Old PCs make a sunset on the wall

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By jonahbc
Posted 2008/09/16 @ 7:58 pm
Category Art & Design, Computers & Mobile

“Mauritian Sunset ” by UK-based artist Sandy Smith uses hundreds of obsolete PCs to create a wall-size gradient effect in order to mimic a “sunset” emanating from their monitors. Pretty cool effect as a way to bring the real into the “virtual” of sorts.

Mauritian Sunset t

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In the Maker Shed

Makey Makey Standard Kit

Calculator Kit from Spikenzie Labs

Arduino Uno Rev 3 (Make SMD Version)

MAKE Rovera 4WD Arduino Robot Kit

9 Responses to Old PCs make a sunset on the wall

Chris on September 17th, 2008 at 6:25 am said:

You can definitely keep the whole gallery warm during winter with all those CPUs running… it’s a great ambient might even work well if you happen to get an occasional Windows blue screen of death.

Pretty soon you will be able to do this with all of the hundred-million obsolete TVs (Feb.’09) when digital is mandated here in the US and people start chucking their old sets to the curbside.

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Anonymous on September 17th, 2008 at 2:54 pm said:

Looks like it’s almost entirely composed of old Macs! You have to wonder if those monitors will overheat with all their top ventilation holes blocked like that and presumably left switched on all day.

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Anonymous on September 17th, 2008 at 4:13 pm said:

It must use a lot of power

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Brandon on September 17th, 2008 at 6:13 pm said:

soooo beautiful.

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biojae on September 17th, 2008 at 8:52 pm said:

You could use an arduino (or any other mcu) to generate VGA for the monitors, less power used, and just a few tlc5490′s.

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napstimpy on September 18th, 2008 at 8:55 am said:

Why even have the PCs/Macs functional at all? You could easily output a different single color to 40-ish monitors with one computer, and have the boxes just be structural. Having everything cabled up (click through to Sandy’s site) makes no practical sense.

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Snorbert on September 19th, 2008 at 5:06 am said:

sorry… I couldn’t help counting the monitors. Unless I missed a small one that was off (as a couple are) or double counted, there are 42 monitors, and I guess roughly the same number of system boxes.

I’m not saying that they needed any more in there, though.

-Snorbert

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Anonymous on September 19th, 2008 at 6:45 am said:

Hundreds? I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration.

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Anonymous on September 24th, 2008 at 8:09 am said:

did everybody see the picture of the olympics opening bash with that guy running around the inside of the dome on a wire against that background which in one spot was displaying a blue screen of death?

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