Kinetic Machine Sculpture: Arthur Ganson

I keep seeing mechanical art in all kinds of places, but I would have to conclude that Arthur Ganson is my favorite creators of mechanical art, he makes kinetic sculptures or rather machines of art…

This one is part of a machine you push during a race. The running of the race actuates a hand, with a proverbial iron foot, that tells you to go faster!

This one makes a wishbone walk like it has been on a horse all its life.

While strikingly beautiful in still images, the pieces should be experienced in person or in video format, to truly appreciate their function, however useless it may be. Ganson states that each piece exists for the “joy of their own triviality”.

Check out his website: HERE and watch his TED talk below:

My favorite? The machine with concrete of course!

My favorite? The machine with concrete of course!

All images are ©Arthur Ganson via his website.


Artist drills giant hole creating tunnel between NYC & London!

Well, we’re back from Europe, it was a good trip, but a long one! After taking in the episodes of LOST we missed while we were gone I found this… All in the same spirit of Europe, LOST, and travel!

It turns out that this guy dug a tunnel (wink, wink) connecting Europe and the States and plugged in a huge optical device so both sides could communicate with each other! Of course it is all connect by a mysterious island in the middle!

Check out the diagrams and installation (?) shots from the official website:

Check out the official Telectroscope webpage HERE!


Student Work: Large Format Photography: Film in the Digital Age

With the end of every semester come final projects. This past semester I taught a large format photography class in argument for the relevance of film in a digital age. I believe my thesis about how film makes better photographers seems to be true. I think my students have changed a quite a bit this semester while learning to deal with film, some of them for the first time, and 4×5 cameras. Below is a small selection of the classes final project; the Single Image Project.

The project operated under the notion of being limited by the materials to create a masterpiece to represent the students work for all eternity. (I can still hear the gasps some students let out after I pitched the project to them!) Interestingly enough, a lot of students chose the route of self-portraiture, which is fine, but never-the-less an interesting phenomenon. All in all I think they did an amazing job!

Image by Dillon Rosdahl

Image by Scott Chandler

Image by Chelsea Edwards

Image by Teisha Fooks

Image by David Gray

Image by William Gray


Awesome Video from TED.com

There’s always fascinating stuff at TED.com


Thesis: Soap as Sculpture

 

 

“The Bar of Soap in Our Shower”

I made another soap photograph this morning, the one above being an earlier one. Rachel found me in the shower with my camera set-up and I told her that soap photography was going to be the next big thing… well maybe… but what does it mean to photograph soap?

What if we treated soap as sculpture? Cleansing sculptures?

With soap we wash away the ruins of the day left upon our skin. Through scrubbing and lathering, we give back all the dust and debris given to us by the place we roamed that day. Soap is a tool, much like the camera, by means of a cleaning ritual to the ends of resetting the canvas of experience.

Dust as experience?

Perhaps… what if sculptures of soap registered our experience within their makeup? Microscopic abrasions through hair follicles and dander wearing away the canvas of the soap sculpture. Oils and dirt building up surfaces in homage to daily excursions to and from work. Oh, how romantic! The soap sculpture ultimately offering up its own existence, being eroded by the constant washing ritual’s ebb and flow. 


More Tests… or Studies (if you will…)

Studies for my “Memory Sculpture” Project…

Soon we leave for Germany, where this project will begin.


Hasselblad Flexbody Test

 

flexbodytest.jpg 

“There is nothing like a small view camera…”

*I even left the notches for you Scott!