OT - Project Inspiration Links - 'Electronic Art' - Some really good stuff here

[Agent420]

Fwiw, here are some cool links on 'artsy' projects of electronica that I've accumulated...· Some of them are amazing, and they often provide inspiration to me for some projects.

This site has some cool stuff, but the layout is pretty odd... Click the 'How do you find anything here' link for a list of his electronic works.

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/%7Ejackdoll/jak/qanda/qalinks.htm

The Wooden Mirror is amazing!· "830 square pieces of wood, 830 servo motors, control electronics, video camera, computer, wood frame."

Sounds like a great application for the Propeller ;)

http://www.smoothware.com/danny/woodenmirror.html

I'm not sure if I ever would have thought of this... "In this project, a precursor to Lifeblood, I used a row of eight air tubes placed in the bottom of the water tank to write out alphanumeric symbols one at a time. The video shows a small segment of a long, poetic statement. ThinkTank is pictured here writing "AM I MAKING MYSELF CLEAR."

http://www.stephnet.org/website/water/tank.html

Guy Marsden - Electronic Artwork - Classic pieces of numerical display fancy.· One of my fav's ;)

http://www.arttec.net/art/Relevators.html

World Power Systems - Tom Jennings is another classic.· I was delighted to see his interview in a recent edition of MAKE:

http://www.wps.com/products/index.html

Some might remember Tim Hunkin from his "Secret life of machines" show...· A definate all time classic. He's got funky contraptions at the "Under the Pier Show"

http://www.underthepier.com/index.htm

http://www.timhunkin.com/

edit - Turns out the entire series of the classic 'Secret Life of Machines' is now available online here:
http://www.timhunkin.com/41_slom1.htm

British humor meets Dr. Wizard :)


Artbots - the robot talent show.· The entries are under the 'Participants' link.· Be sure to check out the previous shows as well.

http://artbots.org/

So far I think my favorite is the Shockbot: "...The Computer sends control-signals to the robot and therefor the robot moves to a random point in the computer hardware and by contact creates a short-circuit...
With increased damage of the computer the control-signals get impaired affecting the correct function of the shock-bot and finally leading to a complete system crash." LOL

http://artbots.org/2005/participants/ShockbotCorejulio/

AlexAndromeda - recycled hardware parts: http://www.alexandromeda.com/index.html

Mood Vector, home of the lightning organ. "The Lightning Organ is a musical sculpture that produces sound by controlling the audible pitches of visible electrical arcs."

http://www.moodvector.com/lightning/

Bruce Cannon - Some nifty microcontroller projects: http://brucecannon.org/

Ken Feingold - Some of these micocontroller based display _REALLY_ freak me out ;)

http://www.kenfeingold.com/recentworks.html

If you like musical / noise automata, you'll aprreciate Godfried-Willem Raes' site.· Please note that some photo's of the projects include he and his wife in 'artful' (ie nude) condition...· Go figure;)· It's not xxx, it's more Greek sculpture.· Still worth checking out !· He also goes into technical construction detail of many of his projects.

http://logosfoundation.org/instrum-god.html

Fwiw :)

Post Edited (Agent420) : 5/2/2008 5:13:16 PM GMT

[yerpa58]

This is a nice inspirational set of links. Thanks!

[RobotWorkshop]

Thanks for posting all these links! I really like the Z80 system as the Z80 is one of my all time favorite chips.

There is one I can add to the list. It is one that had quite an impact on me as I remember my father taking me to see this exhibit and the Detroit Institute of Arts:

http://www.ylem.org/artists/jpallas/BIO/DIA-catalog.html

"The 1978 Works in Progress series is an exhibition of sculpture by Jim Pallas. An artist well-known to Detroit, where he was born and educated, Pallas has ,been producing innovative kinetic pieces since 1968."

The interactive displays were really cool to watch!!

[Agent420]

Good stuff !· I don't know why, I'm unusually partial to·projects with exposed wiring and components... I just love seeing it.· I have a wire fetish ;)

And some type of interactivity is a _must_...· knobs to turn, butttons to press... something.

The Z80 is a classic.· My first ever computer was a Sinclair ZX81 kit.· Good times.


Forgot one earlier...· As robotics seems to be a big topic here, and I'm a musician, I should include 'The Three Sirens' robot rock band.· Particularly interesting in that they are 'self learning', and not simply playing programmed material.

Aglaopheme, the slide guitar robot, even has a Crybaby wah pedal, and seems to prefer Hendrix-like blues ·:)

http://www.the-three-sirens.info/binfo.html

http://www.baginsky.de/agl/agl_index.html


I'm thinking the Propeller might be a good candidate for something like this...

"Aglaopheme's main behaviour control is composed of six artificial neural networks that control one guitar string each. The neural nets compete in being in control of the robot's mechanics. The network that, at a given time, has the most definite answer to the current sensory input is allowed to generate a command to be sent to the robot controller.

When the robot first started playing in december 1992, the six neural network that control the machine's behaviour were randomly initialised. Today there are several different sets of networks available for different modes of operation (different speeds and tunings). All these sets are descendants of the primal neural nets from 1992. This means that the robot system now has the experience of about ten years of playing. Not constantly but regularly.

The network model used in this system is a variant of the so called Self Organizing Maps (SOM) originally introduced by Tuevo Kohonen [Ko]. A weak inhibitory mechanism was added to the network model in order to avoid excessive feedback."



I love this stuff, so post'em if you got'em ;)

Post Edited (Agent420) : 5/2/2008 3:33:00 PM GMT

[RobotWorkshop]

This is a good thread but I suppose it should be moved to the sandbox since it is a bit off topic for the Propeller.....

There is another cool project that was out a while back. It is the LIFE clock:

http://www.sparetimegizmos.com/Hardware/Life_Game.htm

I built a couple of these. One is at home and the other at work. Very relaxing to watch. I don't think Bob has any more of the boards but the plans are there if you really want to build one.

Robert