I have years of experience in programming a range of micro-controllers (Arduino, PIC and Raspberry PI) connecting these with motors , motion detectors , cameras and other sensors. I can help you with video image manipulation if that's your kind of thing.
I can help you with the design and construction of the automation aspects of your artwork.
Talking is free -- email me or find me, Aldobranti on FB or Twitter -- we can just bounce ideas around. I am sure that even simply talking your project through will improve your understanding of it and may stimulate other directions for my own work. Win win!
Travel, hardware construction and programming have to be charged but I can offer you support for 3rd party grant applications. The hardware is becoming ridiculously cheap and the apparent difficulties in programming can often be only a question of the confidence to get started. It would delight me if you find you can do all this with your built-in intelligence and innovative flair.
Here are some ideas!
We wanted to document a performance piece, recording the view to the south south west horizon whenever the operator was moving in that direction. Don't ask! I found a digital compass module, that's the postage stamp sized PC card out the front of this 3-tier stack. The middle tier is an Arduino which piggy-backs to a camera control module at theback, the camera itself is the green card sitting at the top.
The image files get written to a SD card, the bright metal patch on the right. Here is a hand held, classic compass caught at the moment.
We needed a way of projecting a laser spot onto a scene and to scan over it continuously.The project ran through several iterations as we investigated better mirrors and a more powerful laser.
This project required the rotation of a very heavy object by a motor. We had to build a gearbox to transfer the drive onto the vertical suspension while avoiding putting a longitudinal load on the motor shaft. A further wrinkle emerged as it was controlled by a PIR person sensor and when infrequently started up, kicked off in the same direction and built a permanent twist into the suspension -- we learnt to start it up in a random direction each time to average out.
A project required the triggering of a camera shutter remotely from a free fall detector -- we interfaced an accelerometer chip to a Bluetooth transmitter.