We choose to simplify our art machine by going back to using wind-up toys again because we faced too many problems using the speakers. For example, we couldn’t have strong vibrations from the speakers without blasting the music at a high volume. Also we realised even though the speakers showed the vibrations they recorded nothing on a piece of paper. It wasn’t creating any artwork nor was the speakers an art piece itself because it just vibrated.
After realizing this we went back to using windup toys to create an art machine. Our first attempt was attaching four wind up toys together to create one big vibration. However this did not work as well as we thought it would. Attaching the wind-up toys together just made it too heavy, preventing it from moving from its spot. So instead we made each wind up toy an individual art machine. For our first individual art machine we glued colourful chok on the button of a wind up toy. This didn’t work very well because the marks from the chok were very faint it was very difficult to see them.
Further developments
Instead of gluing chok on the bottom we glued thumb tacks and curtain hooks to act as legs. The thumb tacks and the curtain hooks worked perfectly as they were light, which made the windup toys create stronger and longer vibrations. While I was experimenting with the wind up toys I noticed that they unwind longer if we put them side ways than upwards. To create marks we glued paint brushes and sponges on them. After winding up the toy we dip the legs and the paint brushes into a container filled with black ink and then we place them to unwind on a piece of paper to create marks.
We thought this was a great way to simplify creating art with music which i think turned out great. Instead of music its the sound of the wind up toy chattering that creates the marks on the paper. The movement and the sound of the wind up toy chattering together creates patterns on the piece of paper which is why I think it is a great simplification of our first attempt at creating an art machine.
Presentaion
I think our final art machine turned out pretty great. Even though we weren’t able to transform music into an art piece, at the end we still made art using sound and vibrations, which is like music. The patterns that the wind-up toys left behind is a visualization of the sound of the chattering that it makes which is related to the idea of transforming music into art.