Pseudo Machine Art

Bits of art, loosely linked vibewise – in as much as they grow out of this new-found capability of machines to turn software patterns into physical things.

… well, for some of them. Others are here just because I like them.

People have been using machines to execute patterns since the days of the loom – but these are kindof different in that it’s the machine that (to an extent) that generates the pattern – or not. Sometimes it just looks that way. Whatever. Computers were involved. Most of the time.

And weirdly enough, the outcomes often look quite biological, although maybe those are just the ones we like.

1) Louis Vuitton Pop-up Store

This site has lots of pictures, and the original designs etc… and a lot of similarly spectacular projects

Looks like an architecture firm has got together with the moderately irritating Helena Bonham Carter of 3D printing, and created a whole genre of stuff. It is pretty impressive, but what it reminds me of most, is the aesthetic of the rich people in the movie Brazil

Which is of course exactly who Louis Vuitton’s market is.

2) Amazing Islamic Cube Light

The link above bearing testament to the idea that people go to art school not so much to learn to be artists, but to learn to talk preposterous shite about art in a way that impresses buyers.

Cool cube though.

3) Quaddel is a simple yet controllable process for growing structures…

… that look like a cross between broccoli and cancer.

Fairly impressive though in a creepy sort of way – and “objects generated by the method are closed 2-manifolds embedded in euclidian 3-space and as such can be translated into the physical world using additive manufacturing” – which is succinct enough, and introduces the term “euclidian 3-space” – which is where I’ve lived, pretty much my whole life.

4) Hexi – responsive wall

(there appears to be some sort of “IP” wank-spanneritude going on. Click through etc.

Hexi at the front, globby at the side. I quite like these physical pixel arrays – although they’re really waiting on something like the cheap nylon muscles to be scalable… and I guess the muscles will need inbuilt sensors, so they can tell how far they’ve stretched.

Then we’ll be able to cheaply build vast gardens of mirrors, that focus sunshine onto single points, boilers, birds, small dogs, planes etc etc.

5) Huge Desert Crop-Circle

Which is actually (for most people) pre-internet, on account of it being 17 years old now.

Which is only back in the late 1990s. Holy crap – how did that get to be 17 years ago? I’d have guessed sometime in the 1970s. It’s got that whole 1970s Utopian optimism thing going on.

6) Climb-Inside Inflatable balloon Interiors

7) Skull Carpet

Which is a bit like the skull carpet from Cobra Verde

8) Grotesque 3D Printed Table

Which is made with BigRep – an open-source 3D printer with a 1.3m cubed build space – which is pretty big. Wonder how long that table took to print.

Whatever – this machine is pretty impressive. Kudos for being open-source.