FREESTYLE WANDERING MACHINE

source: echoechonoisenoisewordpress

Driven by immediate surrounding, little by little, machine deposits material while sensing and moving within it’s territory. Traces left by it’s passing alter the landscape it operates within step by step. Instant decisions solidify, aggregate and therefore shift or constrain its possible future trajectories. Moving away from industrial precision towards almost primitive, still mediated digitally ways of constructing and articulating the space poses a question wether material traces of networked culture have to be necessarily highly technological. Matter, whether tangible or virtual becomes a medium of record. Since there is no other blueprint than the behavior itself, resulting shapes gain their specificity from tool resolution, medium fidelity and saturation of generative processes leaving them as traces.

technical data:

circular array of photoresistors enables the maschine to detect differences in light intensity below it. Infrared sensor and a sonar allow it to position itself within topography of the landscape it creates.

all movement is achieved by three dc motors controled by arduino board [note, that there is no other feedback about position, then reading from the landscape – no stepper motors like in cnc ], three mercury switches are used to maintain vertical orientation.

simple pathfinding algorithm is used to make decisions about movement direction. trajectory simulations were initialy developed in processing.

material: aluminum can contains wax heated up by the torch below it. transparent plastic container carries styropor balls, which are released by servo-controlled mechanism attached at the bottom.

traces: as an effect, maschine behavior – reaction to light patterns it ‘sees’ is recorded and serves as it’s own external memory.