Electronic-Geek.com » Arts

Interactive Fountain Tracks Passersby

Sean Michael Ragan — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:50:55 +0000

And, depending on how you position the nozzles, sprays them! More coolness from Gerry Chu, whose Kinect-based Motion Emotions I hit yesterday. Gerry’s fountain prototype has at least two Arduino Megas for brains.

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Stephen Colbert Portrait With Subliminal IR Message Marquee

Sean Michael Ragan — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:07:13 +0000

Fortunately, Austrian filmmaker Benjamin Hable has discovered that you can use your cell phone, digital camera, or other CCD-equipped gadget (rather like the special sunglasses discovered by “Rowdy” Roddy Piper’s character in John Carpenter’s 1988 conspiranoia flick They Live) to see the fnords. Benjamin made Augmented Paranoia for a January 17 exhibition called bits and ohm, and used the public-domain portrait of Stephen Colbert released for the Colbert Nation Portrait Challenge. Reminds me of a project I did a few years back (also inspired by They Live) involving deliberately burning subliminal messages into the phosphors of analog TV tubes. [Thanks, Benjamin!]

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IR Paintings Visible Only Through Your Digital Camera

The Cyclotrope: Amazing Bike Wheel Animation

Matt Richardson — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:00:23 +0000

Who would have ever thought that there were so many ways to combine cycling and persistence of vision? Here’s another cool one to add to the list: much like a zoetrope, Tim Wheatley’s Cyclotrope is a bike wheel that gives the illusion of animation when it’s being spun on camera. [via Neatorama]

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Projecting Text with Lightbulbs and Magnifying Glasses

Matt Richardson — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 11:00:56 +0000

Pausations, an installation by Australian-born artist Ian Burns, uses lightbulbs and magnifying glasses to project the words onto the wall. It was on display at the Armory Show last week. [via colossal]

Projecting Text with Lightbulbs and Magnifying Glasses

Matt Richardson — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 11:00:56 +0000

Brass Bugs!

Sean Michael Ragan — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 13:57:09 +0000

Sculptor Tom Hardwidge calls his creations “arthrobots.” Many of them incorporate deactivated ammunition. [via Boing Boing]

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Visualizing Wi-Fi Signals with Light Painting

Sean Michael Ragan — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 21:00:47 +0000

Timo Arnall, who, together with Jack Schultze brought us a touchless Rube Goldberg machine based on RFID back in 2009, has teamed up with Jorn Knutsen and Einar Sneve Martinussen to produce Immaterials: Light Painting Wi-Fi, which is a project that visualizes wireless network signal strength in city areas using a custom-built 4-meter measuring rod equipped with LEDs and conventional light painting techniques. [via Core77]

Folded Metal Bunny

Becky Stern — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 18:00:57 +0000

This metal rabbit (actually the Stanford Bunny model) is folded from a single laser-cut steel sheet, designed with Origamizer. The project is a collaboration between Tomohiro Tachi, Kenny Cheung, Erik Demaine, and Martin Demaine at MIT. Check out the time-lapse video of its construction:

Recreating a 19th century Japanese Tsuba

Gareth Branwyn — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 14:30:57 +0000

One of our readers, Jimy Soprano, sent us the links to this incredibly inspiring short documentary of classical Japanese metal artist Ford Hallam recreating a lost masterpiece by the 19th century Mito tsuba artist Hagia Katsuhira. Years ago, I went off on a Samurai sword/Iaid? kick and obsessed over every detail of Japanese sword construction, maintenance, and the “moving Zen” of the Iaid? form. This video touched that obsession again.

The “tsuba” is the decorative sword guard, and like every other piece of a samurai sword, it’s work of art in and of itself. This video documents Ford Hallam being commissioned to create a tsuba for a Katana (long) sword to match an existing tsuba created by Hagia Katsuhira for a wakazashi (short sword). The painstaking, precise nature of the work is rather dizzying. [Thanks, Jimy!]

More about Ford Hallam can be found on his blog Postcards from the Path

Yuri Zupancic’s Microchip Paintings

Matt Richardson — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 12:00:23 +0000

Perfect for the electronic engineer with an appreciation for art, these awesome Microchip paintings are created by Yuri Zupancic. [via CRAFT via Dudecraft]