The Clifton Cultural Art Center
3711 Clifton Avenue
Cincinnati, Ohio 45220
Artists:
Christian Benefiel (via an artist residency in Helsinki,
Finland)
Billy Colbert (Washington, DC)
J. Daniel Graham (Georgetown, KY)
Joseph Hoffman (Columbus, OH)
Fred Ellenberger (Cincinnati, OH)
Tom Lohre (Cincinnati, OH)
Brad Meredith (Louisville, KY) &
internationally recognized TODT.
Man Powered Art Making Machines
The Sailing
Ride, Tree limbs, Come-along, Tow straps, Plywood, 2010
Working
on his art show about the sailing trip across the North Atlantic Tom felt
he needed something to illustrate the occasional beating you take not
only figuratively but also in reality. When the boat is beating up wind,
you are slammed into the gunnels often. Broken ribs are not that uncommon.
Broken relationships are not that uncommon either. The loved ones left
onshore get beaten up emotionally. At first he thought he could make a
“Mechanical Sailboat” like the “Mechanical Bull”
you find in Texas Road Houses. His love of mobiles and thoughts of the
movement you needed to simulate a sailboat lead him directly to a huge
mobile suspended from a tree made of tree limbs. As the sailor-rider gets
moved up and down and around by the grounds persons pulling ropes attached
to the far ends of the limbs they are passed hot cups of coffee that gets
spilled and occasionally a bucket of water is thrown on them. All the
while they watch the video shot during the trip on a big sheet from a
LCD projector. It should prove to be a fantastic event. Of course you
will have to pay big bucks to ride but you will get the log book and DVD
from the trip and maybe a piece of scrimshaw or oil painting of the sail.
The Artisto Family
of Art Machines
Tom began thinking
seriously about using robotics to make painters in 1984. He was painting
in Nantucket at the time and began ordering robotics parts from various
sources and assembling them into mostly automatic paint dispensing reproduce
colors but now see the advantage of sporadic output that varies according
to the environment.
His first robot
that actually painted did not come until 1999 when he adapted a windup
motor he got in a mechanical junk store in China Town NYC about 7 years
earlier. He always wanted to do just this with the motor but it was not
until he applied for a grant that he needed a real piece of art. The little
machine dragged a brush across a piece of paper slowly and with visual
pain. Occasionally it would pick the brush up and it made the most amazing
abstract works.
Windo
Windup
motor, brush, syringe, wire, 5.5”H x 3.5”W x 3.5L
Windo was the first art machine
to perform in public.
Flying Pigs by Windo, Watercolor
on paper, 23" x 16", February 3rd, 1999
Tom’s second robot had
to be bigger. He needed larger pieces and the little windup artist could
only paint for a few inches until it needed to be wound up again. That
is when he adapted a remote controlled car into another type of windup
painter. This one used the drive motor to power the windup motor’s
gearbox. The gearbox gave him four rotating shafts that operated the
four little feet. But adjusting the length of the feet and the crank
diameter the gearbox caused the robot to have a struggled walk. The
new motorized version was quite a bit heavier and used an automatic
loading brush. The process yielded a good operating machine along the
lines of the previous windup artist.
Painted by
Remoto
This
show was funded by the City of Cincinnati with a 2001 Individual Artist
Grant in the amount of $3,500. Tom used the money to combine all his
Art making robots into a show packaged in a Circus Side Show format.
Human
Powered Art Making Machines
Tom
later thought larger human powered art making machines would be more
accessible to the public’s imagination so he built the sculpture
making exercise bike, the flying bicycle and developed the pushcart.Now
he feels that Art can be advanced with the application of Art related
Science. Look for intelligent Art machines powered by vision analysis
software in the near future. The first project out of the box will be
a simple software program that will search the web, select images, filter
them into a cohesive whole and print them out all while you are away
from your computer.
Sculptura
Exercise bike with flywheel, tubing, brass bowl,
copper tubing, plastic tubing, water pump, hardware; 5' x 3' x
6'; July 1st, 2000
Exercise bike with flywheel,
tubing, brass bowl, copper tubing, plastic tubing, water pump and hardware
Sculptura makes rock sculpture from a human powered
waterfall. It uses an exercise bike to run a water pump that forces a
small stream of water straight down five feet making a small rock erode
into a sphere as it turns in another rock.
The Waterfall Bicycle was created to make art while exercising.
You may have heard about placing a rock under a water fall and come
back and find that it had been turned into a round marble. The Art Making
Exercising Machine works the same way pedaling the water pump makes
the rock turn in a depression in another rock.
TOMASO’S FLYING
BICYCLE
The bicycle has it’s own colorful propeller and balloons attached
to a bar that encircles the driver and passenger. As they ride,
many times they leave the ground.
The Flying Bicycle
The bicycle
has a propeller and a lot of balloons attached above it. If there
were a lot of balloons the bike may float. But the better thing to
remember that if the balloons will lift the bike then you better tie
it down before you get off it. This means a grappling hook and rope
will be attached to the bike
The propeller is made out of stiff colorful flooring foam attached
with a curve to give it enough strength to create trust but not to
cut your hand when you place it in the propeller path.
The mount for the propeller has is free wheeling when
no trust is applied. The hub of the propeller is the hub of a
caster bike. The chain will attaches to one of the rear wheel sprockets.
The bike will not be able to change rear gears.
A metal bar is bent to make up the balloon holder.
TOMASO’S SMALL ART MACHINES PERFORM ON
THE TOP OF HIS PUSHCART
Art
Pushcart
The pushcart is the circus floor for the small Art
Machines. The Side Show takes place on top of the pushcart.The art pushcart
is made out of light materials and has an awning over the box’s top
working surface. The art pushcart will roll on three large wheels
and have fourth leg thatdrops down next to the fourth small wheel, one
handle at one end will help push it. The art pushcart will be made so
it can roll on the sidewalks. It will be colorfully painted.
In the spirit of the old time push carts, the pushcart
was built. A colorful pushcart that can be pushed around Cincinnati
neighborhoods.
A neighbor said he had a pushcart in his basement.
The pushcart was the most fantastic thing Tom could imagine. It was
a tilted low box with a ingenious black and white striped awning frame
attached to it and the whole thing was held up by a small child’s
bike on one side, a third bicycle wheel attached by twin “V”
bars along with a four collapsing leg on the other side.Tom painted Circus Side Show banners for his show to replace
the vinyl sides on the original pushcart and replaced the top with a
flat top
Side Banners
Conclusions
The whole
aspect of these machines is to give them the power to think for themselves
and do what they feel is best. The audience wants to be entertained.
The robot can only do that by producing art that is entertaining. The
process of creating art is not entertainment. The first robot paintings
are entertaining along the lines of Zen. The robot walks around the canvas.
The stroke of the artist attacks any position of the canvas immediately.
The robot should do the same. The loading of the brush is an important
part of the process but is not necessary. The stroke is necessary. But
entertaining the public is more important.
“Machines of
Art,” in three YouTube uploads, are three videos of art making machines
making art. The first is a small hand size art making machine that uses
a windup motor driven four legged walking motion that drags a brush. The
second art making machine is a remotely controlled four legged walking
machine that paints with an arm holding a self loading brush. The last
art making machine uses the Legos MindStorm Invention System to power
a rotating eight color oil pastel head. It moves to a position, receives
color information from a computer, applies the color and then moves to
the next position. The 5000 dots take 18 hours to complete. Tom Lohre
has been working since 1987 on automaton art making machines.
Show of Art Work by
Tom Lohre and a Lego Robot Assistant
Opening: Friday, April 18th, 2008, 6 to 9 p.m. Closing May 18th Visual History Gallery, 2709 Observatory Ave, Cincinnati, OH 45208,
513-871-6065,
Hyde Park Neighborhood, Free, No reservation needed. Children welcomed.
Opening: Friday April 18, 2008, 6 to 9 p.m., light refreshments served.
Open: Open Tues-Thurs: 11-6, Fri: 11-5, Sat: 10-3:30, Sunday by chance
or appointment. Closed Monday Web Site: http://visualhistorygallery.com
The Story
In 1980 Tom started exploring the possibility of having a machine paint.
In 2003 he discovered Lego's MindStorm Robotic system and spent four years
learning the software. On January 5th, 2007 at 9pm Tom finally cracked
the code to write a program that took information from an image in the
computer and fed it to a robot.
In the past year, Tom has learned that “Artisto”, the name Tom has given
to the robot, is like a classical assistant. Artisto lays one of eight
colors in generally the correct spot and Tom manipulates it to refine
its placement. Tom initially creates an image in the computer that Artisto
follows. The painting process takes 18 hours for a 16” x 20” having 4163
dots. Tom can turn “Artisto” off while working on a painting so the painting
does not have to be done all at one time. All the paintings in the show
are close ups of faces because the resolution is so low that he has to
rely on the viewer to fill in the blanks.
In the future, Tom sees “Artisto”
having 16 colors to select from with Tom working closely with Artisto
continually adjusting the paint as it is laid down.
