About Me

In an era where images can empower and enlighten with greater speed and impact than ever before, art and design can take on new and unexpected forms. My work is an exploration of the systems of meaning that underly visual expression. I build tools and experiences that harness the power of machines while affirming people's ability to empathize and consider, create rather than destroy.
---
Résumé
----
ben@lerchin.com
+1 971.225.3724
+44 (0) 7546 120525


2 Badger Ct.
Novato CA 94949
USA

Résumé

Thoughts

Twitter

Flickr

Vimeo

LinkedIn

3rd Person Backpack
December 2012 

Many of us already live in the realm of our own self-consciousness, wondering what it would be like to walk around with eyes in the back of our heads or as a flies on the wall. When digital and physical spaces merge, our notions of identity and self-awareness change in unpredictable ways.

This apparatus is a platform for augmented reality applications, including those that allow the wearer to see as his or her phone sees, creating a digital ‘out of body experience’. The whole system is wearable, and interfaces with video googles and a smartphone camera. Video from the camera streams over a wireless network to the goggles, where it fills the wearer’s field of view.

Link |

Web Flaneur

Drawing on the experience of the literary flâneur, this project attempts to curate 30 minutes of aimless web browsing, originally performed by myself and Kirsty McBride.

Web-scraping software collected images as we surfed, and this presentation emerged as we tried to make sense of the accumulated data. These images are displayed within a browsing application that injects random behavior into the navigation process. The hope is that by relinquishing complete control, the viewer can experience the serendipity and thrill of discovering uncharted territory.

Web Flaneur is viewable in any modern web browser. A current version of Google Chrome or Firefox is recommended.

Full Stop, Silence, and Replace All

February 2012

These experimental typography applications make word-processor style formatting effects available during casual web browsing. “Full Stop” hides all semantic content on the page, revealing only punctuation and negative space. “Silence” also hides all content, instead showing only empty boxes where text or images would ordinarily appear. “Replace All” indiscriminately substitutes enthusiasm for meaningful language.

The results convey a sense of visual and semantic structure that would not otherwise be easily discernable. The variability of results suggests the extent to which the web remains an evolving medium for design.

In a more polished form, I imagine these tools being used by students, designers, and developers as part of a structural exploration of type and information design.

These are proofs of concept, not finished products. But, the code is available if you’d like to play around with it. Should work well on any computer with Google Chrome. Just please read the included text before you dive in!

Window of Opportunity

January 2012

Triptych, Instagram Photographs

Escape 01
December 2011
Steel frame, aluminum wire screen, sheet metal
32” x 32” x 32” 

The basic unit of space in an engineered world, the box has the defining property of containment. 

Physical, conceptual, and virtual boxes abound. Some two millennia of the architectural achievement in the Western tradition precede the perfection of the modern architectural box.

In a virtual world the task is reversed; we begin with a box.

V = a * b * c

The virtual box has no physical limits.

Sometimes, the only motive is to escape.

//////////////////////////////////////////////

This work utilizes a physical property known as the Faraday Cage. The metal screens and conductive metal frame form an object that is (nearly) electrically impenetrable. Shocks, impulses, and radiation up to the Microwave spectrum are blocked or severely attenuated by its walls. Telecommunications devices such as cell phones, radios, and computers cannot transmit or receive signals to or from the outside world. 

//////////////////////////////////////////////

Link | Hi-Res

Brick Wall, Walla Walla WA

May 2011

Silver print from Polaroid Type 55 negative

8.5” x 11”

Link | Hi-Res

Snow Bank, Rainier National Park

August 2011

Archival inkjet print

8.5” x 11”

Link | Hi-Res

10x10x10xTieton exhibition poster

July 2011, for Mighty Tieton Events

Laser print

10” x 10”

Catalogue for Textiles Tieton: Fresh Thread, an exhibition sponsored by Tieton Arts and Humanities, WA

August 2011

Photography and Layout. 16 pages. Laser printed and hand-bound by Marquand Editions | Tieton. Edition of approximately 100.

8.5” x 5.5” x .5”

Link | Hi-Res

Touch/sight interface for a social networking application on an augmented reality platform.

October 2010

Digital rendering

Link | Hi-Res

Screen captures and photos from a critique of QR FACE software

December 2010

Laptop computer, webcam, Processing software

14” x 10” x 10”

/////////////////////

QR FACE

is a proof-of-concept Processing program which attempts to locate and identify faces from a live video stream. It was envisioned as a component in an augmented reality software application. Participants affix a computer-readable QR code sticker to their foreheads. The code it contains corresponds to a database of identities. The program uses facial recognition software to locate faces within the video frame and identifies them by means of the unique identifier encoded in the stickers.

/////////////////////

VIDGRID

——

October 2010

Laptop computer, webcam, Processing software

12” x 12” x 12”

——

VIDGRID is an interactive video installation using the Processing

software development environment and a laptop computer. It divides the

frame of a live video fees into a series of smaller frames which

update at irregular intervals and with various visual filters applied.

Some aspects of the display are random. Others vary based on

mathematical patterns, user input, or environmental feedback.

The piece was first conceived and constructed to be presented in a

gallery setting. Another incarnation of the program, dubbed “Dabbles

in Code” debuted as a visual backdrop to a performance by the band

“Dabbles in Bloom” at Whitman College in April 2011.

Link | Hi-Res

No Road, 2010

Silver print

6” x 6”

Link | Hi-Res

Accident in the Alleyway, 2011

Silver print from Polaroid Type 55 negative

5” x 10”

Link | Hi-Res

Schism, 2011

Silver contact print from panoramic pinhole negative

2” x 7”