Der Mensch als Industriepalast video

 The early 20th century was a time of great innovation and mechanization. Artists, designers and architects were fascinated with this new industrialization. (Recall Le Corbusier’s declaration that “The house is a machine for living). In 1927, German writer and artist Fritz Kahn designed an illustration titled “Der Mensch als Industrieplast” or “Man as Industrial Palace.” It related the complexities of the human body to those of working machines.

 Henning Lederer, a young German communications student, discovered this image in 2006 and set about to update and automate it in video format. The result is a wonderful mix of science and creative interpretation. You can watch the video here. 

A Big Apple Pop-Up

We thought this pop-up book by young designer Daisy Lew was worth noting for its unusual structure, combining a host of little pop-up blocks to create larger images of New York City icons: the Big Apple, a yellow taxi, the Chrysler Building and the Statue of Liberty. From one angle the pop-ups look like a city of multi-level skyscrapers, and from above you get the whole view. Check out the book on her web site at www.daisylew.com/popup.html

Hirshhorn Museum Song 1

We drove into downtown Washington, D.C., late last night to see artist Doug Aitken’s media piece, Song 1, projected in the round on the Hirshhorn Museum. It’s a very impressive production, including a running soundtrack of various people singing I Only Have Eyes for You and a visual dialogue of moving text and images. Eleven projectors are employed to create what the artist refers to as a work of “liquid architecture.” Even at 11 pm, there was a large audience of people walking around the museum’s exterior to experience the 360-degree video performance. The work will be up until May 13th, but if you can’t get to Washington in time to visit the museum, you can get a feel for the work by watching this YouTube video.

Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival Pop-Up Cards

To celebrate the National Cherry Blossom Festival and the 100th anniversary of Japan’s gift of cherry trees to our nation’s capital, the National Building Museum commissioned artist and paper engineer Carol Barton to design do-it-yourself pop-ups that kids (and adults) could make at the event this past weekend. A pop-up Japanese Tea House and a pop-up of the Miajima Torii Gate were among the projects. Both were given out free to the crowd, along with instructions on how to cut out and assemble them. Volunteers helped with the assembly process, and everyone seemed pleased with their take-home pop-up souvenirs.

To make your own Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival pop-ups, download the designs and directions from www.cherryblossompopup.com, print them onto card stock paper and glue them together. The trees have already lost their blossom due to this year’s early spring, but you’ll have the pop-ups to remember them by.

Books as Building Materials

Traditionally, the book has been both a container of information and a physical object. With the advent of digital technology that has changed, and today some books exist only in electronic form. But physical books are still part of our world, and some artists are using them as raw material for their own expressive pieces in the fields of art and architecture. The weburbanist site has mounted a small show of twelve artists’ bookworks at various scales. We love the idea of buildings made of books, while the smaller-scale sculptural pieces are also both jarring and thought provoking. Visit the show for more images of the works by clicking here.

Pop Your Candidate into the White House

On the eve of Super Tuesday we’re continuing our tradition of offering a pop-up campaign card for you to make. Choose from an entire field of pop-up candidates to glue right onto the White House lawn, or Photoshop your own pick into the scene. (We’ll be editing down the choices as the Republican field narrows. Stay tuned….)

 

Go to http://www.campaignpopup.com/ and cast your pop-up ballot now!

 

 

 

Pop-Up Inspired Micro-Robotics

Pratheev Sreetharan and his team of engineers at Harvard’s Microbiotics Lab had a problem. They were trying to produce very small flying micro robots (about the size of a bee). However, building such miniscule pieces of technology was fraught with difficulties. ”You’d take a very fine tungsten wire and dip it in a little bit of superglue,” explains Sreetharan. “Then, with that tiny ball of glue, you’d go in under a microscope like an arthroscopic surgeon and try to stick it in the right place.”

The solution to their dilemma was inspired by a study of origami and pop-up books. They constructed a flat sandwich of 18 layers of different materials (plastic film, carbon fiber, titanium, etc.). Then, utilizing a series of movable hinges, they folded the tiny circuit board to “pop” the robot into three-dimensional form. To watch a film of the process, go to news.harvard.edu

The robots might be used in the future for weather observations, traffic monitoring, emergency rescue, and more disturbingly, surveillance. Let’s hope this interesting pop-up application “does no evil.”

A Pop-Up Occupy Tent of Your Own

 

Here’s a creative way to occupy your space on the national map and get your message heard: with your own Pop-Up Occupy Tent.

Go to http://www.occupypopup.com/ and download the USA map card and tent pattern of your choice. Write your message on the side of the tent and follow the directions for cutting out and constructing the pop-up into the card.

Address your tent to your government representative. Make several. Set up your own encampment. Send them to all your representatives. It’s fun and harder to ignore than an email or tweet. (Can you imagine all these little tents popping up at the White House and in the offices on Capitol Hill !!! ) Plus, the post office will love you for your business. 

The CERN Collider Pop-Up

For all of you aspiring physicists out there, here’s an intriguing introduction to the workings of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, located between Switzerland and France. Not many get to actually see the collider, so to help people understand how it works, scientist Emma Sanders and paper engineer Anton Radevsky collaborated to create this exact-scale model in pop-up book form. The book describes how the Atlas Experiment is trying to uncover the origins of our universe by smashing protons together at very high speeds. It took 15 years to build the actual collider, but you can build your own paper version into the book in just a few minutes, as shown in this short YouTube video. Thanks to Bryant Holsenbeck for sending us this link.

The Scottish Library Phantom

A mystery unfolded in a series of Scottish libraries and museums this past fall when small sculptures constructed from printed pages started appearing on their shelves. Made with exquisite care, these tiny treasures started a sculptural scavenger hunt among the book collections of such institutions as the Scottish Poetry Library and the National Museum of Scotland. A cryptic note was found explaining some aspects of the project, but the name of the artist remains unknown: some mysteries are best when they persist. To follow the adventures of the Library Phantom, visit Robert Krulwich’s sciencey blog at http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/11/29/142910393/the-library-phantom-returns  Thanks to Sue Hoegberg for sending us this link.