I’m visiting family in Central Otago, New Zealand at the moment, it’s a beautiful place and a nice rest from London.
Before I left the UK I was asked to create 12 cloud based ideas for the Milan event ‘Ready to Cloud‘. Here are my ideas below…
Tonight I will be competing against a 3D printer to make a model of Big Ben on the BBC 2 The Culture Show at 10pm 30/01/13.
2012 Review:
2012 was a very busy year for me, probably my busiest. I remember starting the year thinking that I had no idea what I will do in 2012. Then Jaffa Cakes commissioned me to nibble their biscuit/cakes in the shape of something. Around that time I tweeted ‘I want to race against a 3D printer to make the same thing’ a curator saw it and invited me to compete in Milan. I defeated the 3D printer and won a trophy. While I was in Milan I spent 5 days making something out of sticks and tape in front of the public. On return to London I was invited to the V&A museum to have a rematch against a British 3D Printer. A bit later I was asked to create a souvenir of East London and had the idea to make a vinyl record recording the sounds of East London makers at work. The record was cut about half a mile from my house in Hackney. BBC radio 4′s Today programme visited me and I talked about the sounds and the history behind the makers. It even got played on radio in Tokyo.
In September I had a solo show at KK Outlet Gallery, I decided to make a book of my invention drawings and released a little animation. A little earlier I had been commissioned to make new versions of my shoe field for Global Footprint in Northamptonshire. I was also commissioned to create a pair of shoes. After thinking about Dorothy in The wizard of Oz I decided to try to create some shoes that could navigate the wearer home. These shoes appeared all over the place in mainstream newspapers and tv such as The Discovery channel. Meanwhile I was asked to do something interesting with 3M tape. Finally I was asked to create something that would be suspended across a street inthe Seven Dials area of London. I made an arch of birdcages to represent the past history of pet shops in the area.
This year I’m once again unsure what direction I will go in, I might do some more sketched inventions for a start.
Filed under: Drawings | Tags: 3d printer, dominic wilcox, hacked, milan, rinascente
)Update to the below: Rematch at the V&A see here ).
I won the battle of Man vs Machine in Milan at the Hacked event at La Rinascente department store! The challenge was for me and a 3D Printer to make the best model of the nearby Duomo cathedral within 1.5 hours. The age of 3D Printing is here but there is a discussion around where it is heading and how useful it will be. What can a human do that a machine can’t? Can the hand created object give something that a computer cannot? Or can machines do everything better? Is computerised perfection emotionless?
There was a big crowd and many people stayed for the whole time watching the progress intensely.
The clock counted down for 90 minutes, there was a little beep for every second which made me nervous.
(No Plugs) I bought a white dressing gown like the boxers and added some messages with red tape I was using in my other exhibition. We came out to the sound of the Rocky theme music.
The 3D printer was a Makerbot and was controlled by the team at wefab.it. They really got into the performance and called their machine Deep Pink after the famous ‘Kasparov vs Deep Blue’ chess match. I chose to make mine from clay. I have never made anything from clay before so was a little unsure about the result. I notice in the photo above there is a man with an old film camera. (Very suitable to the event hand/digital.)
I took some photos of the Duomo but when I started I found it difficult to remember what shape it was. There were many people around photographing and filming and for a few minutes I was thinking ‘what am I doing?’. However once I had made the first blocks I could see potential in the model and I focused on my task.
stop motion video
I was hearing that the 3D Printer had a little problem half way through, the model was moved a little and started printing slightly to the side, but it was fixed. The real Duomo has many details and the makerbot 3d printer is quite a simple but a fun DIY style machine.
The Editor in chief of the italian magazine Domus Joseph Grima was the referee and decided to award the prize to me.
The prize was a large ceramic ‘subbuteo’ of football team AC Milan.
‘I eat computer chips for breakfast’ Me and the We Fab team from Milan.
Thanks to curator Beatrice Galilee for the Hacked event she invited me to, referee Joseph Grima and wefab.it for their enthusiasm and skills.
More pics here
Update: After my victory the machine sent me this bad loser messages…
There is talk of another match in London very soon with a different 3D Printer. This could be an event the grows and develops. Keep following.
You can read the background to this event on my previous post here
See the other thing I made in Milan here with tape, sticks and a chair here.
Filed under: Drawings | Tags: dominic wilcox, jaffa cakes, loch ness, queen's guards, stonehenge, the thames, tower bridge
McVitie’s, the biscuit people, challenged me to create some British themed creations using their Jaffa Cakes. I took my inspiration from friends who described their strange and unique methods of eating them. I started to nibble and pick away, going through 30 boxes of Jaffa Cakes to try to get shapes that fitted with my British themed ideas. One problem I had was when I got distracted by the radio and then looked back to see I had eaten the Loch Ness monster. See the video and pictures of what I came up with below.
Stonehenge
The sunset effect was achieved by shining a light through the Jaffa Cakes orange wrapper. I like the realistic reflection.
The white cliffs of Dover
Tower Bridge
Set up with a plastic bag.
The Loch Ness Monster
The Queen’s Guards (The ones with the big bear skin hats outside Buckingham palace)
The Union Jack flag
Queen’s head on coin
The Thames river
All of them.
You can follow my future creations on twitter or facebook. Or have a look at the other things I’ve made on this site using the menu on the left or visit my main project site here.
Thanks goes out to Joe McGorty who helped me get the photographs done.
Filed under: Drawings | Tags: dominic wilcox, moments in time, watch sculptures
I have created five new watch sculptures that are currently on display at Phillips de Pury and La Scatola Gallery. Each watch is a one off. See the pictures and video of them moving below.
Love and Protest, 2011 (Detail)
Love and Protest, 2011
In these times of peaceful protest in the face of armed repression, a protester and soldier kiss.
UC Davis Protest, 2011
I find it disturbing when people in positions of power abuse it and lose any sense of humanity. I was shocked to see the footage of the pepper spraying of people sitting in a peaceful protest at UC Davis. I felt a need to capture this incident in time.
Photograph: Wayne Tilcock/AP
Captured, 2011
CCTV cameras and three people photographing and videoing. Everyone is capturing everyone.
Comfortably Oblivious, 2011
Here two people fail to give up their seat to an elderly woman with walking stick and bags walking round and round.
The Beautiful Game, 2011
A footballer holds aloft a trophy in the form of a pound symbol (£) as three prospective WAGs fight for his attention.
Love and Protest, UC Davis Protest and Captured are on display at La Scatola Gallery until the 10th of January.
Comfortably Oblivious and The Beautiful Game are on display along with The Sitting Man and Unrequited Handshake at Phillips de Pury until 31 January 2012.
For larger images visit my project website page here
You can see the earlier watch sculptures here
I have a new big project to show. I’ve put tiny figures onto watch hands in order to create mini animated scenes. I had the idea last year during my Speed creating project, but decided it was too good to rush. 8 month later I showed a prototype to Dezeen and they commissioned me to make a collection. The watches use customised model figures and I also made objects, like a miniature looted LCD tv. The glass domes were specially made to fit by Wearside Glass Sculptures in my home town of Sunderland at the National Glass Centre.
The watch sculptures will be exhibited at Dezeen Space in Shoreditch, London from 17 September to 16 October.
54 Rivington Street, London EC2A 3QN.
more pictures and info on my other site dominicwilcox.com
London Looter: I had to walk across Mare st in Hackney to get home during the riots. I remember seeing a boy carrying a lcd tv down a back st. I noticed how the police seemed unsure how to react, holding their circular shields while the boy held a rectangular tv.
Adventures of a young vegetarian : a small girl attempts to stop a butcher chopping up a pig by hanging on his arm while the pig floats away.
The Sitting man: A man sits for a moment.
Hide ‘n’ seek
Watch sweeper: the numbers and hands are swept away on the second hand.
A man so engrossed in his iphone that he fails to notice a monkey balancing on the head of a weightlifting boy on the arm of an elderly roller skater.
One man stands with arms folded while another moves around in continual hope that his hand will be shook.
