Digital Mixtape

Ah, the mixtape. One of the most sentimental gifts of the 20th century, with the added benefit of telling someone who you were through your musical choices before the days of Facebook.  MakerBot has come up with a delightful way of reviving the mixtape: a 3D printed MP3 player kit that looks like an old-fashioned cassette. You can either download and print the chassis yourself with the 3D Replicator and assemble the device, or order the whole gadget in assembled form. The Makerbot Mixtape holds 2GB of music, can be used as a USB stick, and plays directly through a headphone jack.

#tech #technology #3D #printer #print #mp3 #download #headphone #player #gadget #DIY #gift #cassette #retro
Digital Mixtape Ah, the mixtape. One of the most sentimental gifts of the 20th century, with the added benefit of telling someone who you were through your musical choices before the days of Facebook.  MakerBot has come up with a delightful way of reviving the mixtape: a 3D printed MP3 player kit that looks like an old-fashioned cassette. You can either download and print the chassis yourself with the 3D Replicator and assemble the device, or order the whole gadget in assembled form. The Makerbot Mixtape holds 2GB of music, can be used as a USB stick, and plays directly through a headphone jack.

Auerbach’s RGB Colorspace Atlas

As part of an exhibition with MOMA entitled Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language, Tauba Auerbach has created a piece that visualises the RGB colour field in three dimensions, not too unlike a psychedelic stack of Post-Its.

“Human eyes typically have three types of colour receptor on their retinas, each sensitive to a different range of wavelengths of light. The colours associated with these wavelengths are approximately red, green, and blue. Because there are three types of colour receptor, it is possible to map the visible spectrum in a three-dimensional spatial model by assigning red, green, and blue each to a dimension. It is then possible to outline a cube in this space, where the values of red (R), green (G), and blue (B) are visible on a gradient scale of 0 to 100% in their respective directions. These gradients combine to create the RGB colour space cube, a volume in which any colour can be located by a set of three coordinates. RGB Colourspace Atlas, both a sculptural object and spatialisation of colour, consists of three books. Each volume contains the entire visible spectrum mapped out over 3,632 pages, representing the RGB cube sliced in a different direction: vertically, horizontally, and from front to back.” - MOMASee the video and more on the work on the MOMA microsite. 

#art #3D #RGB #color #design #post-it #paper #stack #cube #form #sculpture #eye #perception #moma #books #atlas #pages #red #green #blue
Auerbach’s RGB Colorspace Atlas As part of an exhibition with MOMA entitled Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language, Tauba Auerbach has created a piece that visualises the RGB colour field in three dimensions, not too unlike a psychedelic stack of Post-Its. “Human eyes typically have three types of colour receptor on their retinas, each sensitive to a different range of wavelengths of light. The colours associated with these wavelengths are approximately red, green, and blue. Because there are three types of colour receptor, it is possible to map the visible spectrum in a three-dimensional spatial model by assigning red, green, and blue each to a dimension. It is then possible to outline a cube in this space, where the values of red (R), green (G), and blue (B) are visible on a gradient scale of 0 to 100% in their respective directions. These gradients combine to create the RGB colour space cube, a volume in which any colour can be located by a set of three coordinates. RGB Colourspace Atlas, both a sculptural object and spatialisation of colour, consists of three books. Each volume contains the entire visible spectrum mapped out over 3,632 pages, representing the RGB cube sliced in a different direction: vertically, horizontally, and from front to back.” - MOMASee the video and more on the work on the MOMA microsite. 

Unnamed soundsculpture

This mesmerising film shows the power of innovative digital technology to reproduce movement in three dimensions.  A dancer was asked to interpret a musical piece with her body. She was recorded by 3 depth cameras. The camera, Kinect, can interpret specific gestures using and infrared detection system and a special microchip that can track the movement of objects and individuals in 3 dimensions, essentially a 3D scanner system that works in real time.  

“The basic idea of the project is built upon the consideration of creating a moving sculpture from the recorded motion data of a real person.” - Daniel Franke & Cedric Kiefer

The technology is most well known in its Xbox 360 video game incarnation, which enables the users to control and interact with the Xbox without the need of a controller, using natural gestures and their voice.

This artistic film captures a visualisation of this technology at work.  The camera also reacts to sound, and so the image you see is an integration of sound data and heat data.  The final result is footage that allows any imaginable perspective for use in the final cut.

Produced by Onformative and ChopChop

Music by Machinefabriek “Kreukeltape”

BlenderNation, “Non-Blender Unnamed Soundsculpture”

Wikipedia, “Kinect” 

#art #sculpture #rendering #sensor #body #movement #3D #technology #interact #xbox #kinect #microchip

Favela Intervention

The street art collective Boa Mistura see their work as an urban intervention, that utilises the digital technologies of 3D perspective onto the haphazard landscape of the favelas of São Paulo, Brazil.  These site specific color field paintings project an optical illusion - viewed from a specific angle and distance, white text spelling out words such as ‘beleza’ (beauty) and ‘orgulho’ (pride) seem to float in midair.  The group worked with residents to cover corners and passageways with vibrant colours in the shanty town and painstakingly detail every lightpole, brick, and pipe with the white lettering.

“We like to feel the place, talk with the local people, breath the atmosphere and be inspired before start working,” Purone said. “Because when you make a street intervention, it is linked to a particular place, and you need to have dialog with the environment.” - Pablo Purone of Boa Mistura, 2001

DesignBoom, “floating graffiti participatory favela project by boa mistura”

#art #graffiti #intervention #typography #city #favela #sao paulo #são paulo #brazil #boa mistura #color #landscape #optical illusion #3D #paint #beleza #orgulho #urban