Kate MccGwire’s work asks questions about the very nature of beauty. She’s intrigued by the possibility of envisaging beauty as something more complex than merely what delights the senses: beauty can be about a problem; it can be something that repels you or makes you question the status quo. The idea that it is a cultural phenomenon, susceptible to argument through the creative process, fascinates her.

Organic patterns, forms and materials have an instinctive draw; work may look determinedly abstract to the naked eye, but by using a spiral or circle, or a familiar material, the viewer’s gaze is lured inward, as if into a ‘field of attraction’, only to be repulsed or even menaced by the associations that unfold once ‘inside’. At the same time the scale and delicacy of the work reinforce the potential for awe and beauty in the unconventional.

Intrinsic to her method is the collecting and sorting of materials from hundreds of different sources over a period of months, even years. In turn, pieces evolve intuitively as if out of the subconscious, the language evocative rather than purely illustrative. As the work takes shape, a new, playful reality emerges, so that the object itself becomes a sort of prism, refracting the layers of meaning and cultural associations buried within, the quantity of materials used sometimes deliberately overwhelming, as if charged with a power and ambition beyond the reach they possess when seen in isolation.

www.katemccgwire.com

Domeau & Pérès
Domeau & Pérès took this Gangsta Track bike from Brooklyn Machine Work and gave it the ultimate luxury upgrade with leather.
www.domeauperes.com
www.brooklynmachineworks.com

Jacques Ferrand Leather Bike
Jacques Ferrand trained as a traditional leather cutter and sewer, and after 14 years of apprenticeship, set up his own shop, Crèvecoeur (23 r. Des Blancs Manteaux, Paris, France). He normally works on bags, shoes, and belts, either directly for customers under the name Etablissements Ferrand, or for labels such as Hermès.
www.arkitipintel.com

Daniel Hirschmann is a South Africa born artist who uses technology, relationships and spontaneity to enable his artistic practice. His portfolio includes responsive sculpture, interactive spaces and generative prints which have been exhibited in shows around the world, most notably, the Whitney Museum of Contemporary Art in NY, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the V&A in London, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Nice, and the Resolution Gallery in Johannesburg. He built on his Fine Arts studies with a Masters at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program – where he specialised in physical computing and interactive sculpture. He has lectured at various highly respected institutions around the globe. He recently founded Hirsch & Mann Ltd – an art and design consultancy based in East London which is focused on responsive objects and environments.
www.danielhirschmann.com

Cecil Balmond is a designer, engineer, artist, architect, thinker and writer. He has been hailed as “one of the most important forces in contemporary architecture today,” and in 2003 received the prestigious RIBA Charles Jencks award for Theory in Practice. He is also the recipient of the Gengo Matsui prize, one of the highest prizes for engineering given in Japan. He teaches extensively and currently holds the Paul Philippe Cret chair at Penn Design as Professor of Architecture where he is also the founding director of the NonLinear Systems Organization, a material and structural research unit.

Balmond’s work is an open-ended visual application of theory. His principle that “structure as conceptual rigour is architecture” has become a compelling force, changing the face of architecture, art and engineering. Balmond’s dynamic and organizational approach to structure is informed by the sciences of complexity, non-linear organization and emergence. Recognizing that the universe is a constantly changing array of patterns, he draws on ancient wisdom and non-western mathematical archetypes as sources. Through his research, Balmond investigates mathematical concepts and their influence on natural forms and structures, interrogating algorithms, fractals, rhythm and cellular structure. “Peerless in his exploration…Balmond remains truer to the ancient philosophic meaning of techne than any of his contemporaries.”

The concept by Philips, called Daylight allows users to stand directly in front of the large window and control how much of the pattern fills the window by moving their hand left to right. Colour control can be changed by moving your hand from top to bottom.
The idea behind the window is that rather than blinds, users will be able to have better control over how much daylight is let in to the room.

Latest 3-D printing techniques

Scott Summit, a co-founder of Bespoke, and his partner, an orthopedic surgeon, are set to open a studio this fall where they will sell the limb coverings and experiment with printing entire customized limbs that could cost a tenth of comparable artificial limbs made using traditional methods. And they will be dishwasher-safe, too.
The company is using advances in a technology known as 3-D printing to create prosthetic limb casings wrapped in embroidered leather, shimmering metal or whatever else someone might want.
“I wanted to create a leg that had a level of humanity,” Mr. Summit said. “It’s unfortunate that people have had a product that’s such a major part of their lives that was so under designed.” via new york times www.nytimes.com

http://www.dipity.com/TeamTeamUSA/3D-Printing-in-2010/

By Willard Wigan
Born in 1957 in Birmingham, Willard Wigan MBE began his artistic life at a tender age. Suffering from dyslexia and learning difficulties, he struggled at school, finding solace in creating art of such minute proportions that it virtually could not be seen with the naked eye.Willard’s work is described as “the eighth wonder of the world”.
Willard’s micro-sculptures have become so minute that they are only visible through a microscope. Each piece commonly sits within the eye of a needle, or on a pin head.
The personal sacrifice involved in creating such wondrous, yet scarcely believable, pieces is inconceivable to most. Willard enters a meditative state in which his heartbeat is slowed, allowing him to reduce hand tremors and sculpt between pulse beats. Even the reverberation caused by traffic outside can affect Willard’s work. He often works through the night when there is minimal disruption.
“It began when I was five years old,” says Willard. “I started making houses for ants because I thought they needed somewhere to live. Then I made them shoes and hats. It was a fantasy world I escaped to where my dyslexia didn’t hold me back and my teachers couldn’t criticise me. That’s how my career as a micro-sculptor began.”
www.willard-wigan.com

By Dalton Ghetti

Dalton Ghetti has been carving these mini pencil tip sculptures for 25 years and has never sold any of them for money. I think that’s the best part of this story. Rather than cash in on his artwork, Ghetti just gives them away to his friends.
The micro sculptures are so intricate and detailed that its hard to even comprehend how Ghetti is able to carve these with just a needle, a razor, a sculpting knife…and NO magnifying glass! Not only does this require an incredible talent, it also takes incredible patience. Some of these pieces take months to years to complete. The micro letters standing on top of these stubby pencils are sculpted out of the actual pencil’s graphite lead.

Cameron Browne is currently a visiting researcher at Imperial College London’s new Computational Creativity Group where he investigate AI methods for games and visual art.
Check out this crazy fractals

www.cameronius.com

Drzach & Suchy created this amazing “Shadow cloud” 3d print object which frankly I would like to know how they managed to synchronize such a complex structure. Is it pure mathematics or trial and error guys? just great.
Do check out the other works and be inspired by their making offs….
www.drzachsuchy.ch

Computational rephotography is a fancy name for photos taken from the exact same viewpoint as an old photograph. Actually, that’s just rephotography. The “computational” part is when software helps out.

Researchers at MIT have found a way to automate the process. Currently, they use a laptop to do the heavy lifting, but the software could just as easily sit inside a camera. In fact, that’s the plan. The system compares the scene in front of the camera with a historical photograph. It then works out the difference between the two and gives the photographer instructions along the lines of “up a bit, left a bit more.”

According to an abstract on rephotography, it is a lot more complicated than it seems. In lining up the images you must consider “six degrees of freedom of 3-D translation and rotation, and the confounding similarity between the effects of camera zoom and dolly.”

Sergey Larenkov
Photographer Sergey Larenkov uses computational rephotography (explained previously by Wired) to overlay extant WWII-era photographs on their corresponding modern settings. The results are just amazing
www.sergey-larenkov.livejournal.com