Tuesday 15 March 2011

Exploded Art

We were intrigued by the story on Newsbeat about a Mercedes Formula 1 racing car being "exploded" into a work of art. "We could do that," said Vince and promptly grabbed his toolbox and headed for the study.

The old Canon NP6016 photocopier that had been lying around for several years quickly became a pile of plastic, metal and electronic circuits. The challenge was then to arrange everything in its relative position and find a way to suspend it for display.

Not having a purpose-built frame to hang the hundreds of bits from, the washing line became an emergency stand-in. And it was back to the study to find a ball of string to suspend the components. However, we were only able to hang half a dozen pieces due to the weight threatening to snap the line.

Vince said, "Copiers are used by millions of people and they normally only see a plastic box with a lid. This exploded view shows them the heart of the machine in an unusual and artistic way. I call it 'Hang The Copier'."

The display makes the copier look like it has been frozen in time, except when a breeze blows and moves the bits around. It took about three hours to dismantle the parts and create the work of art, but that's nothing compared to the thousands of man-hours needed to design and build the original machine.

The parts are (from left to right):
Frame side panel
Main control circuit
Assortment of brackets
Operating panel
Cleaning brush
Prismatic triangulating focal reflector assembly
Supplementary toroidal quantum energy converter

Sadly, it looks like the sculpture will have to be dismantled as there is now a pile of freshly washed towels waiting to be dried.

Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art

ps. Here is a previous version of an exploded F1 car.

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