Since I started building tensegrity structures, I got hooked. When I succeeded for the first time, I experienced something I couldn't have imagined before. In a way, I encountered the difference of what is called 'book wisdom' and 'experienced wisdom', and it blew my mind.
Now I'm certain that the concept of tensegrity will be part of my life. It is, scientifically speaking, anyway - from the way the cells in my body maintain their shape, to the interaction of the musculo-skeletal system, it's just a fact of life.
As I enjoy the process of building physical tensegrity structures, in various sizes and shapes, using different materials and strategies, I soon ran out of space to keep or at least collect my own work. For more than two years, I managed to tackle this challenge partly by going to a market and sell some of the structures I build.
I even went to live in the bush for a while with the hope to fill space with bigger things. This only meant limiting the amount of audience - instead of familiarising a larger part of my community with this beautiful way of representing fundamental principles within the universe, I engaged in some sort of (not really satisfying) form of artistic wanking.
Being involved in the Friday Free Shop in Melbourne's City Square gave me a better opportunity to gage the attraction of my work - I donated some of my structures each week I went there, and usually all of them found some new owners. Success! Even without knowing the term tensegrity, about thirty or forty tensegrity toys ended up in unknown curious hands.
Encouraged by the ease to sell my work for free, I decided to make City Square my new market place. As often as the weather permits, I will offer a variety of tensegrity structures there, as well as building new ones while I'm there.
The short time of sunlight restricts the amount of time I can spend there, nevertheless I will do my best to be available for a chat, and a build to customers preferences at City Square in Melbourne. Pick up a sample of my work for free on Fridays, or meet me, weather permitting, trying to get some of your hard-earned money for my honest craft on any other day without rain.
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
Wednesday, 8 May 2013
Revival
Although I didn't want to continue this blog, I picked up on an idea I rejected for some years now. It happened quite often to me that visitors to my market stall suggested making lamps out of my structures. Besides the problem of electrical safety, I didn't like the idea of the 'skin' part for a lamp.
Now I'm sitting in a friend's house, with many bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. I asked whether the house mates here want some cover for their lamps, and made a colourful icosahedron as test run. While they liked the structure, it doesn't do much as lamp shade - it just surrounds the bulb, and certainly looks best while its switched off.
The energy saving bulbs won't get too hot, so I wasn't worried about the plastic strings melting away. I remembered from the childhood a kind of craft paper which we used to make lanterns. Translucent paper, or vellum paper, is still available and should do exactly what is desired - blocking the harsh light, and giving it a warmer glow.
The icosahedron with 15cm struts looks small enough to probably fit two A4 sheets of paper in it - which would add another geometric configuration to it, yet could work. But while looking where I could get vellum paper locally, I revised my plans how to put 'shades' on, which might even save money for material (well, at least one...).
Option one would need a printer, or at least a printed template for some folding fun. The network outline of an icosahedron on A4 potentially fits nicely into the centre of a tensegrity sphere. It shouldn't really be needed to have a complete paper icosahedron inside, at least one triangle needs to be left out to allow the light bulb in.
While the basic shape of a tensegrity structure corresponds to the Platonic Solids, the crossings (corners) inflate to another opening (face), ie instead of having 20 openings and 12 crossings the tensegrity icosahedron has 32 openings (and more crossings I'm willing to count now). From a construction point of view, the 12 openings typical for a dodecahedron, the dual to the icosahedron, are more apparent than 20 openings describing the actual icosahedron.
Now I wish I still had the abundance of models and a printer around - even without suitable paper at hand, I could figure out how well folded A4 sheets, either as dodecahedron or icosahedron, would fit into my spheres with different strut lengths.... which is why I took some time to write down the ideas about finally giving a use to my structures.
Now I'm sitting in a friend's house, with many bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. I asked whether the house mates here want some cover for their lamps, and made a colourful icosahedron as test run. While they liked the structure, it doesn't do much as lamp shade - it just surrounds the bulb, and certainly looks best while its switched off.
The energy saving bulbs won't get too hot, so I wasn't worried about the plastic strings melting away. I remembered from the childhood a kind of craft paper which we used to make lanterns. Translucent paper, or vellum paper, is still available and should do exactly what is desired - blocking the harsh light, and giving it a warmer glow.
The icosahedron with 15cm struts looks small enough to probably fit two A4 sheets of paper in it - which would add another geometric configuration to it, yet could work. But while looking where I could get vellum paper locally, I revised my plans how to put 'shades' on, which might even save money for material (well, at least one...).
Option one would need a printer, or at least a printed template for some folding fun. The network outline of an icosahedron on A4 potentially fits nicely into the centre of a tensegrity sphere. It shouldn't really be needed to have a complete paper icosahedron inside, at least one triangle needs to be left out to allow the light bulb in.
While the basic shape of a tensegrity structure corresponds to the Platonic Solids, the crossings (corners) inflate to another opening (face), ie instead of having 20 openings and 12 crossings the tensegrity icosahedron has 32 openings (and more crossings I'm willing to count now). From a construction point of view, the 12 openings typical for a dodecahedron, the dual to the icosahedron, are more apparent than 20 openings describing the actual icosahedron.
Now I wish I still had the abundance of models and a printer around - even without suitable paper at hand, I could figure out how well folded A4 sheets, either as dodecahedron or icosahedron, would fit into my spheres with different strut lengths.... which is why I took some time to write down the ideas about finally giving a use to my structures.
Sunday, 23 September 2012
Hanging around
Guerilla tensegrities have an unpredictable lifespan. Not necessarily by decomposition, that happened only twice as far as I can say, but rather due to their accessibility. If it's easy for me to install them, it's easy for anyone to take them, whether for their own enjoyment or as part of their paid jobs.
I released 13 objects into the wild so far, with only two or three still in place. I still wonder if my motivation reflects more narcissism or exercises in letting go. However, I cannot regret the experiences I made, the bits of adrenaline rush while doing it, and about how to increase the positioning to appeal at least to me when I cruise through the neighbourhood to check whether they're still in place.
The first object I released took the most effort and excitement, and it lasted for nearly a year. A three strut minimal tensegrity made of pencils, attached to a power wire with an elaborate mounting mechanism. It survived many periods of wild weather, and I found it on the ground after the attachment broke, still intact.
Yet I wonder if it was ever noticed, being tiny and in a place the usual gaze would wonder about to find something unexpected. Two objects of similar size in plain eyesight were gone quite fast, and lately I went to much bigger sculptures for outdoor installations - I ran out of space, and I hoped to increase their visibility.
The first sculpture put up in a place for its splendid visibility didn't even last 24 hours, installed in a stealthy night action it was gone before I could take any photo during daylight. Another one, which I placed in the trunk of cut-off tree, survived some flooding from the creek next to it, and I adjusted it several times for maximum viewing pleasure, is gone now as well.
My attempts to attached some medium sized octahedra on top of wooden poles might have gone with the wind - I found one of it next to the pole after a stormy day, yet I'm sure now that the way of attaching them is simply not viable.
One of the objects that is still happily hanging around, provided me a flood of synchronicities. I met someone living just about 50 metres away from where I hung it out, having one of the most amazing sunday afternoons, a day after it got into place.
Initially, it hung much closer to the branch it's suspended from than I intended. I wanted to give it visibility and freedom of movement, and instead pulled it very tightly to the branch. I still have no idea how it lowered itself down, the elements might have helped me in giving it a more prominent position. One day, instead of being snuggly close to the branch, it had at least the little bit of clearance to rotate in the wind, became more visible, and is now affected by the slightest breeze.
It's now about seven weeks that it's hanging around, and I haven't got a name for it. Hold on, I just found one: Louise, please. As it's along one of my favorite bike paths, I will have ample opportunity to check on its longevity.
I released 13 objects into the wild so far, with only two or three still in place. I still wonder if my motivation reflects more narcissism or exercises in letting go. However, I cannot regret the experiences I made, the bits of adrenaline rush while doing it, and about how to increase the positioning to appeal at least to me when I cruise through the neighbourhood to check whether they're still in place.
The first object I released took the most effort and excitement, and it lasted for nearly a year. A three strut minimal tensegrity made of pencils, attached to a power wire with an elaborate mounting mechanism. It survived many periods of wild weather, and I found it on the ground after the attachment broke, still intact.
Yet I wonder if it was ever noticed, being tiny and in a place the usual gaze would wonder about to find something unexpected. Two objects of similar size in plain eyesight were gone quite fast, and lately I went to much bigger sculptures for outdoor installations - I ran out of space, and I hoped to increase their visibility.
The first sculpture put up in a place for its splendid visibility didn't even last 24 hours, installed in a stealthy night action it was gone before I could take any photo during daylight. Another one, which I placed in the trunk of cut-off tree, survived some flooding from the creek next to it, and I adjusted it several times for maximum viewing pleasure, is gone now as well.
My attempts to attached some medium sized octahedra on top of wooden poles might have gone with the wind - I found one of it next to the pole after a stormy day, yet I'm sure now that the way of attaching them is simply not viable.
One of the objects that is still happily hanging around, provided me a flood of synchronicities. I met someone living just about 50 metres away from where I hung it out, having one of the most amazing sunday afternoons, a day after it got into place.
Initially, it hung much closer to the branch it's suspended from than I intended. I wanted to give it visibility and freedom of movement, and instead pulled it very tightly to the branch. I still have no idea how it lowered itself down, the elements might have helped me in giving it a more prominent position. One day, instead of being snuggly close to the branch, it had at least the little bit of clearance to rotate in the wind, became more visible, and is now affected by the slightest breeze.
It's now about seven weeks that it's hanging around, and I haven't got a name for it. Hold on, I just found one: Louise, please. As it's along one of my favorite bike paths, I will have ample opportunity to check on its longevity.
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| Louise, please (6 strut icosahedron) |
Tuesday, 18 September 2012
Rainbow Buckyball
After a quite disappointing season on the Rose Street Artists Market, I had a break to reconsider the direction I want to take my tensegrity work to. I want to increase the size of sculptures, but with only limited space available, and no marketing opportunity for bigger things it's not something very feasible at the moment.
So I came up with the idea to make my third buckyball, a truncated icosahedron requiring 90 struts, this time using 6 colours. With the two colours versions I already found out how to structure different colours, and I had at least a plan. There's 12 pentagons in the buckyball shape (which is basically the same layout as a soccer ball), and 20 hexagons. Using six colours means each hexagon can contain all colours.
I thought if I start out with the pentagons, each build in a single colour, it should work out in this way. It still turned out as some tricky puzzle, and the actual build took me as long as the preparation of all the elements.
After building the twelve pentagons, 60 struts were gone, and 5 five struts of each color left. Each hexagon in this tensegrity consists of the struts from a adjacent pentagon, and three that connect to another hexagon. I had to figure out a build algorithm that allowed the hexagons contain all colours, which took me only two attempts.
There are two pentagons of each colour, and as expected, they appear on opposite poles of the finished structure. To my surprise, the remaining five struts of the same colour form an equator, only this configuration warrants that each hexagon contains all colours. This symmetric distribution of colour doesn't continue with the hexagons, all of them seem to have a different variation in the way the colours are arranged.
While I expected to have at least two hexagons in 'rainbow configuration' (yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, green), it might not be possible to achieve this, but I really can't be bothered to reassemble this sphere, or to transform this into a mapping problem. The weight means it's best to suspend this sphere, which measures roughly 45 cm from pole to pole with 20cm struts.
So I came up with the idea to make my third buckyball, a truncated icosahedron requiring 90 struts, this time using 6 colours. With the two colours versions I already found out how to structure different colours, and I had at least a plan. There's 12 pentagons in the buckyball shape (which is basically the same layout as a soccer ball), and 20 hexagons. Using six colours means each hexagon can contain all colours.
I thought if I start out with the pentagons, each build in a single colour, it should work out in this way. It still turned out as some tricky puzzle, and the actual build took me as long as the preparation of all the elements.
After building the twelve pentagons, 60 struts were gone, and 5 five struts of each color left. Each hexagon in this tensegrity consists of the struts from a adjacent pentagon, and three that connect to another hexagon. I had to figure out a build algorithm that allowed the hexagons contain all colours, which took me only two attempts.
There are two pentagons of each colour, and as expected, they appear on opposite poles of the finished structure. To my surprise, the remaining five struts of the same colour form an equator, only this configuration warrants that each hexagon contains all colours. This symmetric distribution of colour doesn't continue with the hexagons, all of them seem to have a different variation in the way the colours are arranged.
While I expected to have at least two hexagons in 'rainbow configuration' (yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, green), it might not be possible to achieve this, but I really can't be bothered to reassemble this sphere, or to transform this into a mapping problem. The weight means it's best to suspend this sphere, which measures roughly 45 cm from pole to pole with 20cm struts.
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| Rainbow buckyball (90 struts) |
Friday, 24 August 2012
Caught in the act
I have too many larger sculptures that want to be seen. As I haven't found a gallery, and carrying more than one of them around doesn't work too well, I outsourced some of them. Three of them vanished so far, two of them disintegrated, and four are currently on display in the neighbourhood.
Installing my sculptures in the middle of the night has some trade-offs. One that I really liked vanished in less than 24 hours, without me having any chance to see it hanging in daylight. Another one hangs much closer to the branch its dangling from than I wanted, I couldn't see my progress in lifting it up and so it ended up too high for my liking.
My last attempt to install something on top of one of the wooden posts failed as well, not too mention the bruises I got in the process. As I fail to notice any illegal thing in placing tensegrities in the wild, I simply decided to use a break in rain to do my work.
I wanted to use a tetrahedron made of string within a tensegrity tetrahedron as mount point, which meant 'squaring a triangle. My rough measurements worked out okay, a tighter fit is still possible.
I admit, I used anti-stealth mode. As the winter came back with a cold spell, I wore my space jacket. Lazy as I can be, I rode with my unicycle, carrying a relatively large sculpture in front of me.
At my target, I saw a young woman contemplating on the bench next to the post. I smiled over to her, leaned my unicycle to the post to easily reach the top, and to my pleasure, my idea how to slip the string tetra above the post worked well.
I didn't wait for the sun to come back for better shots, did my best to adjust the sculpture as balanced as I could, and happily cycled back. I passed a group of people that had seen me before, one of them asked me: Where's your little thing? I just shrugged my shoulders, with a big smile, and another one commented: "Very Brunswick". Indeed.
I still have to have a second look in sunlight. The visibility seems fine, but the tetrahedral shape has least appeal. A square within a tensegrity square can use the same mounting technique, and might look much more stunning. I still need to make a choice about the strut length, I think 30 cm could be too small for a dramatic effect.
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| Tet-a-tet |
My last attempt to install something on top of one of the wooden posts failed as well, not too mention the bruises I got in the process. As I fail to notice any illegal thing in placing tensegrities in the wild, I simply decided to use a break in rain to do my work.
I wanted to use a tetrahedron made of string within a tensegrity tetrahedron as mount point, which meant 'squaring a triangle. My rough measurements worked out okay, a tighter fit is still possible.
I admit, I used anti-stealth mode. As the winter came back with a cold spell, I wore my space jacket. Lazy as I can be, I rode with my unicycle, carrying a relatively large sculpture in front of me.
At my target, I saw a young woman contemplating on the bench next to the post. I smiled over to her, leaned my unicycle to the post to easily reach the top, and to my pleasure, my idea how to slip the string tetra above the post worked well.
 |
| Tet-a-tet a bit closer |
I still have to have a second look in sunlight. The visibility seems fine, but the tetrahedral shape has least appeal. A square within a tensegrity square can use the same mounting technique, and might look much more stunning. I still need to make a choice about the strut length, I think 30 cm could be too small for a dramatic effect.
Wednesday, 8 August 2012
The great outdoors
With the formats and materials I used so far, my sculptures suit indoors much better than outdoors. Yet bamboo and nylon can withstand outdoor conditions, it just needs some more considerations.
I was a bit surprised when I brought a larger structure to the market on a rainy day. It lost considerable amount of tension, and also its delicate balance. Some similar happened when I spray painted a larger structure and left it outdoors for drying, on the next day it had gone into a dangerously floppy state.
My last experiment involved a 4-strut tensegrity, which basically could be balanced upside-down, with one strut fixed into the ground, and three struts floating in tension. The model reaches about 160 cm up, which gives me a bit of leeway for the tension. The first build felt okay, could be handled without disintegrating and lots of movement throughout.
I installed just before a rain storm broke out, with some significant winds. The next day, I found it still in place, yet the top three struts had folded down. The rain must have allowed the strings to stretch more than a healthy amount, although no connection become undone, the overall tension didn't suffice anymore.
With the strings still wet, I simply tuned the model by looping the strings in their grooves, taking care that the overall symmetry wasn't gone. Only 12 strings are needed to keep the 4 struts together, but I wished I had more than two hands while I tried to give it more sturdiness.
I sealed the top of the struts with a glue gun once I was happy with the overall tension, and gave it another go.
The Melbourne weather brought a bit of sunshine the next morning, so I could finally hope for a shot in daylight. After straightening the structure in its base a bit, I was quite happy with the result. The visibility isn't too great, but I guess the sun will bleach the struts which currently blend into the background a bit.
I can only hope that the council won't rip it out too soon, it's along my favorite unicycling route so I have a fair chance to keep an eye on it for some longer. It's very accessible, and I rather have it taken by a flooding Merri Creek than over-eager council worker or some destructive neighbours. Time will tell.
I was a bit surprised when I brought a larger structure to the market on a rainy day. It lost considerable amount of tension, and also its delicate balance. Some similar happened when I spray painted a larger structure and left it outdoors for drying, on the next day it had gone into a dangerously floppy state.
My last experiment involved a 4-strut tensegrity, which basically could be balanced upside-down, with one strut fixed into the ground, and three struts floating in tension. The model reaches about 160 cm up, which gives me a bit of leeway for the tension. The first build felt okay, could be handled without disintegrating and lots of movement throughout.
With the strings still wet, I simply tuned the model by looping the strings in their grooves, taking care that the overall symmetry wasn't gone. Only 12 strings are needed to keep the 4 struts together, but I wished I had more than two hands while I tried to give it more sturdiness.
I sealed the top of the struts with a glue gun once I was happy with the overall tension, and gave it another go.
 |
| New life (in a mist of breath in a cold night) |
The Melbourne weather brought a bit of sunshine the next morning, so I could finally hope for a shot in daylight. After straightening the structure in its base a bit, I was quite happy with the result. The visibility isn't too great, but I guess the sun will bleach the struts which currently blend into the background a bit.
I can only hope that the council won't rip it out too soon, it's along my favorite unicycling route so I have a fair chance to keep an eye on it for some longer. It's very accessible, and I rather have it taken by a flooding Merri Creek than over-eager council worker or some destructive neighbours. Time will tell.
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| New life (in an old Willow tree) |
Sunday, 5 August 2012
Filling the void
The idea of core and shell allowed me to create more complex structures which still can be placed in a variety of orientations. It also taught me experimentally that Buckminster Fuller's idea about the tetrahedron as smallest 'building block' of the universe can be demonstrated with tensegrity models.
Although I haven't attempted yet to exactly model the volumetric relations between the Platonic Solids as described in Synergetics, the 'compatibility' of all these highly symmetric structure becomes very apparent. Tetrahedra fits easily into 6-strut icosahedra, 12 strut cubes and octahedra, and 30 strut dodecahedra. Most likely also in 30 strut icosahedra (the most common tensegrity sphere), I just haven't bothered yet to build one.
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| Cubic merkaba |
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| Octa Octa |
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| Icosa Icosa |
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