This was one of those generic chinese drum machine thingees, the kind that shares its guts with 1000s of other toys, but the external plastics change depending on who does the packaging. I really like this version of the drum toy because it has pretty lights and sounds great when bent. Very Aphex Twin. It also has dog and frog sounds... This one has two optical resistors for optical sequencing and pitch control that are switchable "on" and has pot control for making it go realllyyy slowwww... I also did a metallic blue with silver splatter paintjob which turned out kinda cool.

Tom Eckert makes incredible wooden sculptures that often look just like draped cloth. He also made this awesome Tank Chair. From the images of his tromp l'oeil sculptures, you would never know that that satin is actually carved and sanded from wood.

"Shade Pixel" is a physical display that uses deformable skin to represent live information. The project was developed at the Design Media Lab at Korea's Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). From the description: "The prototype display is 11 x 7 pixels large and is made up of a skeleton of 77 solenoids with frame holes. A layer of Spandex forms the surface of the display and through the use of iron cores, each solenoid can be triggered to pull down each core to form a concave dip in the Spandex skin, causing "shades". These shades are what forms the image. Similarly, the solenoids can release the iron cores, returning the skin to its "flat" surface."

Design Media Lab, via Architectradure

This installation, entitled "Without Records" by Japanese experimental musicians Otomo Yoshihide and Yasutomo Aoyama employs over 100 record-free turntables to create a sound piece dedicated to the result of the dissappearing technology of LPs. Each turntable is augmented with some form of object to create a different effect on the needle arm as it passes the disc platter thus producing an interesting clatter of sounds when heard as a whole. Watch the video and listen to the results.

ENSEMBLES/Otomo Yoshihide via Pink Tentacle

Jeffrey Augustine Songco made this rather foreboding dream catcher featuring a captcha text -

I’m really interested in the relationship between my identity and the Internet. I’m interested in how I can become someone else or learn more about myself by using the Internet. Regardless of what that identity is, Dream Captcha is a work about protecting that identity.

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Captcha Paintings

The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating profile of Andrew Schneider, a tech artist from New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program.

[via Boing Boing]

In honor of John Lennon's birthday, here's a piece of cool, inexplicable conceptual techno-art that might be right up John and Yoko's alley. It's an untitled piece by Christopher Kaczmarek and was shown at last month's ArtBots show in Dublin. I found it on the Solarbotics site. They gave it a shout out 'cause the device uses the SCC3766 Solar Cells and GM10 Gear Motors they sell.

Untitled, 2006

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• ArtBots 2008 Dublin - this weekend

While New Yorkers have been consumed by the stock market meltdown, a tiny little pet store quietly opened four days ago at 89 7th Avenue between West 4th and Bleeker Street in the West Village of New York City.

There are no puppies or kittens in the windows here.

Instead, a live leopard lounges on a tree in the window.

Or is it?

In other windows, things get a bit more bizarre.

McDonald's Chicken McNuggets sip barbecue sauce. A rabbit puts on her makeup. A CCTV camera nurtures its young.

Clearly, that this isn't your typical pet store.

So who's the "owner" of the Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill at 89 West 7th Avenue?

Banksy...

This theramin project uses readily available components and the circuit is based around only two transistors, a capacitor, and a photo-resistor. The cases were built from old alarm clocks and the photo sensor and existing snooze button are used for triggering the circuit. Check out the parts list and how-to instructions at the link below.

2 Transistor Theramin Project via GetLowFi

The "Midori-San" is a system that allows a normal houseplant to write entries in a standard blog. In a similar way to its distant cousin, the "Botanicalls" project, the Midori-San uses surface potential sensors to read the bioelectric current flowing across the surface of the leaves. As the current fluctuates in response to environmental factors such as temperature changes, humidity, vibration, electromagnetic waves and nearby human activity an algorithm translates the data into sentences which are posted to the plant's blog. Owners can subscribe to the plant's blog to follow it's story, and even earn the plant some cash by clicking it's Google Adsense Ads. I guess money does really grow on trees.

via Pink Tentacle

The "Venus" chair by Tokujin Yoshioka is made from growing natural crystals and is large enough for an adult to sit comfortably. The chair is grown in a tank where the artist controls half of the growing process and nature finishes up the rest. Check out the link for some shots of the build process of this interesting object.

via Core77

The "Plug Radio" from 2004 is a peripheral for a computer that uses each feed cable fom the main speaker as a tuner for individual Internet radio stations that you predetermine ahead of time. Interesting idea, although we think the cords might get a big tangled while trying to find your favorite station in a hurry.

Plug Radio

Photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand will bring his work back to the United States - to New York City for the first time in 2009. Aiming to inspire people to think globally about sustainable living, Arthus-Bertrand has been photographing unique views of our planet, seen from the sky, since 1994 - and has produced an exhibit of over 150 4-ft. by 6-ft. prints which will be on display in New York City at the World Financial Center Plaza and along the Battery Park City Esplanade from May 1, 2009 to June 28, 2009. When completed in New York City, the Earth From Above exhibit will also move on to California in 2010.

Keene Valley resident Jerilea Zempel was detained at the U.S. border this summer because she had a drawing of a sport-utility vehicle in her sketchbook.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers told Zempel they suspected her of copyright infringement.

She was released after more than an hour in custody at the Houlton, Maine, port of entry from New Brunswick, Canada.

Her release came only after she persuaded border guards she was an artist doing a project that involved a crocheted SUV as a statement against America's dependence on oil and love for big vehicles.

"After going through my (laptop) computer, digital camera, cell phone, business cards, suitcase, reading materials, boxes of yarn and crochet tools, she returned with my sketchbook.

Zempel had drawn an SUV covered by a cozy, with its mirrors marked as "ears."

"My sketchbook puzzled her," Zempel said. "It was a cartoon sketch. They couldn't understand what I was doing. She said, Just what were you doing in Canada? We think you're engaged in some kind of copyright infringement."

Reducing waste + getting a cool building material = DIY Shrinky Dinks. Hundreds of other projects of this quality + 10/18 to 10/19 in Austin makes for one amazing weekend!

Here's a good project for Halloween. These electroluminescent butterfly wings use EL wire and some springs to keep the wire in the right shape when rounded into wings. Check out the link below for the detailed how-to on putting these together.

via Invent Geek

This cool shield hack for the Arduino controller called the "ArduinoBoy" lets you interface it to any MIDI input to trigger sounds on a standard Gameboy. To get started, just use an existing Arduino protoshield, and scrap the breadboard for some custom circuitry and components outlined at the link below.

ArduinoBoy, via Create Digital Music

Artist Jason Rogenes first found his raw material while living in the commerce-driven, big-box store, strip mall environment of Los Angeles where polystyrene was inexpensive and easily procured. In this abundant byproduct of consumer culture, originally designed to protect packaged electronics and other products, he saw the potential for material transformation. For Manuf®actured, he has created a floating, glowing site-specific installation in the museum’s two story main gallery flanked by a wall construction of polystyrene and cardboard.

This is the HD and finished version of my video 'Music Is Math'. I just let the program run till the end of the music, I felt reluctant to interfere too much by trying to sculpt an ending, and just let the code run its own natural course. Music by Board of Canada.

More about Music Is Math

What can be more annoying than a billy bass singing fish? Try 250 bolted to a Volvo and singing Opera. This award winning art car from Houston has 300 pounds of batteries, 2 computers, and more than 5 miles of wire in the control system.

More about the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir @ Maker Faire Austin

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More about Maker Faire Austin 2008

Our pals at Make: Philly held their latest meeting on Sept 14th. They had a speaker, world-renowned robotics Professor, Dr. Mark Yim, who's currently a professor at Penn and formerly Stanford. Dr. Yim's research focuses on modular reconfigurable robots and locomotion ("PolyBots"), MEMS, and batch fabrication techniques. After his talk, the Make: Philly challenge was for members to create an "art bot," a mechanized device that, when powered on, pushed, or propelled, will make some sort of mark. [Pics here are by Cyenobite and are under a Creative Commons license.]

MakePhilly 9_14_08

Those that know me know I am a sucker for multitudes. Many of anything intrigues me more than single things ever could. So it wouldn’t be much of a surprise to find out that I took 2925 dice and formed them into a bitmap image of the Madonna. Thats the Madonna, and not just plain ol’ Madonna.

Blacksmithing isn't just a scene in medieval movies: check out the Austin Metal Authority area at Maker Faire for "a live demo of blacksmithing techniques, including sculptural and functional projects." Yet another reason to plan on being in Austin on 10/18 to 10/19:)

If you're looking for mask-making inspiration, look at these photos taken by Roadknight Labs of amazing masks made for Carnivale.

The "Phone Dial Web Browser" by artist / designer David Lu is a custom web browser that uses a vintage phone dial as a physical interface. Dial the IP address of the website that you want to reach and the browser will get you there. The project was built back in 2003 with a BX-24 microcontroller, basic electronics, and a Java interface to access the Internet.

phone dial web browser

This piece, I built is called Reach for Light. It was last shown at the Wood Turning Center in Philadelphia but was originally built for an art exhibition in Hawaii . It’s a good example of free hand vacuum veneer bending. The flower petal designs are actually printed using photo’s of real tulip petals. The inside is printed griptape (sticky back sandpaper) and the outside is printed styrene. The internal core is Canadian maple veneer. The shape of the decks are our Roarockit classic pintail skateboard shape that is included in our longboard deck kits.