video

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Design Music

Collect Sounds Like Fireflies in the ‘Re: Sound Bottle,’ a Device that Creates Your Own Personal Soundtrack

The Re: Sound Bottle is the audio equivalent of running around in a field in the summer collecting fireflies in a jar. Designed by Jun Fujiwara from Tama Art University, the bottle is simple in its usage but absurdly complex in its design which relies heavily on software to handle the recording, storing, and playback of audio tracks. To use it you simply uncork the device and if sound is present it immediately snaps into recording mode. As you record more individual sounds, an audio database is formed and tracks are automatically selected to create rhythmic tracks, essentially like a miniature robot DJ in a jar. To listen, you again uncork the top and wait for your personal soundtrack to play. Jun says he hopes the Re: Sound Bottle (still just a concept) will help people interact more directly with music by recording the audio from their daily life. The bottle won a special judge’s prize at the 2012 Mitsubishi Chemical Junior Designer Awards earlier this year. (via jason sondhi)

Art Design

Firewall: An Interactive Fabric Surface by Aaron Sherwood

Firewall is a new interactive artwork by New York media artist Aaron Sherwood created in collaboration with Michael Allison. The presentation is relatively straightforward but still visually stunning: different ‘modes’ of light are projected onto a taut membrane of spandex which then reacts kinetically in response to touch. Firewall was made using Processing, Max/MSP, Arduino and a Kinect that work in tandem to create the experience and will be used in an upcoming performance art piece involving dancer Kiori Kawai who will interact with the piece on stage. Learn more over on Sherwood’s blog. (via designboom)

Art Design

A 120-Year-Old Mechanical Device that Perfectly Mimics the Song of a Bird

Get out the headphones or turn up your speakers and prepare to be impressed by archaic 19th century engineering. Relying on dozens of moving parts including gears, springs, and a bellows, this small contraption built in 1890 was designed to do one thing: perfectly mimic the random chatter of a song bird. At first I expected to hear a simple repeating pattern of tweets, but the sounds produced by the mechanism are actually quite complex and vary in pitch, tone, and even volume to create a completely realistic song. I think if you closed your eyes you might not be able to tell the difference between this and actual birdsong. It’s believed the machine was built 120 years ago in Paris by Blaise Bontems, a well-known maker of bird automata and was recently refurbished by Michael Start over at The House of Automata. Can any of you ornithologists identify the bird? If so, get in touch.

Update: And if you liked that, check out this pair of matching signing bird pistols that sold at auction last year for $5.8 million.

Art

Beautiful Marker and Pen Portrait Time-lapse

This is a beautiful video showing the exquisite control of 27-year old Indonesian artist Elfan Diary as he draws a new portrait. Watch as he works with Fine Color markers, a Sakura Pigma Micron pen, and standard Faber-Castell colored pencils over a period of about three hours. Beautiful work.

Science

Isaac Newton vs. Rube Goldberg: A Gravity-Defying Chain Reaction

It’s been a while since we’ve had a quality Rube Goldberg device here on Colossal and it appears the folks over at Toronto-based 2D House have stepped up to the challenge. Isaac Newton vs. Rube Goldberg is an extremely slick chain reaction aided by magnets and all matter of visual trickery. Just watch, try to guess which way is up, and have your mind blown. 2d House has also produced a number of other Rube Goldberg devices which you can see here.

Art

Five Hours of Plane Landings in 30 Seconds at San Diego International Airport

Shot just outside the San Diego Internation Airport on Black Friday this remarkable time-lapse captures every landing over a five hour period from 10:30am through 3pm. The video is of course a composite, photographer and film professor Cy Kuckenbaker shot the individual planes against a clear blue sky and then used a process called chroma key (ie. green screen) to make the sky transparent and layer the planes on top a separate video of clouds.

Kuckenbaker tells PetaPixel he was inspired by Ho-Yeol Ryu’s famous composite image of airplanes taking off at Hannover Airport. See much more at PetaPixel.

Update: Kuckenbaker released a new video 90 airplanes taking off in 30 seconds.