Toby Fraley’s Recycled Retro Robot Sculptures

Filed under Found on the Web

Just because I like them, here are two retro robot sculptures by Toby Fraley from Uncommon Goods. Each one’s a large illuminated piece that would look swell on your world domination console, provided you’ve dominated enough of the world to afford them. That was envy, just then, is what that was.

This fellow on the right stands 48" tall; the Slim Pickens version above is just 28" tall, but equally wide, due to that cool rocket it’s riding. They’re built from aluminum, steel, and wood, and – as you can probably guess – many of their parts are recycled vintage mechanical whaddayacallums.

Fraley’s exhibited widely, including a show at the Smithsonian, and he must be haunting the estate auctions and second hand stores of Pennsylvania even as we speak.

You know, this guy on the right would make a pretty nifty desk lamp here in the Secret Laboratory. I’d kind of enjoy that thrill of knowing an armed recycled vacuum cleaner was watching my every move.

[tags]retro, robot, sculpture, artwork, vintage, found objects, recycled, toby fraley, you know you want it[/tags]

Robot assemblage sculptures from Lipson Robotics

Filed under Found on the Web

I’m still stapled to my desk, but cool things keep flying out of my monitor at me even though I’m doing my best to ignore them. I’m just that dedicated.

But I’m going to try to catch up a bit before the cool things pile up and spill into my coffee cup. So here’s one:

Retropolis Transit Authority customer Tim Hammell sends me this link to some wonderful retro robots built out of found objects from thrift stores and, for all I know, time traveling midden heaps – they’re by Lipson Robotics, and I envy Tim because he’s the happy owner of one of them.

The sculptures are assembled completely with nuts and bolts, which seem so much more fitting than adhesives. It’s as though they’re who they are, through and through, and I like that about them. Come to think of it, I like that about anybody.

The robots are up to 30 inches tall, and weigh up to 20 pounds.

Lipson Robotics is the brainchild of an animation director and producer with years of experience on stuff you’ve probably seen. But I prefer to think that his true calling is scavenging for robot parts, and putting them together. It’s destiny.

[tags]robot, robotics, lipson robotics, art, sculpture, assemblage, found objects[/tags]

Truly Awesome Retro Future Sculptures by Gary Haas

Filed under Hodgepodge

I’ve just unpacked a wonderful acrylic sculpture by Gary Haas – it is not the one you see pictured here, but it’s very similar – and it’s an amazing and beautiful piece of work. More pictures of this one are at his Deviant Art page, and the sculpture pictured here is currently for sale at Etsy.

Gary carves these from solid blocks of acrylic using tools that I’m trying to picture in my mind. I know that they’re rotary tools (which describes a heck of a lot of powered tools, when you think about it) but in order to do the undercuts it seems as though a cutting bit would have to deploy whirling flanges of death after it was already inserted. Which, you know, is really cool. In fact I’ll continue to believe in retractable whirling flanges of death even after I find out I’m totally wrong.

Because some things just ought to exist. And to get back on topic, this sculpture is one of ’em.

Gary seems to think I’m inspirational, and I sure won’t argue with him ("Whirling flanges of Death!") Either way I’m awfully glad to have this in my office. My advice: you should have one too.

Update: he’s just posted a photo of mine at Deviant art. It’s here.

Robot, Rocket, & Ray Gun Sculptures from Found Objects at Lockwasher Design

Filed under Found on the Web

In the demented mad science project that is Lockwasher Design you’ll find a treasure trove of fantastic ray guns, robots, rockets, and autos that are assembled from the sort of bin-diver’s paradise that we dream of. Well. Some of us.

Vintage containers, Electrolux vacuums, spray guns, gauges and unidentifiable parts are here recombined into a retro-futuristic collection of bizarre and engaging sculptures.

There’s a stand-alone gallery site and a larger series of Flickr streams, all full of these wonders. Partake.

Via Boigboing, Via Neatorama, Via Aurelia. Nope, I got that last one from Rudyard Kipling. Via the Romans.

Rik Allen’s Retro Rocket Sculptures in Blown Glass & Metal

Filed under Found on the Web

Thanks to io9 for this wonderful link to the retro science fiction, blown glass rocket sculptures of Rik Allen.

They’re currently on exhibit at Seattle’s Science Fiction Museum (through April 27). Just fantastic stuff; try not to look at the prices if you’d rather not ruin your day.

Lawrence Northey’s Robot, Rocket, and Ray Gun Sculptures

Filed under Found on the Web

Lawrence Northey’s sculptures of robots, rockets, and ray guns (oh my!) are what you’d have to call out of this world.

Like the artists who created the Faberge eggs he admires, Northey uses a variety of materials and techniques. Most of these pieces feature brass, stainless steel, and glass. Sometimes cast aluminum or cast resin parts are also used, typically hand painted to give a uniform finish with the other parts.

While most of these pieces are pure sculpture, in sizes around thirty inches in heght, there’s also the amazing “Dave the Robot Lamp”, which lights up in eerie warm colors – pretty dang extraterrestrial, in fact.

Northey does commission work as well as selling made-to-order series – like “Dave the Robot“, at right, and the cast aluminum “Silver Edition Raygun“.

One of the fascinating things about these works is that although they’re obviously inspired by retro-futuristic toys from the 30s through the 50s, they’re made with exacting craftsmanship and detail that recalls early European art deco objects. Consequently you’ll find that they’re priced as artworks, not knicknacks. Judging by the samples on his site they’re worth every penny.

Some of his commissioned work is animatronic – lighting up. moving, and making sounds, even music. And like your chronically project-obsessed correspondent, he’s tying these characters and ideas together into a story which he calls “Wired City”.

Not to be missed!

The barking dog of Pallini

Filed under Can't Stop Thinking

Back in 1979-80 I spent a winter in Greece. It was colder than you’d expect, but it was the cold of Sophocles. So not so bad.

I was there on a grant from a Canadian foundation. The idea was that I would broaden my artistic horizons and paint, which was exactly what I wanted to do, and so it was a good deal for me. I’m not sure how they felt about it.

So The Best Girlfriend In The World Except For That One Thing and I settled into a little house, which everybody called a villa, in a village called Pallini outside of Athens. Pallini had been there for a long time; in Roman times it was the site of a marble quarry, and there were odd bits of marble sculptures all over our house’s long, narrow, steeply sloping yard. An old marble cornice was our doorstop.

We’d been warned to keep the yard’s gate locked “or the Gypsies will get in” so of course we never locked the gate, but the Gypsies never showed up. I’ve always wondered where they were.

We made this house our base of operations. We’d explore Athens, and we’d take off for short trips to Delphi and the North, but we’d always have the villa when we were done. And it was a nice place. We’d spend an afternoon visiting the son of the local vineyard, or we’d take off into the hills outside the village, or we’d mock the village goats, who were asking for it.

I’m pretty sure those trees up above were Pallini trees. So you can see it was a nice place to wander in.

There came a day when The Best Girlfriend In The World Except For That One Thing and I headed up the road out of the village and into the hills, and we went in a direction we’d never taken before. I don’t know why. But there are a lot of directions, when you think about it, and for whatever reason we’d just never used this one. It led us through a little valley.

There was a farm on one side of the valley, and somewhere on that farm there was a dog. We never saw it. We heard it, though: it was barking. The dog would bark, and a moment later the echo of its bark would bounce back from the other side of the valley. So the dog would bark again.

And the The Best Girlfriend In The World Except For That One Thing and I just stood there and listened for awhile. Bark; pause; echo; bark; pause; echo. Again and again.

We were witnesses to the ultimate straw man argument, in the ultimate echo chamber. Because that dog just couldn’t let Echo Dog have the last word. In a way I can’t quite explain, this was one of the most profound moments of my life. I had the sense that the Universe was explaining a mystery to us. And I think I was right.

A few hours later, The Best Girlfriend In The World Except For That One Thing and I came back through the valley. The dog was still barking. And although I know that this dog lost his argument with Echo Dog many years ago, I hope that his descendants have taken up the feud and are still out there barking, refusing to let Echo Dog have the last word even though – inevitably – he will.

Because that’s what we do.

Assemblage Rayguns and Robots by Dan ‘Tinkerbot’ Jones

Filed under Found on the Web

Dan Jones’ Flickr stream shows off his assemblage sculptures of retro robots ("Tinkerbots"), Rayguns, Vehicles, and other things of equal niftiness.

I spent most of my time there on the Redivivus Rayguns, though, because I think they’re not those rayguns that we have, but those rayguns that we deserve.

At the top of this post you see the Vintage Plasmablast (and, oh, those modern Plasmablasts just can’t compare) while at the left are the Pneumatic Aetheric Disperser, along with the TZ~24 Sanitizor and the T-39 Delano, which is my personal favorite. They’re all, or should be, the products of Tinkertron Weapons Industries. By way of sculptor Dan Jones.

Assemblage sculptures like these hit a sort of aesthetic sweet spot with their worn, vintage industrial parts that combine so perfectly with our worn, vintage industrial futures. That Sanitizor just looks like it was always meant to look that way.

Which, coincidentally, is the best way to use a Sanitizor. You yell "Look that way!" and, when they do, you lose no time in Sanitizoring the heck out of them. Or, anyway, that’s what I do.

Mike Rivamonte’s assemblage sculpture: Robots! Rockets! Speaker Grilles!

Filed under Found on the Web

[tags]robot, rocket, sculpture, assemblage, vintage, retro, mike rivamonte[/tags]

Delayed Linkage: Greg Brotherton’s Dystopias, and Atomic Rockets

Filed under Found on the Web, Hodgepodge

I spend most of my days inside my own head. I admit it. I’m not ashamed. But usually I make the time to pop my metaphorical head above the waters, notice interesting things, and jot them down in here.

Lately I’ve been keeping that head down a bit more than usual because what I’ve been immersed in is not a metaphor: it’s just a great big project that I hope to finish soon. Ish. So today, here are a couple of things I’ve meant to share… but haven’t. After which – head down, full speed ahead, silent running.

Greg Brotherton’s New Museum Show

I’ve written before about Greg Brotherton’s sculptures, which are remarkable pieces that combine found objects with new metals, wood, and other materials.

His newest work is now on display in a show called Discoveries in Dystopia at the Oceanside Museum of Art, near San Diego in California. The new work concentrates on dystopian views of workers in fascinating but forbidding settings: cubicles, desks and machines that enfold their laborers in Sysiphean toil.

Like Brotherton’s other works the textures and their contrasts are lovely to the eye and there are occasional grace notes (like the "Back Space" typewriter key shown here) that reward the careful observer. Wonderful stuff!

The museum’s show runs through March 19, and there’s a "Meet the Artist" event on February 6.

ATOMIC ROCKETS Web Site

If you’ve seen my own work, you may have guessed that of all the things I may be about, scientific accuracy is, well, absent. If I can fool you into thinking that a thing might work, well, job done, right? Because things like open cockpit roadster "rockets" aren’t the most practical or likely sort of vehicles in the first place.

On the other hand, I appreciate scientific accuracy in science fiction (which is not exactly what I do, anyway). Authors can get away with fooling me, too, but they have to work at it a bit if what they’re doing is cast in a realistic mode.

So I was delighted on a couple of levels when I discovered the Atomic Rockets web site. It doesn’t hurt for me to get a little better at fooling you, after all, and the material’s pretty interesting in its own right.

Because Atomic Rockets is a large and growing compilation of information about how spaceships and related technologies actually need to work, and why. The examples are a mix of real aerospace experience and research with science fiction examples – good, bad, and ugly – from decades worth of fiction and movies.

And there are plenty of equations to help you to calculate whether your own space ship is going to be able to make that trip to Neptune. If not, you can research some of the other types of propulsion!

So I’ve made plenty of discoveries there already and look forward to more. The site is the ongoing project of Winchell D. Chung Jr. – have a look!