PERSISTENCE OF VISION MACHINE
       
       
       
       
       Epigraph
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             The readymades of Marcel Duchamp are ordinary manufactured objects
             that the artist selected and modified, as an antidote to what he
             called "retinal art". By simply choosing the object (or objects) and
             repositioning or joining, titling and signing it, the found object
             became art.
               --- Readymades of Marcel Duchamp
       
       
       About
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       A number of years ago I was living away from 'home' and only saw my
       good friends at the odd times when we all happened to 'return'
       simultaneously. So, one such time when me and my good friend Liam had
       'returned home' together, we got up to some serious antics when we
       made an assemblage out of an old bicycle wheel, a wooden chair, an
       Ardunio, a WiFi router, a strip of LEDs, and a motor from a household
       fan. The outcome of all these things together was a persistence of
       vision machine, which we likened to being something of a glitched-out
       Duchamp readymade. We felt the nod to Duchamp was earned because, in
       keeping with Duchamp's ideas of "work with what you can find" (my own
       paraphrase), the machine was built entirely out of found objects.
       
       Somehow (really, somehow) it worked. The fan motor makes contact with
       the rim of the wheel, causing it to spin. A strip of LEDs attached to
       one of the spokes light up, controlled by a battery-powered Arduino
       (hanging onto its dear life) in the centre of the wheel. Across the
       room a computer which sends commands from a NodeJS webserver to the
       Arduino. A web interface lets the artist choose patterns, colors, and
       set timings in realtime. Somehow (again, somehow) the thing
       worked. And it was capable of some pretty intricate patterns, too.
       
       Looking back now (circa 2018), I don't remember the process of this
       project in its entirety. But it seems to me now that it came together
       pretty quickly. Liam and I are like that. We hold onto ideas for as
       along as we can complete them, usually a weekend. The trickiest bit
       with the build was figuring out how to attach the bicycle wheel and
       the fan motor to the chair in a sturdy way. In the end, the solution
       was nothing more than a drilled hole (wheel) and some screws and
       electrical tape (motor). Good enough!
       
       
       Overview
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       Stats
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       - Project started: 2018
       - Project status: Done
       - Medium/tools: Bicycle wheel, fan motor, chair, NodeJS, Arduino,
       
       
       Quick links
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       Images
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 (IMG) Portrait of the musician
       
 (IMG) Web interface
       
       
 (IMG) Portrait of the artist
       
 (IMG) Portrait of the architect