prosthetic knowledge

BionicOpter 

Remote-controlled drone that flies and is in the form of a dragonfly - video embedded below:

With the BionicOpter, Festo has technically mastered the highly complex flight characteristics of the dragonfly. Just like its model in nature, this ultralight flying object can fly in all directions, hover in mid-air and glide without beating its wings.

More Here

Mind Out 

A room-sized single-line drawing based on the flight pattern of a bee created with robotic drawing system:

Towards the end of 2012, as part of The Festival of the Mind in Sheffield, myself and a small team of technicians, coders and mathematicians developed a drawing system and put it to work. The robots drew one line pattern solutions, the shortest line possible, derived from theories on how bees fly from flower to flower. It ended up covering three walls and the floor of a twenty foot cube in one unbroken line.

More at madebyjones here

Windswept by Charles Sowers 

Art installation fixed outside a gallery’s wall, displaying natural flow and turbulence of the wind - via dezeen:

Hundreds of spinning blades reveal the invisible patterns of the wind in American artist Charles Sowers’ kinetic installation on the facade of the Randall Museum in San Francisco.

The installation, titled Windswept, consists of 612 rotating aluminium weather vanes mounted on an outside wall. As gusts of wind hit the wall, the aluminium blades spin not as one but independently, indicating the localised flow of the wind and the way it interacts with the building.

“Our ordinary experience of wind is as a solitary sample point of a very large invisible phenomenon,” said Sowers. “Windswept is a kind of large sensor array that samples the wind at its point of interaction with the Randall Museum building and reveals the complexity and structure of that interaction.”

You can find out more at Dezeen here, with photos and a video of the work in action.

Experimental 3D Mapping of Cities with a Webcam, Sunlight, and Time 

Clever and inventive approach to large scale 3D modelling, using sunlight and shadow to calculate form (called ‘Heliocentric Stereo’) - from Austin Abrams:

In this work, we present a method to uncover shape from webcams “in the wild.” We present a variant of photometric stereo which uses the sun as a distant light source, so that lighting direction can be computed from known GPS and timestamps. We propose an iterative, non-linear optimization process that optimizes the error in reproducing all images from an extended time-lapse with an image formation model that accounts for ambient lighting, shadows, changing light color, dense surface normal maps, radiometric calibration, and exposure. Unlike many approaches to uncalibrated outdoor image analysis, this procedure is automatic, and we report quantitative results by comparing extracted surface normals to Google Earth 3D models. We evaluate this procedure on data from a varied set of scenes and emphasize the advantages of including imagery from many months.

More Here and at New Scientist Here

BeautiPi 

Interesting demo of real-time visual performance project set in a detailed generated natural scene:

This is a demonstration that prototypes some of the ideas behind Beautypi.

Showcase:
* Visuals: rendered in real-time, all the content is procedurally generated.
* Reaction: music
* Interaction: midi controller and multiple smartphone clients.

Music, “Winter’s Light”, by JosSs
Beautypi : Pol Jeremias & Inigo Quilez

There is not much more information about the project at present, but you can check out the project’s website here

AXIOM & SIMULATION by Mark Dorf 

Photographic series where natural landscapes are seen with quantified digital eye, reduced to nodes, polygons and lines:

AXIOM & SIMULATION examines the ways in which humans quantify and explore our surroundings by comparing artistic, scientific, and digital realism. As a developed global culture, we are constantly transforming physical space and objects into abstract non-physical thought to gain a greater understanding of composition and the inner workings of our surroundings. These transformations often take the form of mathematical or scientific interpretation. As a result of these changes, we can misinerpret or even lose all reference to the source: when the calculated representation is compared to its real counterpart, an arbitrary and disconnected relationship is created in which there is very little or no physical or visual connection resulting in questions of definition. Take for example a three-dimensional rendering of a mountainside. While observing the rendering, it holds a similar form to what we see in nature but has no physical connection to reality– it is merely a file on a computer that has no mass and only holds likeness to a memory. When translating the rendering into binary code, we see just 1’s and 0’s – a file creating the representation from a language composed of only two elements that have no grounding in the natural world. After all of these transformations, a new reality is created – one without an original referent, a copy with no absolute source. When observing these simulations and interpretations of our landscape within a single context or picture plane, ideas of accuracy, futility, and original experience arise.

You can see the whole collection at Mark’s website here - he also has a Tumblr blog here

Plant-In City 

Art installation merges gardening and technology, creating Arduino-powered frames with sensors for plants to be monitored, and interacted with via smartphone app. From the project’s Kickstarter page:

We’re creating a space where a community who loves architecture, technology and plants can meet. Our mission is to integrate these disciplines into a new paradigm that changes the way we live and interact with nature. We believe that interacting with plants will improve our lives.

Plant-in City taps into the natural systems that foster plant life to give the plants themselves a voice. This revolutionary planter system contains built-in sensors that are activated by sun exposure, changes in soil moisture, humidity, temperature, and other natural cycles. Once activated, these sensors translate the environmental data into sounds or visuals, creating an imaginary vibrant wilderness.

More about the project can be found here

BaTBoT 

Project explores possibility of robotic flight, taking design cues from the wings of bats:

The evolutionary process of flying animals exhibits significant skeletal structure adaptations such as, large material property gradients and variations the development of extreme adaptations (bats wings are essentially equivalent to hands).

Although observing and gaining inspiration from these animals can provide significant insight into the physical requirements of flapping flight, it remains an engineering challenge to develop equivalently effective flapping wing vehicles.

The Fluid Mechanics Laboratory and the Swartz Lab at Brown University, have been carrying out a remarkable research about the understanding of in-vivo Bat flight aerodynamics. Using wing-tunnel testing and performing motion capture by tracking markers located along the bat body and wings, high-speed cameras are used to provide an insight of bat flight behavior.

In collaboration with Brown University, this research is oriented towards the development of a biological inspired bat robot platform, that allows to reproduce the amazing maneuverability of these flying mammals. The highly maneuverability is achieved by reproducing the flapping and morphing capabilities of their wing-skeleton structure. This structure is composed by several joints and a membrane that generates the required lift forces to fly. 

More information can be found at the project’s site here

Ant Ballet

Experimental art project using synthesised pheromones distributed by robotic arm to guide ants on randomly generated paths:

Ant Ballet is a six-year research project into control systems, paranoia and dancing insects. The project is separated into four phases.

Phase I

Phase I (2010-2012) included thorough research into ants and control systems, synthesis of ant pheromones and testing of these systems with live ants in Barcelona. Through use of synthesised pheromones (Z9:16 Ald Hexadecenal), a robotic arm lays trails which cause ants to move in a different way to their natural foraging behaviour. This phase proves the viability of the research and technologies.

Phase II

The first live performance of Ant Ballet. Anticipated in Brazil as part of Pestival, 2013.

Phase III

Development of intercontinental ant colony communication devices.

Phase IV

Destruction (undetermined).

Here is a video demonstrating the idea:

You can find out more about the project here

Colourful Spiderweb Sculptures

Reblog from deepbreathsanddeath:

Anthony Michael Simon doesn’t produce his own art, instead he lets spiders do the work for him.

About the work:

Chicago native Anthony Michael Simon first discovered the artistry of the silk-producing arachnids while trekking through a forest in Korea, where he is currently based, looking for a location for his next sculptural art installation. He came across a huge spiderweb and it somehow clicked in his mind that he could catch spiders and have them naturally spin their webs in his studio.

More Here

(via loveyourchaos)

Isometric by Timothy J. Reynolds 

Collection of illustrative polygon “Isometric views of little worlds”, which somehow are reminiscent of the popular computer game “Populous”.

Much more isometric goodness can be found at the artist’s Dribbble page here

Generative Jigsaw Puzzles by Nervous System

Each puzzle is unique, made of pieces which look like organic forms. Generated with Processing code, and laser-cut:

Jigsaw puzzles for the 21st century! Each generative puzzle is a one of a kind creation with unique art and pieces. Our goal was to marry the artistry of traditional, hand-crafted jigsaw puzzles with the possibilities of new technologies. Custom software simulates crystal growth to create an organic interlocking pattern. Our laser cutter translates this into a unique set of plywood pieces. We collaborated with contemporary digital artists who created engaging artwork for the puzzles.

The puzzles are made entirely in our studio in Somerville, MA. We print the artwork on archival paper and laser cut the puzzles from birch plywood. They come in two sizes, a round 7.5″ puzzle with 85 pieces and a rectangular 18×12″ puzzle with 410 pieces. Every puzzle is unique.

The video below demonstrates the idea perfectly:

You can find out more at the Nervous System blog here

Seed (P_Ball) by MATSYS

Large cell-like sculpture whose formation is based on natural processes:

Description: The latest iteration of the “P” series of projects (P_Wall(2009), P_Wall (2006), P_Wall (Weathering)), the Seed takes the series into a new dimension. Inspired by the vitality of the Redwood Grove at the UC Botanical Garden, the Seed attempts to embody the fertility, wonder, and strength of the redwoods through the placement of this mysterious concrete object within the Grove. The form is composed of 32 thin-shell fiber-reinforced concrete panels that are based off of plaster patterns made from casting liquid plaster into fabric forms. The fabric expands under the mass of the plaster slurry until it finds a state of equilibrium with the tensioned fabric. This play between the pressure of the liquid versus the tension in the fabric fibers mirrors the dynamic conflict that exists within every cell of organic bodies.

More Here