Jack Levine Builds His Dream

By Lauren Keyson and Altynay DemeubayevaJack Levine, CEO of Electric Objects, is building a computer for display art, along with partner Bill Colles. They attended a 2014 NY Tech Meetup at NYU to demo their first prototype. “We are hardware, we are software, we are lots of different things.” He said that his computer is disruptive because it is a way to elevate internet art on the walls in homes. He explains that there are all of these beautiful works on the Internet, but no real way to enjoy it. “They are trapped inside of our phones, tablets and computers,” he said. “How our computer works is that users set up their display, hang it on their wall, and control it with the web application or the mobile application that they are currently building. Then they select from different works that they either found on the internet or from artists that are creating works specifically for the devise.” But he was put to the test, especially because hardware was all new for him. He overcame this by getting together with Colles, who has 15 years of hardware experience and who is responsible for design and mechanical engineering. “This product has unique challenges” he added, “Because it’s asking people to think about building a new, better kind of computer, which we use to sort very specific forms in new cases.  The idea for this came to me because is just something that I wanted for a while. My background is in media and technology startups. I like internet art and I wanted to try working with it. I thought it could be fun to have one of these computers, so I started tinkering and then I realized that there is a possible company here -- not just a project.