Diaspora

My sculptures have conquered already three continents, even without me sending them per mail off-shore. The furthest I posted so far is Queensland, some have found a home in Germany, one in Greece, one in India and soon one in Switzerland. Most of them will be scattered around the greater Melbourne area, quite some of those in good use as demonstration objects.

Fossilised bio-material, millions of year old, provided the oil needed to produce the tension elements and transport the materials into my home. The bamboo grew most likely in China, processed, packaged and sent to Australia. At least I started lately to use my unicycle for shopping trips when possible to keep the energy-consumption of my home-made products low. Only one essential production-step involves electricity, the rest consists of purely manual effort.

Mass-production distracts from the idea of tracing the origins of a product. In a consumer-society, the life cycle of products remains unknown, sometimes even for good reasons. Hand-made products existed throughout history whenever the social organisation enabled 'economy'. In our globalised world, we got used to have a similar range of products, at least Maccas and Coca-Cola reached nearly everywhere.

A mass-producer has usually a well-organised distribution infrastructure in place, while I just have a point of sale twice a month, in an obscure location in funky Fitzroy. I love the variety of products in the Rose Street Artist's Market, it's a place that invites to do much more than just shopping. It brings back fair trade (not the trademarked one) in the sense of no involvement of middle men.

I'm still torn whether to call the objects undergoing a commercial transaction 'product' or '(art) work'. I build some models a conscious artistic attitude, others belong more to the 'fun in making and playing with' category. My main intention in producing tensegrity structure lies in spreading the tensegrity meme.

The information about tensegrity travels faster via the internet, yet I consider materialised structures more appealing. Models help understanding in an embodied way, instead of simply processing ideas and pictures. My sculptures fill space with lightness and delicate balance, yielding to force before returning into shape. Three continents in less than a year makes me happy and determined to continue my exploration into the lightness of movement and balance.

Little changes

I can now maintain some static pages within this blog which makes me real happy. Instead of cluttering images of the sculptures wildly over some disconnected pages, you can find my portfolio now via the menu, as well as the market dates in case you want to see (and touch) ma things. This means I can give this site a much more organised appearance than I ever hoped for, unless bouts of laziness delay my impeccable intentions.

And finally, the blog can fulfil its destiny and deal with stories and infos about the process of bringing tensegrity structures to live.

How to build a tensegrity icosahedron

The model I sold most so far is a simple 6-strut icosahedron with elastic string. It can collapse entirely and bounces back fiercely afterwards. The cord is much more durable than rubber bands, my favorite product tester is my neighbour's son, who hasn't manage to destroy his toy for more than half a year now.

The bamboo sticks I used have a diameter of 5mm, with a 1mm wide groove at either end. The elastic cord has a diameter of 0.8mm, the knot prevents the string from sliding out of the groove, especially once the model is fully assembled. The tension level can be increased by looping the cord more than once, but unless you will do with all connections the symmetry can be compromised.

Slideshow

Here's a little slideshow with most of the models for 2011. Enjoy.

Market Dates

I just confirmed my bookings for the Rose Street Artist's Market for January and February. Keeping up my old habits, I will appear fortnightly on Sundays in Fitzroy, offering you the unique opportunity to buy an original piece of tensegrity art.

• January: 16 and 30
• February: 13 and 27

 Red white delight

Tensegrity Octahedron (12 struts)

 Halfcast

Tensegrity Octahedron mounted on 4-strut tensul (12 + 4 struts)

 Red Barrier

Tensegrity Icosahedron (6 struts)

 Hope

Tensegrity Tetrahedron (6 struts)

 Redfaced

Tensegrity Vector Equilibrium (24 struts)

 Tensultower

Five stacked 3-strut tensuls (15 struts), ca 130 cm high

Copperhead

Tensegrity Tetrahedron mounted on a tensul (6 + 3 struts), ca 160 cm high

Tetroid
Tensegrity Tetrahedron (6 struts)

New season

I decided to continue my presence at the Rose Street Artist's Market for at least two more month. I will give you the exact dates once my booking is confirmed. I plan to separate the toys more from the sculptures, which will sell from now on with a signed authenticity certificate. I can't bring all of them to the market, here's the current portfolio of available sculptures.

 Cyber Invasion

Variation on 6-strut tensegrity

 Kongquered Bridge

Variation on 6-strut tensegrity

 42

Tensegrity Octahedron with mixed chirality (12 struts)

 Atlas

Tensegrity sphere on five-strut tensul (30 + 5 struts)

 Zebra

Tensegrity sphere (30 struts)

 Dodeca

Tensegrity Dodecahedron (30 struts)

 Buckyball

Tensegrity Buckminsterfullerene (90 struts)

 Squared copper Octa

Tensegrity stellated octahedron (48 struts)

 Wechselbalg

Tensegrity sphere (30 struts)

 Green Horizon

Tensegrity Octahedron (12 struts)

 I-trap

Tensegrity Cuboctahedron with suspended tensegrity icosahedron (24 + 6 struts)

 Black Horizon

Tensegrity Octahedron (12 struts)

 Forced Reincarnation 2

Tensegrity Octahedron (12 struts)

 Forced Reincarnation 1

Tensegrity Octahedron (12 struts)

 Trinity Cube

Tensegrity cube (12 struts)

 Copped cube

Tensegrity cube (12 struts)

Red Octa

Tensegrity octahedron (12 struts)

Neon Logic

Tensegrity Icosahedron (6 struts)

Prime cube lifted

Tensegrity cube on 3-strut tensul (12 + 3 struts)

Thank you

The first part of my experiment ended today - I had my last appearance on the Rose Street Artist's Market for this year. I'd like to thanks all my customers, everyone stress-testing my constructions (besides the real clumsy ones) and everyone showing an interest in my tensegrity sculptures. I wanted to find out whether I could produce tensegrity structures that were appealing enough to the general public to be sold.

I spend 13 sundays in Fitzroy, and learned to enjoy my time on the market thoroughly. I started with a cut-loss strategy, hoping for a break even after one market season, willing to discontinue the experiment in case of utter lack of business.

Now it's time for a break, ironically mainly because I broke my foot. However, once I'm back on both feet I will arrange market dates for the next year. Until then, I can work on some aspects of my market presence I neglected a bit. On the product side, I want to introduce more colour. Due to my outdoor workshop setting the Melbourne weather prevents more colour temporarily, but summer has to come one day.

Thank you all for your interest and support.