History repeating

It always feels exciting to release some of my pieces into the wild. I never know what will happen, who long it will occupy a location or survive the outdoor conditions, whether I can take a good shot in proper light conditions.

I decided to let go of the tensegrity which served me as display while busking today. It's a four strut tetrahedron made of orange conduit which travelled lots. I build it for easy assembly and disassembly, easy to fold away and needing only one strut to connect with three strings to become whole.

Some of my pieces have travelled more than this one, which I never really bothered to name. I like the bold orange of the material, less so the black print giving away its industrial origin. The white string wears the stains from the different surfaces it encountered during its journeys. The imperfect white and the surplus black print give it honesty and rawness though.

Similar sized structures with thin bamboo tended to collapse in itself, I used the stiff conduit mainly to find out how to build stable minimal tetrahedra. It certainly deserves the status as stepping stone. I dropped it from about 3 metres to test the integrity, and still remember the big smile over the results.

It still offers the spectacle of a decent sized tensegrity, yet I build more aesthetically appealing versions, better suited to showcase smaller tensegrities. One of them now became invisible after sweet peas grew over it, hiding the decay of the wood I didn't anticipate.

Yet my perspective and appreciation of my work differs a lot from those experiencing 3d tensegrities rarely. Without hardly anything to compare it to, the novelty wins out. I learned to appreciate the impermanence of my creations, having kept only a couple of pieces from the early stages. So it felt just right to let go of an object created for its mere function.

I chose a location which has been used for a communal art installation prior, a small patch of land fenced off between an old warehouse, a bike path and an apartment block called 'The commons'. It has small patches of concrete, surrounded by weeds, against the back drop of a mural spelling out 'Ideal Dreams'.

It took me quite a while to get it back together, it must have been a year or so since I last put this one up. The four stick converge in the centre of the tetrahedron, and once the sticks and strings criss-cross each other in the proper way I just need to connect three strings to a single strut. Getting this configuration still resembles a complex 3d puzzle.

While I was figuring out how it all goes together, I heard someone calling out "Hey boy, what are you doing there?" I turned around to three women on a balcony facing the patch I was on. :just building something." I answered. Luckily, I had solved the puzzle and finally the tetrahedron was back in shape.

I offered to take my work back home if they didn't like it, but they took no offence to it. Even more surprising, one of them identified it as tensegrity, so I didn't mind at all being caught in the act of embellishing an unused patch of land in Brunswick with one of my pieces.

I checked the visibility from the bike path, and noticed some old chair spoiling the view a bit. When I moved it away, I spotted some bricks, and decided to prop my structure onto it. Somehow, I screwed up the shot of the final result, yet I'm confident that it will stay there for a while. Call me a bad marketeer for failing the instagrammability, I just enjoyed the process more than documenting the result.

Using bricks as 'corner stones' highlights the delicate balance of the structure, and moving the chair away adds to the idea of a deliberate installation. I use this part of the bike path a lot, so it'll be interesting to find out how it will stay in this location, and how it works visually at different times of day.

Heart Space

Once I started understanding the slightly irregular geometry of the Chestahedron, I grew fond of it. Two variations of it now decorate the Neurophysics Functional Movement Centre in Queensland, as well as being used to demonstrate complex processes.

Even without anything suspended from the top, the Chestahedron favours an upright position in relation to gravity. 'Chiming Heart' was sized to fit into a 50cm cube, made of non-elastic string and Tasmanian Oak. It has a Chinese Bell as attachment, introducing more moveable elements to a relative sturdy structure.

'Fiery Heart' needed to be more moveable, even the small weight of a bell (ca. one ounce) put too much stress on a similar structure with elastic strings. I decided to use non-elastic string for the lateral 'corners' to maintain the overall shape after distortion, and to make the non-elastic attachment point part of the tension network.

While I used whatever I could find as attachments so far, I needed now something of decent size, low weight and potentially bell-shaped. A small 6-strut tensegrity tetrahedron fits the bill perfectly, creating pleasing size relations. Some dashes of colour high light this centre, combining the shape for Fire with its colour red.

Meanwhile, 'Mottled Heart' gets taken over a by tomato, rosemary and mustard. The dodecahedron on the roof suffered a bit with the stormy weather lately, but 'Mottled Heart' shows only slight fading of the strings. I wonder whether its attachment will interfere with the mustard underneath, it won't take long before I find out.

Even more chestahedron

The last post about the chestahedron called "Mottled Heart" went a little bit all over the place, as I wrote it in multiple stages before the piece went to its final destination. So let's rewind and start at the beginning.

The artist Frank Chester set out on a mission to find a geometric structure with 7 equally sized faces. After many explorations he discovered the chestahedron, an object with 7 faces (four equilateral triangles, three kites) and 7 vertices. The structure does not qualify as Platonic Solid, as it has two different edge lengths and two types of faces.

As the structure bases on a tetrahedron folded open, it elegantly relates to all Platonic Solids, as well to a sphere surrounding it. According to Chester, the structure represents the geometry of our heart, please check out his talks for a more in depths explanation for this. When I followed a presentation about the genesis of this shape, my mind got blown several times, inspiring to seek some hands-on experiences with it.

In my first experiments I got the length for the top three struts wrong with only slightly satisfying results. Luckily, I found out the proper numbers, so that the latests builds give me better ideas about the qualities of this unique structure.

My 'standard' way of building tensegrities follows this simple algorithm:
1) All edges of the wireframe model become struts.
2) Each strut gets a string roughly 10% longer than the strut length.
3) The string network reflects a truncated version of the base geometry, eg the strings of my 6 strut "tetrahedron" create a truncated tetrahedron.
4) The number of struts converging in a corner determines the slicing, three edges create a triangle, four edges create a square, etc
5) Building of the tensegrity starts with a 'corner', eg connecting three struts with the strings shaping a triangle to begin building tetrahedron, cube or dodecahedron.
6) Each string connects to two more stick ends.
7) Repeat building 'corners' at the second string attachment position and continue until structure completed.

This simplified version works out fine for all Platonic Solids, it seems to fail for complex intersecting geometries like star tetrahedron. It worked well for the chestahedron, although, if you're really pedantic, the strings represent of truncated chestahedron. While geometrically interested people can perceive and identify the Platonic Solids in its representation as truncated tensegrity, the names of these geometric shapes evades a majority of people.

Our consciousness seems to resonate with geometry. The symmetry of it appeals to our perception of beauty, and it doesn't really matter whether we can put a name to a structure we experience. Architecture and engineering rely traditionally on squares, we have on overabundance of distorted cubes arounds us.

Mobile architecture utilises triangles much more, and geodesic domes offer a nice relieve of the geometrical desert which most urban landscapes offer. The chestahedron hides the numbers 1 to 7 in an elegant and surprising way. 1 object created from 2 base structures, a 4 sided tetrahedron, and 3 slices of a 5 pointed pentagram shows 7 corners and 7 faces. 6 edges shape a perfect hexagram through the centre of a sphere surrounding the chestahedron.

I played around a little bit with less symmetrical structures, but the majority of objects I build and sold showed multiple symmetries. I build some bases for spheres, there's often no clear up and down in my objects. The chestahedron breaks this mould - it commands like an obelisk to be put on its base. It invites to have something suspended from the apex.

The effect of a counterweight can be compared to someone pushing the object to the ground. As long as the counterweight doesn't move, which will happen. Without anchoring I could easily topple the structure over by moving the pendulum much out of centre, yet there was quite a lot of range of movement in a stable state possible.

With only about 80 cm height, "Mottled Heart" stands in a relatively sheltered space, surrounded by a planter box and equally high plants. 3 plastic tubes, fitting snugly over the bamboo sticks, anchor it about 10cm into the ground. Most of the time I saw it moving. I wonder how weathering will effect the stretch in the material, I anticipate a vast visual improvement. As I recycled the struts from a first experiment to paint on bamboo, the paint will wash and weather off. The strings will bleach off, the spot will get more and more sun exposure the closer summer gets.

I know how to improve the immediate visual appeal of the materials involved. While I was busking, I experimented a lot with colour, just a learn more about the fierce Australian sun than I wanted to. If something looks good outdoors over time, it works with nature and not against it. Oiling plant surfaces can provide interesting graceful ageing of material.

Instead of being the trickster, stunning by the immediate shineyness of their illusion, I let Mother nature do her part of trickery. If the "Mottled Heart" still beats a year from now, it will look quite different. Until then, I can enjoy seeing the calming movement reminding me of eternal change.

Chestahedron

I came across a very interesting geometric shape, an object with 7 openings (faces). It is composed out of 4 equilateral triangles and 3 kite-shaped openings. The kite is composed by cutting a similar sized in half and arranging the parts along their longest sides.

Mathematically speaking, it would be classified as diminished trapezoid, or as a heptahedron. You can find 7 a lot of times: Number of openings, number of crossings (vertexes), it's entire surface area is 7 times that of an equilateral triangle, there are 3 crossings with 4 trajectories, and 4 crossings with 3 trajectories.

I build it easily as tensegrity structure, with my simplest construction method. 3 of the 12 edges are shorter (with a factor of sqr(3)/2 ), which I guesstimated for the first build. The model tends towards a circular shape, the elegant elongation of Frank Chester's models gets a bit lost. I experiment with using different spins of the 4- and the 3-trajectory crossings, yet set on its triangular base, it tends to 'go bubbly'.

A larger model, with a better approximation of the strut length comes closer to the desired appearance of an elongated object when suspended from the top corner. Maybe there's a simple way of keeping it 'slim' by ways of an internally suspended structure.

 Chester demonstrates in his presentation how his chestahedron relates to 4 of the 5 Platonic Solids, embeds the Golden Ratio and how it fits into the Flower of Life.

PS: I found a document having the angles and strut length relationships. The shorter struts have a 0.53 factor in relation to the base length. The latest models use a 0.5 factor, which increased their optical appeal and structural stability. The slimness I missed once I found in the proper proportions.

I recycled 75cm bamboo struts for the largest version so far. Standing on its triangular base, the structure resembles an obelisk. A teardrop shaped former bed post top is suspended from the top three struts. At the moment, it's suspended using the same type of string used overall. I will replace it with fishing line, and adjust the length so that the centre of the object indicates the centre of the hidden hexagram.

PPS: While the teardrop/bell shaped centre piece isn't probably in the centre of hidden hexagram, it attached it already in a 1:1.61 relationship (height from ground:length to the top). As the object has three points of contact with about 30 degree from vertical I plan to use some hollow plastic tubes as support anchors for them in the ground. The relatively high mount point of the bell will topple the object if it is too far from the centre.

It's fun to play a bit with this piece - the pendulum creates interesting patterns of movement, even in a still state of the pendulum. The visual effect of white paint peeling off, combined with pink string, appears very harsh. In outdoor conditions, the original bamboo will reappear, the strings will bleach. It will grow over as well - the patch I want use is fertilised with three mouse corpses, mulch and saw dust, with heaps of mustard seeds.

The 4-strut tetrahedron in my front yard turned invisible. A ranking plant took it over, and attacked the two brugmansias next to it. I expected this plant to die back in winter, but I noticed only the comfrey and chamomile to die back. I want to prune the rosemary next to the patch where the 'Mottled Heart' will live.

Most of my outdoor creations didn't survive more than some months. The first 'garden model' still lives, more than I want to. Mold has taken hold of the repurposed broomsticks, so I need consider treatment for materials meant to sustain outdoor conditions. The fierce sun bleaches lots of colour, which is why I'm curious curious about the change in colour especially with the pink string.

The dodecahedron above the office block still twirls around on a string. The prevailing wind often nails it to the eastern wall, but a change in wind direction brings it back to a floaty space. The nylon string I use mostly stretches a little bit over time, yet it still looks sufficiently tense. I use the same string for 'Mottled Heart', which might need readjustment over time. My estimations for string length meant it's not too easy to take a cm out of the overall length.

I already fell in love with the interactivity of this object. Anchors will hopefully provide a minimalist way of preventing being blown away by the wind, or toppled over by over ambitious experimentalists. The wind can mainly attack from one side, so the movement shouldn't get out of control. With spring on the door step, plants will use the support to grow intro different spaces.

The last garden sculpture was destroyed during a party. The project gained some useful insights, yet even without the destructive effort it wasn't meant to last. Replacing the stinky compost place with a beating heart appeals to me.

Yet another 'brand' name

Since I attempted to market my passion for tensegrity, I had to come up with a name for it. The first one was You Can Touch This!, encouraging people to engage with their hands with my work. For more than two years I enjoyed engaging with people on the Rose Street Artists Market, gaining valuable feedback about the not so kosher aspect of 'marketing' art.

It took some iterations to end up with 'Magical Thingamabobs' for my busking attempts, and if nothing else, I appreciated the smiles of those noticing the light-hearted approach to a complex art.

Just like with my first market appearance, when I exhibited my work on a festival it was neither branded or priced, my stall became decoration and chill out space. Somehow, I like the idea that people soaked in the energy I wanted to create in this space, combing the Platonic Solids with the Vector Equilibrium.

A central tetrahedron projected into the VE, the four other solids arranged over the four entrances around it. A womblike structure (the Shelter Systems dome) containing six most basic geometries of universe, a rebirthing for those over-engaged in the mind.

I had the faint hope to sell at least one piece on the festival, but my merchant approach was not very apparent. I still might have some follow-up customers. The gipsy ways of selling at festivals are appealing, yet require a good product.

I build more than I could sell when I started at the market. I sold lots while busking on the street, being inspired to many new variations. Enough to somehow survive, pay the rent, eat, even the occasional vice and material to go on.

Mr. Mouth is my first shop exposure, and I'm surprised how well it works, especially given the lack of written information and branding.

I'm happy with the new logo, now I have to decide whether to use big words, or make a real simple description of my work. Either way, getting some editing help before the final release sounds like the right way forward.

Best thing ever

Using phone and computer to document my latest piece has been frustrating, to say the least. Working on 'Diamond DNA' got me exhilarated, and the results exceeded my expectations after the idea came to me.

Base joined tetrahedral tensigrity

The diamond structure, two tetrehedra joined at the base, shows an interesting balance along its central edges. I presented the smaller versions upright, along the axis of compressability, suspending two thirds of the material with only three points of contact to the ground.

It's the Illuminati tensegrity - 2 triangular and 3 square corners, the geometry strengthening diamond. Build properly, it will balance on the square corners around its girth, albeit very delicately. Suspended, it should show horizontal stability between the triangular corners.

I experimented with connecting the former corners (crossings) centrally instead of outlining triangle, squares and pentagons. I'm not too sure about the classification of tendons connecting in a hub without compression elements, but it adds functional and aesthetic qualities.

The central junction of three corner tendons can act as a mount point for anything suspended in the centre. I had a spiral made of six shorter sticks which needs a pull from either ends to maintain a 3d shape. I looped string around the centre of the outer sticks and attached the elastic string to the junction of the two triangular corners in the structure.

I did my best with a random spray job for the outer struts, balanced on one triangular corner it measures more than 2 metres. I have no idea about its durability - it uses elastic strings around its girth (which I might replace), and elastic to suspend the central spiral.

While I liked to call my sculptures 'kinetic', this one fits the description. The slightest amount of wind gets movement into it, either by rotating the centre or the entire structure. It's like a mothership of randomness, another turn will happen, unpredictably. Different perspectives provide different colour aspects, just like the rotation. Any capture seems unique, like an elephant felt up by the blind.

So I indulged in making a clip, which is still rendering in the background while I type. No idea whether I'll get in copyright trouble when uploading it, I haven't even bothered watching the final result besides bits of preview. If you're in a hurry, don't bother watching. It'll be about 15 minutes without anything spectacular happening,

The raw footage still captured lots of detail I was interested in than the GoPro footage I took before. I love the balance the single point of suspension provides, as well as the independent movement of the spiral in the centre, even though the twist pulls the entire structure together.



PS: This piece brought me most excitements from any of my creations. I had some pieces hanging, and enjoyed the movement. Many delicately balanced pieces were blown over, exploring the rotary power will bring another dimension into my work.