front of a real-time view of a Processing sketch receiving its data.

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