many of the cool, weird, or gimmicky art gadgets i came across last year never made it into a post. i decided in an effort to clean out the musty old link folders i’d gather together some of the better stuff i’d collected and post it all to make way for the all-new 2005 isht that’s sure to begin piling up as of today. what follows is not exactly a best of list in that the real cream of the crop has already made it onto the nonist, but there are some very neat things here and it seems a shame to just throw it all out…
22 pop, or the typewriter that sends email. great mod. rich sent me this link a long long time ago. the designer has a bunch of other interesting stuff on his site including the uncle phone which i love. if you search around his site, particularly the background section you’ll come across lots of other goodies.
not-so-white walls, or interactive wallpaper. this is really cool. “Here, the surface and patterns of what appears to be ordinary wallpaper are actually interfaces that act as switches or displays. The physical interaction allows the home dweller to dim lights, turn on or off home appliances, or see messages and images displayed on the wall. You can read your email on the wall, for example, or view pictures taken with your mobile phone camera.” here’s the designer dario bruzzini’s site.
the seelinder. not art exactly but super cool. it’s a cylindrical three-dimensional colour television that can be viewed from any angle and doesn’t even require the viewer to don funny glasses. remember “obi won, your our only hope?” of course you do, well, this is almost as good, or perhaps better, since it’s real.
chronos chromos concrete a lot like the wallpaper mentioned previously, but works inside the wall itself. “Thermochromic ink is mixed with concrete. Nickel chromium wires, which heat up when electric current is passed through them, are set beneath the concrete surface. The area above the wire changes colour when a certain temperature is reached. The arrangement of these wires beneath the concrete allows the display of graphics and information.” cool.
juggernaut. this artist, phil ross, creates totally self contained survival capsules made to house one plant. very cool, though a bit on the low tech looks wise considering how precise and calculated the work is. maybe that’s part of the point, i don’t know. but i like it. similar works by ross were shown at the garden lab experiment show.
autoportrait. a refurbished, reprogramed assembly line machine arm which draws portraits ” The resulting image is individual and unpredictable. With both technical ability and the capability to recognize the characteristics of a human face, the robot hand forms his own style.” so cool.
other work by the group robotlab includes the jukebots which are autonomous robotic dj’s. neat.
the data fountain. fountains which take in realtime data, in this case comparative currency rates, and display it through the height of the fountain’s stream. pretty cool i think. for a more complex and ambitious display of realtime data check out grey world’s the source which is located at the london stock exchange.
the tissue culture project includes, victimless leather, the extra ear, the pig wing project, semi-living worry dolls, and disembodies cuisine. “The Tissue Culture & Art Project (TC&A) was set to explore the use of tissue technologies as a medium for artistic expression. We are investigating our relationships with the different gradients of life through the construction/growth of a new class of object/being – that of the Semi-Living.” pretty wild stuff
almost certified (grade A noise for non-discerning consumers) a mechanical sound installation. “a distributed network of precarious egg-tapping robots. each unit, individually amplified, features a select unconventional egg. calculated sequences emerge, conducted by beautifully rendered software on a resurrected mainframe (a sweet mac LC3). interesting / whacky.
photo form a unique tile studio which provides designers the ability to create bas-relief tiles from photographs. Utilizing our patent pending process called Photo-Cast ™, we can create bas-relief tiles from any type of two dimensional image. very cool.
here are a bunch more that might be worth your time.
the invisible force or the amazing psychic table. neat.
the drift table. The Drift Table allows people to float slowly over the British landscape from the comfort of their own home.
biopresence or the dna tree.
paragrahpie, or the most distracting drawing table in history.
troika studios check out the devices section for jealous tv signal jamming picture frames and microphones which pick up the secret lives of our electronics.
the art robots talent show. especially liked sisyphus, three blind mice, and the wildflower thingamabob.
lemur or the league of electronic musical urban robots. check out the guitarbot.
and just for good measure, the sensory homunculus.
anyone with some goody i missed is more than welcome to add on.