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Old Cigarette Vending Machines Dispense Artwork

Giddy attendees at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas report encountering an old, bright yellow cigarette vending machine. Only instead of smokes, the machine dispenses artwork in cellophane-wrapped cartons.

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The converted cigarette machine is called an Art-o-mat and for a mere $5 you can get a pack of art. Wired.com blogger Roberto Baldwin snapped a photo of one yesterday and wrote, "I only have $3. Sure there’s a metaphor for 4K TVs in there somewhere."

Art-o-mats have been around for a little while now, but they're becoming more prevalent as a way to bring art to the masses in an entertaining way. Back in the late '90s, North Carolina artist Clark Whittington noticed his friend had a Pavlovian response to crinkling cellophane.

"When the friend heard someone opening a snack, he had the uncontrollable urge to have one too," Whittington wrote on the Art-o-mat site. So the artist took advantage of that response, converting a banned cigarette vending machine into an art dispenser, appropriately, for a show at a cafe in Winston-Salem. When the show was over, the cafe owner asked to keep the machine.

In the past several years, Art-o-mats have found homes well beyond North Carolina, from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon. They've gone from a one-off to a novelty to a nationwide phenomenon. One even arrived here in Denver last year at the Access Gallery in the Santa Fe arts district.

Gallery owner Damon McLeese stocked it with professional artists' work, as well as works created by teens with disabilities who participate in art programs. Inside the machine, packs contained a wide array such as earrings made from computer chips, beaded keychains and drawings of wolves, according to the Denver Post's Colleen O'Connor.

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I find it hard to argue with the idea of these banned machines finding new lives delivering art with $5 tokens. If everyone bought art instead of cigarette packs and snacks, we'd be a heck of a lot healthier. Possibly even smarter, too.

Photo: An Art-o-mat machine in Las Vegas. Credit: Miss Shari, via Flickr.

Uncork Life's Symphony With Sound Bottle

Walk down any street and you're likely to encounter a symphony of car horns, sidewalk chatter and the whir of traffic on wet asphalt. If you've ever wished you could bottle all that noise up and easily turn it into an audio remix, Jun Fujiwara's Re: Sound Bottle has got you covered.

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The Tokyo-based Tama Art University student's playful project is a recording device encased in a smoky bottle. Uncork it, record a sound and a flashing light lets you know it's been captured by the audio database. The recording software will create a remix that will playback every time the bottle is uncorked. Each time it's recorked, the Re: Sound Bottle resets and a new remix can be created. If you want to pause the remix, give the bottle a shake.

"I felt something missing in the habitual use of music reproduction media, so I thought to create an interactive music medium that changes," Fujiwara explained on his Vimeo page. "The sounds that are heard all the time every day carry infinite possibilities and help us reaffirm the enjoyment of music. I hope people can experience their own music."

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The design won Fujiwara the Naoki Sakai Prize at the Mitsubishi Chemical Junior Design Awards last year. So far, Re: Sound Bottle only exists as a prototype, but there's talk of a Kickstarter campaign to get the device on the market.

via The Verge

Credit: Jun Fujiwara, Vimeo

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This Ice-Cold Record Actually Plays

Trust a Swedish band to come up with this one: the new record for the Shout Out Loud's single called "Blue Ice" is actually made from ice. And it plays.

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The process wasn't easy but the indie band from Stockholm produced 10 "secret" kits to make the 7-inch "Blue Ice" record from their forthcoming album "Optica." They're sending kits to groups of fans and press around the world, according to a video showing how it works:

Each kit contains a mold and a bottle of water, along with instructions on how to fill, freeze, and prepare the record. Working with the ad agency TBWA Stockholm, the band came up with a special silicone cast for the ice and determined that distilled water would prevent bubbles from forming that would ruin the track, wrote Jordan Kushins in FastCo.Design.

The song about fading love, which I found both melancholy and memorable, seems to work in the ice format. "You keep fading away, fading away, fading away," the lyrics go. "It always ends in the same way: The sun gets in your eyes."

Watching the video demo, the scratch and hiss heard over the lyrics just added to the sentiments in the song. After one play, the ice record is pretty much done. While an ice record isn't exactly practical, the kits seem to be getting the song a wider audience.

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The band recently wrote on its website that one of the 10 kits was auctioned off by a Swedish radio station. Proceeds went into projects to improve clean water access for children in slums around the world. Now that's cool.

Photo: The ice record playing. Credit: The Shout Out Louds (video)

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Control This Roach Via Twitter

We've told you before about remote-controlled cockroaches being strapped with steering wheels so that the insects could help rescue earthquake victims. Now roaches are skittering into a more aesthetic venue -- the art gallery. As part of the "Life, in some form" exhibit by the Chicago Artists Coalition (CAC), Dallas-based artist Brittany Ransom debuted her Twitter-Remote-Controlled Cockroach.

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Similar to the RoboRoach, Ransom's device used a small electronic backpack that attached to the cockroach's antenna, enabling the insect to respond to stimulated left or right commands. Using Arduino hardware and custom-programmed software, Ransom was able to link the roach to Twitter. Visitors to the exhibit could send commands to the @TweetRoach account such as #TweetRoachLeft and #TweetRoachRight.

As her artist bio explains, Ransom likes to explore the "paradoxical bond between human, nature, its inhabitants and the co-evolution between the living and budding technological innovation while questioning these technologies."

Ransom told CNET that her project mirrors the digital overstimulation that many of us experience everyday. She also said she wanted to see if the cockroaches could eventually learn to adapt and ignore her system's signals.

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"At what point does its intelligence and ability take over? How much does it take before we are all desensitized to overstimulation?" Ransom wrote in an email to CNET. "As we, as human beings, grow more cyborgian and interconnected through social media, this project helps us participate in discovering the answer."

via CNET Crave

Credit: Brittany Ransom

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Gangnam Style Shatters Guinness World Record

 

YouTube has crowned a new king. South Korean rapper Psy and his smash hit "Gangnam Style" has broken a Guinness world record to become the first ever video to reach a billion views.

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A tongue-in-cheek statement on the wealthy socialites living it up in the Gangnam district of central Seoul -- the South Korean capital -- the song and video touched off a global pop culture phenomenon, spawning a signature dance, parodies and a fascination with all things "Gangnam Style."

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In fact, the Collins Dictionary even added "Gangnam Style" as on of the phrases of the year.

To say the song has catapulted Psy to international stardom is an understatement. Prior to the July 15th release of "Gangnam Style," the 34-year-old Korean pop star had released five studio albums, but none with the Western crossover appeal of his worldwide hit.

On his skyrocket to fame -- which is still blasting into orbit -- Psy has performed alongside Madonna, made a cameo on Saturday Night Live and now holds the title of Most Popular Video in the history of YouTube.

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Upon it's release, "Gangnam Style" was a little slow out of the gates. That is until the song and video made the rounds on Reddit and Robbie Williams gave it a shout out on his blog. Around July 28, "Gangnam Style" blew up and in late November it surpassed Justin Bieber's "Baby" as the most-watched video of all time.

via The Guardian

Credit: YouTube screengrab

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Sinful Robot: XXX Virtual Reality

If news of the impending apocalypse has you bummed that you won't get to sow your wild oats at Yub-Yum, Amsterdam's android sex club of the future, here's something else you're going to miss out on: Sinful Robot. Hyped as the "world's most immersive virtual reality erotic encounter," Sinful Robot, created by a California startup of the same name, is being designed for the forthcoming Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.

In what I imagine to be a cross between the Batsignal and the Mudflap girl, Sinful Robot put out a call for 3D programmers, artists and animators on Reddit, also known as the Gotham of the Internet.

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Among a lascivious list of, ahem, open positions at Sinful Robot is a 3D character artist. Applicants should be engorged with "expert knowledge of creating realistic female models" and have the ability to create orgasmic "organic models." For those with expert knowledge on the male anatomy, it's not yet clear where you measure up.

Reddit user Illusionweaver69, who claims to be Sinful Robot's co-founder Jeroen Van den Bosch, is giddy about what Oculus Rift and the future holds.

"I have been waiting for many years for technology to become immersive enough so it [can] trick your brain to accept the virtual reality as reality, but the Rift does really do that," he wrote. "So now we can finally make an erotic adventure game that will actually be exciting!"

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However, if the Earth does open up like a split piece of fruit on Friday, only to reveal a fiery chasm of magma and crumbling rock, here's a good soundtrack to usher in the end of days. "You Don't Know What's Going On," so take your best friend's hand, shrug, and leap into the great beyond.

via Gizmag

Credit: Sinful Robot

 

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Print Your Own 3D Holiday Gifts

When it comes to crafting your own holiday gifts, sure, it's the thought that counts. Still, some of these thoughts could use a little more brio, especially if you're the one gluing uncooked macaroni to a picture frame at the last minute.

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Openhouse, an NYC-based company that specializes in creating pop up events, wants you to put down the noodles and glue gun and instead:

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Imagine a corner store where you can print chairs, doorknobs, espresso cups, toys and more. Replacement parts for cars, new headphones, custom halloween masks, shoes and accessories. Where you can buy and test out printers and software, too.

Doesn't sound too different than Santa's workshop, does it? In some ways it is, though Openhouse calls it 3DEA, a month-long holiday 3-D printing pop-up shop that they believe may be the precursor to a permanent store.

Openhouse partnered with Shapeways, Ultimaker and UP! to bring 3DEA to the Eventi Hotel. The pop-up event is free and open to the public through December 27. So if you're in a holiday gift-giving rut, I suggest popping in for these reasons:

3DEA features an Inventor Bar, Customization Center, DIY Hub, Body Scanning, classes, lectures, and a whole section for children. At 3DEA, you can customize, invent and replicate products with the help of expert consultants. You’ll be able to browse home printers from Ultimaker and UP!, order holiday gifts through Shapeways.com and learn the ropes of the manufacturing revolution. 3D printing is nothing short of teleportaton: If you can think it, you can make it here.

To help spread a little more of that naughty holiday cheer, there's even an adult-themed section behind a curtain for those 18 and over.

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Now, if you can get your mind out of the gutter, what gift would you print at 3DEA? Let us know in the comments below.

via Inhabitat

Credit: 3DEA

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Pyramid Made from Oil Barrels: DNews Nugget

Pyramid Made from Oil Barrels: The acclaimed artists Christo and Jean-Claude, known for their larger than life installations are at it again. The duo who have strung a curtain between two mountains, wrapped an Australian coastline in silk and covered a Japanese countryside in umbrellas -- to name just of few of their projects -- is now going to build the world's largest pyramid and sculpture in the world.

Named the Mastaba, the flat-topped pyramid, will be built in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and be made from 410,000 multi-colored oil barrels. The structure will stand 492 feet high and measure 984 feet wide. The project will represent the couple's only permanent art installation. Christo and Jeanne-Claude conceived of this project back in 1977 and visited Abu Dhabi in 1979. They have returned many times and have longstanding relationship with the people of Abu Dhabi. via iO9

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Book Dispenser Gives Out Classics for $2

If you like to indulge in a good book every once in a while but have a hard time picking one out, a vending machine that makes the choice for you could be your thing -- especially if you live in Toronto. Drop into Monkey Paw's, a vintage bookstore and slip two dollars into the Biblio-Mat, a vending machine created by designer Craig Small.

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The machine randomly selects a book for you, one of the many classic titles out there. Small built the machine from an old metal locker and it's completely automated; the only human involvement comes when the machine needs to be restocked.

Because titles are randomly selected, you run the chance of getting a book you've already had or don't care to read. However, if you're going to chance two bucks on a novelty, it might as well be one that involves books and reading. Check out the video below for a demo.

The BIBLIO-MAT from Craig Small on Vimeo.

Credit: Craig Small

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NYC Model Made from LEGOs: DNews Nugget

NYC Model Made from LEGOs: Motion designer and 3D artist JR Schmidt created a scale model of New York City using digitally rendered LEGO pieces. Schmidt used maps, satellite data and images to set the elevation and color of the blocks. You can buy the image from Society 6 as framed art, stationery cards, an iPhone case or an iPod skin.

via iO9 and Cargo Collective

 

 

 

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