Machine Thinking

Reciprocity’s “Bending Light” set on flickr has a large number of amazing photographs made by passing light through objects directly onto 35mm film

Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene from pro on Vimeo.

Students at the University of Washington have produced impressive software to enhance video in several ways by introducing higher resolution/higher dynamic range photographs into the workflow:

The work presents a system for automatically producing a wide variety of video enhancements and visual effects. Unlike traditional visual effects software (e.g., After Effects, Shake, Boujou, etc), the system is completely automatic and no manual labor is required from the user. The major limitation of the work is that it can currently handle only videos of static scenes (i.e., videos shot with a moving camera but containing no moving objects in the scene). Efforts are being made to lift this restriction in future work.

more information here

Machine Thinking pal Eddie Codel was camera dude for BoingBoingtv’s episode filmed at the Long Now Foundation’s museum for the first ever Mechcanicrawl. Part One of this series covers the 10,000 year clock the Long Now Foundation is building to be squirreled away into a remote mountain.

Watch carefully at 2:14 at the video - yours truly makes a cameo appearance.

Del’s “Nutty Device” does absolutely nothing except amaze. Built with only wood and glue (including all the gears and chains) he has managed to incorporate a bewildering number of mechanisms and types of motion. Oh yeah, and it’s modular so he can take whole chunks off at once.

(via Dvice, thanks Kevin!)

Printing a Book, Old School from Armin Vit on Vimeo.

This 1947 Encyclopedia Britannica film shows in detail the processes of making a book from the linotype machine through a fully bound book. It’s fascinating how many complex steps are completely automated and how other processes are fairly manual (usually done by “girls”).

There are few machines that can compete with the printing press for their impact on the way we think and represent the physical replication of memes.

(via ilovetypography)

In 1968 Charles and Ray Eames produced an animated short film for IBM detailing the ideas and vocabulary of the coming computer age. Certainly it was meant to allay some of the fears and anxiety experienced with the advance of the new machines.

a computer glossary or, coming to terms with the data processing machine from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

Jonathan Hale writes in this book The Old Way of Seeing:

“In 1828 … [t]he Faust legend obsessed artists and writers; in dozens of works they told the story of the modern predicament: in gaining the power of industry, the world was sacrificing it’s soul. It was not the new machines themselves they feared - there were not yet many - it was machine thinking.”

That quote is, in fact, from where this site derives it’s name. The Eames’ video might be a glossary to the new digital machines, but also an introduction to computer thinking.

Update: Sadly Vimeo has taken this video off line and I’ve been unable to find another online copy. I’ll keep looking.

Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

The secret lives of invisible magnetic fields are revealed as chaotic ever-changing geometries . All action takes place around NASA’s Space Sciences Laboratories, UC Berkeley, to recordings of space scientists describing their discoveries . Actual VLF audio recordings control the evolution of the fields as they delve into our inaudible surroundings, revealing recurrent ‘whistlers’ produced by fleeting electrons . Are we observing a series of scientific experiments, the universe in flux, or a documentary of a fictional world.

source and more information here

BoingBoing writes:

This Rube Goldberg machine makes sheer delight out of the process of mixing a Falling Water ( 30mls (1Oz) 42BELOW Feijoa Vodka, lemonade, long slice of seedless cucumber, ice)

Buy your tickets here

Laughing Squid has an excellent summary

Update:

Telstar Logistics posted a nice photoset

“A Series of Passionate but Arbitrary Decisions”

“It’s the things you can’t change that shape you”

“No Reward for Good Behavior”

More information on the artist here