Machine Thinking

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

Based on the lyric (and alternate title) “Big Ideas: Don’t get any” I grouped together a collection of old redundant hardware, and placed them in a situation where they’re trying their best to do something that they’re not exactly designed to do, and not quite getting there

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Harold Ross has taken some beautiful long exposure painting with light photographs at the Hagley Museum in Deleware.

flickr set (via Boing Boing)

Daniel Rozin writes:

The 4 mechanical mirrors are made of various materials but share the same behavior and interaction; any person standing in front of one of these pieces is instantly reflected on its surface. The mechanical mirrors all have video cameras, motors and computers on board and produce a soothing sound as the viewer interacts with them.

Michael writes:

About 7 years ago I was reading an article on Claude Shannon and came across one of the funniest ideas I had ever heard. Claude, you see, was one of these incredibly brilliant engineers with an obviously great sense of humor. As I understand it, he, along with Marvin Minsky came up with an idea they called the “Ultimate Machine”. Basically a plain box with a switch on the top. When you flip the switch, a hand comes out of the box and flips the switch off. Thats it.

Well, after reading the article, and laughing out loud, I decided that I HAD to build one of these boxes. So simple, and yet so funny.

Leave Me Alone Box

The Memory Project, which is reminiscent of a Victorian cyclorama, is recording a 360-degree panorama each minute over three days.

Members of the public can control the circular, time-slip viewing gallery, which will display about 47,000 photos.

Heat sensors detect visitors’ locations and activate monitors with the images.

As people move towards the edge of the cylinder, photos from 17 April are displayed.

When they step towards the centre, the latest images appear.

There is a better video showing it in action here

Zach Kowalczyk has a delightful series of photographs of foods in the shapes of their container.

a look at what food has become in our society of convenience and instant gratification.

Germany’s Professor Michael Stoll recently was recently handed a fabulous collection of 1960s US Steel artwork

See more on his flickr page.

While normally vintage machine tech is more likely to be found here, the new Boston Dynamics Big Dog project is impressive enough to make an exception. With the ability to trot, jump and catch itself from falling like an animal would is impressive - that it does it with a load three times heavier than itself is amazing. For $10M DARPA seems to have got it’s money worth.