Artist Chris Shen made a TV out of 625 discarded remote controls, hacking their LEDs to light up in a grid, creating a low-rez moving image. The Evil Mad Scientists posted his loving documentation of the the technical aspects of the project:
The main change to the Peggy was to solder molex headers instead of LEDs: this is to allow the wires to be easily plugged in and out of the board which is necessary when dismantling and reassembling the piece. Yes, all 625 remotes are numbered so they can be removed from the frame for transportation! The current and voltage was also adjusted fo IR LEDs as opposed to visible LEDs.
While researching, the main thing I was looking for was the ability to play video (live) on a low-res matrix. I looked into various ways of doing this but once I found the Peggy 2 kit it gave me confidence to go ahead with building Infra because of the open-source nature, existing work done by Windell, and Jay Clegg’s video Peggy mod.
I connect all the remote controls via 500 meters of speaker wire to the Peggy, held into the frame by a simple looped elastic band. The circuit is mounted to a sheet of acrylic as the circuit bowed with all the wire attached. Each remote had to be opened to solder the wire directly to the LEDs legs. The wire is then routed out through the back of the remote and closed back up.
The TV is on show in London, at 18 Hewett Street, London, EC2A 3NN, until 3rd February 2013.
Infra, a TV built from remote controls
Artist Chris Shen made a TV out of 625 discarded remote controls, hacking their LEDs to light up in a grid, creating a low-rez moving image.