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A very interesting TED Talk about modern origami and how it is being used to create not only beautiful sculptures but to solve technological problems ranging from consumer products to the space program.
Robert Lang merges mathematics with aesthetics to fold elegant modern origami. His scientific approach helps him make folds once thought impossible — and has secured his place as one of the first great Western masters of the art.
For more information about Robert Lang visit LangOrigami.com.
French artist Patrice Hubert is a self-taught sculptor, inventor and creator of the unique performance works entitled, “Kinetic Mecanik” Hubert’s work fits into the Gothic Revival of the late 19th Century and New Age movement of the 1970’s. Inspired by HR Giger and Hieronymus Bosch, he uses the inventiveness from da Vinci to Jack Kirby to create metal sculptures that come to life.
Hubert’s allegorical sculptures, monumental in size, evoke the curiosity of machines and the organic forms of nature heavily weighted within the “Steampunk” movement where present day technology is still being run by steam. Fantastical yet fictional, Hubert’s sculptures melds the cold and often mechanical side of man and within the same, creates life like creatures that evoke spiders and insects. The Work, which is rebellious, yet philosophically beautiful, the work stands to presume a time of the past and future yet each sculpture is kinetic in nature and a fully functional moving sculpture, ensuring that the motors are hidden and the lights emerge from within the pieces bringing life to his late 19th century inspirations.
Not unlike a race car or roller coaster, Hubert’s work begins with an accelerated motion until it reaches its full velocity. The work stands to question our own physical movement beckoning us to question the psychological rebellion each individual incurs when confronted with the new and the desire to remain in the comfort of the past. (bio from The Conference Room)
To see more of Hubert’s work, visit 1661235.com. Check out videos of these kinetic creations in motion on You Tube.
Discovered via: Hi-Fructose
PBS Offbook asks “Will 3D Printing change the world? Much attention has been paid to 3D Printing lately, with new companies developing cheaper and more efficient consumer models that have wowed the tech community. They herald 3D Printing as a revolutionary and disruptive technology, but how will these printers truly affect our society? Beyond an initial novelty, 3D Printing could have a game-changing impact on consumer culture, copyright and patent law, and even the very concept of scarcity on which our economy is based. From at-home repairs to new businesses, from medical to ecological developments, 3D Printing has an undeniably wide range of possibilities which could profoundly change our world.
From TED Talks – a great presentation from Dutch kinetic artist Theo Jansen who demonstrates his lifelike kinetic sculptures. “Jansen has been working for 16 years to create sculptures that move on their own in eerily lifelike ways. Each generation of his “Strandbeests” is subject to the forces of evolution, with successful forms moving forward into new designs. Jansen’s vision and long-term commitment to his wooden menagerie is as fascinating to observe as the beasts themselves.
His newest creatures walk without assistance on the beaches of Holland, powered by wind, captured by gossamer wings that flap and pump air into old lemonade bottles that in turn power the creatures’ many plastic spindly legs. The walking sculptures look alive as they move, each leg articulating in such a way that the body is steady and level. They even incorporate primitive logic gates that are used to reverse the machine’s direction if it senses dangerous water or loose sand where it might get stuck.”
To see more video of Jansen’s fascinating work, visit StrandBeest.com.
Another great video from PBS Offbook: Art in the Era of the Internet. “The Internet has intensfied connections between people across the planet. In this episode of OFF BOOK, we take a look at the impact of the this new interconnectivity on the art world. Traditional funding models are dissolving, new forms of expressing ownership have arisen to accomodate for remix culture, and artists are finding ways to connect physical art experiences and traditions to the Internet. In the digital era, the experience of art from the perspective of the artist and the art audience is shifting rapidly, and bringing more people into the creative process.”
Born in 1947, Manhattan based sculptor, painter and inventor Tom Shannon attended the University of Wisconsin and the Art Institute of Chicago where he received a Master of Fine Art degree. His paintings are made by swinging a giant pendulum rigged with six remote control paint guns over a canvas. “It is a marriage of chaos and control.”
“My focus in recent years has kind of shifted more toward biology. Some of these paintings, when you look at them very close, there are odd things appear that really look like horses or fishes or birds or crocodiles, elephants. There are lots of things that appear when you look into it. It’s sort of like looking at cloud patterns. But sometimes they are very mottled, and highly rendered. And then there are all these forms that we don’t know what they are, But they are equally well resolved and complex. So, I think, conceivably those could be predictive, because since it has the ability to make forms that look like forms that we’re familiar with in biology, It’s also making other forms that we’re not familiar with. And maybe it’s the kind of forms that we’ll discover underneath the surface of Mars, where there are probably lakes with fish swimming under the surface.”
Shannon’s sculptures have been exhibited in galleries and institutions around the globe, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. “His clever orchestrations of hidden magnets and tiny suspension cables make otherwise inert materials such as steel and wood take on a truly otherworldly quality — bringing objects like planets, stars and atoms to a scale you can understand (and touch).”
Shannon was featured artist at the 2003 TED Conference where he presented Air Genie, a spherical helium airship whose entire surface is a LED video screen. He designed the TED Prize, the Buckminster Fuller prize and the Trophee Jules Verne installed at the Musee de la Marine in Paris. Recent outdoor work includes a hovering sculpture at the entrance of Kansai Electric in Osaka and a hovering work at Chateau La Coste. Shannon also holds the patents for the first tactile telephone, a color television projector and a synchronous world clock that is in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution.
To see more of Tom Shannon’s work, visit TomShannon.com. Visit TED for videos on his pendulum paintings and anti-gravity sculpture.
There is no question that computer technology has changed the face of art and how traditional art such as painting, drawing, photography and sculpture is created. Many artists are familiar with the newer tools of the trade – Photoshop, Corel Draw and Painter, Illustrator, Wacom tablets, and a slew of others. As well, out of these new technologies, new forms of art have emerged including net art, virtual reality, and digital installation art.
Recently, I came across a news story about artist Jorge Colombo and his June 1st New Yorker cover artwork. Having a major magazine publish your artwork on it’s cover is an amazing accomplishment in itself. Even more amazing is the fact that his painting, (created while standing outside Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in Times Square), was made on his iPhone in less than an hour using a $4.99 digital painting application called Brushes.
The advantages of using digital technology to create art are abundant: preparation time and clean up time are virtually eliminated, you can create anywhere, error correction is a quick “undo”, and in the long run, the expense may be lower.
I’m a big fan of using digital software to create and manipulate pencil drawings, paintings, and photographs. Having these technological tools certainly makes creating easier, but it doesn’t make one an instant artist. You won’t create a masterpiece if you don’t know how to use the tools and if you don’t have artistic vision. Education (formal or otherwise), committed practice, and perseverance are still the most important ingredients in succeeding as an artist. I’m still learning.
The video below shows all of the brushstrokes in the making of Colombo’s New Yorker image (yes the software can do that too). To view more of his iPhone and traditional art visit JorgeColombo.com.