Leah Beeferman

Graph space series, 2011 by Leah Beeferman all ink and/or graphite and laser etch on aluminum. See more;

Kite & Laslett

Kite & Laslett is the artist duo formed by Sebastian Kite and Will Laslett, trained in architecture, sound and music, specialise in producing architectural interventions in the form of interactive installations. Their cross-disciplinary projects fuse sound, light, film, performance and sculptural elements to construct immersive experiential environments that challenge human perceptions of space. See more;

ORBIT, 2012

5x custom built 400mw laser motorised armatures, custom software - audio/light triggering 2.5m (D) circular canvas

PANOPTIC, 2009-2012

It was created for platform79 - the berlin project Kite & Laslett produced two artistic interventions. The first, Panoptic, is a physical mobile-installation situated in Courtyard IV of the former Kantstraße Women’s Prison, exploring visual space. In contrast, Klangzelle, a sound installation, examines solely aural space and the acoustic energy of the prison interior. The two works stand in relative juxtaposition to one another, both architecturally and in conception.

Interactive Laser Sculpture by Jayson Haebich

This is a work in progress by Jayson Haebich which involves creating light sculptures out of laser light. The laser light appears as an almost tactile object cutting through mid air illuminating dust, smoke and other airborne particles to create a swirling, mesmerizing planes of light. These beams of light are interactive, responding to touch and movement through the use of 3d tracking technology with the aim of this project being to create responsive environments of light, colour and sound. See more;

The software used to control the laser was created using OpenFrameworks and C++ by Jayson Haebich and uses an Xbox kinect to do 3d tracking. The software creates the lasers beams by sending vectors to the laser via a DAC. The lasers position is then calibrated to the 3-Dimensional field of data viewed from the kinect, which is used to detect when intersections between users and the laser beams occur. These interactions then trigger effects such as colour changes or causing the beams to move which gives users the feeling of being able to touch the laser beams.

Video filmed by Carlo Zeccola  and Kit Webster.

Network Time by Spiros Hadjidjanos

Network Time is an internet based unit system created by Spiros Hadjidjanos late 2011, it consists of several Wi-Fi routers arranged in the gallery space providing free Internet access to visitors. The LED that reflects the data-traffic of each router is extended along a fiber optic cable magnifying its flicker. Although the devices look only physically modified, the artist has altered the operating system of each router, to manipulate the fluctuation of the fiber optics. See more;

"With Network Time, Hadjidjanos proposes the measurement of time in units of information or using a router as a clock. A minute is a gigabyte and a terabyte an hour. Time is measured based on the information received. It is a concept relevant to “radical network empiricism” as described by the new media theorist Adrian Mackenzie. In our contemporary Post-Network condition the amount of information we receive changes our perception of temporality. The emergence of the Internet stretched across time and space and revealed that clock time is not an absolute milieu against which we synchronize and quantify time, but rather a human construction that has very little to do with time other than serving as an inflexible way of measuring duration. In this case, the routers, as technological objects suggest a technical yet subjective and non-isochronic time measurement." - Kwadrat

Wireless router, custom router firmware, fiber optic light, electronics. Dimensions variable.



Pictures above are at Kwadrat, the one below at The Future Gallery.

Magdalena Jetelova

"Magdalena Jetelova used illuminated lines to expose communication structure of the landscape; Crossing King's Cross - she uses lights to map out the future path of a train route as well as natural changes (in the Island Project / Islandský projekt – she enlists lasers to draw attention to the undersea intercontinental divide (mountainscape). In her geographical project, Songline 75° 36‘52‘‘ (1998) contemporary localization techniques are used to join two spots on the earth. This is possible thanks mainly to use of the imagination stemming from local traditions." - Lenka Dolanová. See more;

Iceland, 1992_

"The Central Atlantic Shelf is an approximately 15,000 kilometer-long mountain range, mostly hidden at the bottom of the ocean. From the geological point of view it forms the dividing line between Europe and America. This is a seam along the place where millions years ago two continents were torn apart. Today we know that the Central Atlantic Shelf is part of a bigger system which circles the entire globe for nearly 70,000 kilometers. It goes from Iceland to the north between Spitzbergen and Greenland, continuing through the Arctic Ocean to the mouth of the Lena River in Siberia. In the southern direction, it goes from Iceland eastward along the southern end of Africa, continuing to the north through the Indian Ocean. Iceland is the only place where the Central Atlantic Shelf goes above the sea.

The geological border between Europe and America can be seen with the naked eye for about 350 kilometers in the form of a range which cuts through Iceland in a north-eastern direction. Both land masses are still moving, shifting and bumping into one another. Therefore the whole area is seismically active with a number hot springs and active volcanoes. The light line of the laser beam draws the border between the two continents. The form of the exact direct line is all the time freshly defined by its touch with the terrain—it goes through the raw landscape along the lava fields, through cracks disappearing in the mist of hot steam from geysers. The computer-determined precise line of a geological event in ancient time that has formed our world of today." - Magdalena Jetelova.

Crossing King’s Cross, 1996_

"The King’s Cross section of central London has been significantly marked by its industrial past dating from the 18th century. This part of London, comprised of a network of industrial plants and warehouses and traversed by railway tracks and canals, is set to become a modern urban crossroad. It will host the terminal of high-speed trains between London and Paris, connecting Britain with the Continent. The 54 hectares of railway land behind King’s Cross and St Pancras stations is today a sparsely populated, unarticulated territory within a dense and fast-paced urban environment.

The former modernity of the railway station of 1850 and visible traces of the then dynamic development of the area are perceived today as time which has stopped. The past of King’s Cross is represented by abandoned industrial buildings and old railway operations; its future consists of modern transport and communication technology. The present is a transitory period, a kind of “no man’s time”. A laser beam indicating the future line of the TGV railway in the existing landscape links the physically present past without real action and the so far virtual future, a direct path of the speed of the light replaces half-time life. Photography changes into a new form afforded by the speed of the train." - Magdalena Jetelova.

Scanner 3D by Thomas Lebécel

ENSCI's student Thomas Lebécel created this rotational 3D scanner. The scanner uses a laser pointer moving along a ring-shaped track around an object to find a set of 3D points that define the object’s shape.

ENSCI is a product design school in Paris, I recommend check all projects from the different students, there are really great works. See more;

"The realization of 3D files, is now essential for the programming of machining on all types of CNC machines. Make these 3D files can be complicated and tedious, especially when we want to achieve complex shapes.

The 3D scanner appears to be a good alternative for drafts of 3D files, starting fromsimple modeling with clay or play dough. We can also scan existing objects to possibly modify, or replicate. Following my research on various open source technologies to scan the existingprocesses, I realized that they operate by a process of scanning a laser faisseau on the object, coupled with a simultaneous shooting. However, this technique does notdiscern any that maybe hollow objects. For these reasons, I was directed to a system using a lens proximeter rotate aroundthe object. This technique allows me to capture a greater amount of detail."

via | Make:

Markus Kayser

I'm really impressed after watching the last two projects by Markus Kayser, these are two of the best and experimental processes I have seen lately to make self-production. Both projects use the sun as a main source  for producing or manufacturing the final object or product. The first one is called "Sun Cutter" 2010, works like a laser-cutter, exploring the potential of harnessing sunlight directly to produce objects. The second one called "Solar Sinter" 2011, sunlight and sand are used as raw energy and material to produce glass objects using a 3D printing process, that combines natural energy and material with high-tech production technology. See more;

Sun Cutter Project

"The Sun Cutter Project explores the potential of harnessing sunlight directly to produce objects. The machine is a low-tech, low energy version of a laser cutter. It uses pure sunlight, focused by a ball lens, to repeatedly cut programmed shapes in up to 0.4mm thick plywood as well as paper and card. The project also explores the merit of analogue mechanized production that draws on the machine technology found in pre-digital machinery and automaton. It uses a cam system, moving an X & Y- board to control the shape of the cut. The cams are set into synchronized motion by a small solar-powered motor driving a timing belt.

Each pair of sunglasses made, even though very similar in shape, is still unique, creating a juxtaposition between the machine-made, repetitive and individual, unique object."

Aluminium, Acrylic, MDF, Glass Sphere, Photovoltaics W400X D400 X H500

Solar Sinter Project

"In August 2010 I took my first solar machine - the Sun-Cutter - to the Egyptian desert in a suitcase. This was a solar-powered, semi-automated low-tech laser cutter, that used the power of the sun to drive it and directly harnessed its rays through a glass ball lens to ‘laser’ cut 2D components using a cam-guided system. The Sun-Cutter produced components in thin plywood with an aesthetic quality that was a curious hybrid of machine-made and “nature craft” due to the crudeness of its mechanism and cutting beam optics, alongside variations in solar intensity due to weather fluctuations.

In the deserts of the world two elements dominate - sun and sand. The former offers a vast energy source of huge potential, the latter an almost unlimited supply of silica in the form of quartz. The experience of working in the desert with the Sun-Cutter led me directly to the idea of a new machine that could bring together these two elements. Silicia sand when heated to melting point and allowed to cool solidifies as glass. This process of converting a powdery substance via a heating process into a solid form is known as sintering and has in recent years become a central process in design prototyping known as 3D printing or SLS (selective laser sintering). These 3D printers use laser technology to create very precise 3D objects from a variety of powdered plastics, resins and metals - the objects being the exact physical counterparts of the computer-drawn 3D designs inputted by the designer. By using the sun’s rays instead of a laser and sand instead of resins, I had the basis of an entirely new solar-powered machine and production process for making glass objects that taps into the abundant supplies of sun and sand to be found in the deserts of the world.

My first manually-operated solar-sintering machine was tested in February 2011 in the Moroccan desert with encouraging results that led to the development of the current larger and fully-automated computer driven version - the Solar-Sinter. The Solar-Sinter was completed in mid-May and later that month I took this experimental machine to the Sahara desert near Siwa, Egypt, for a two week testing period. The machine and the results of these first experiments presented here represent the initial significant steps towards what I envisage as a new solar- powered production tool of great potential." - Markus Kayser

via | Colossal