Introduction

This book is for artists who want to add light, motion, behavior, or intelligence to their projects. The art might be sculpture that moves, an image that controls its own lighting, an artisan lamp, or a work that responds to the viewer or its environment interactively.

This is not a book 'for dummies'. However,it assumes that the artist has been educated in art, not science, math, or engineering, and has no prior knowledge of electronics at the level of detail required for building electronic projects. I will do all of the math for you, and your calculator can do any remaining arithmetic. I will explain why things work, not just how they work or how to build them, and knowing why something works will help you remember how to make it work.

There is a rule I quote so often that my friends have named it Simon's Law: Nothing is simple. But everything can be broken down into pieces that you already know. Each piece then seems simple. I will break down electronics into pieces that you can follow easily. Putting them all back together into a cohesive whole, you will eventually come to think of electronics as something you have mastered, like driving a car, painting a portrait, or planting a garden. None of these things are simple, but they are composed of smaller tasks you have already learned.