Comments on: Rubik cubes and classic album covers by the Beatles and the Clash.

Rubik cubes and classic album covers by the Beatles and the Clash.

maudlin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:54:41 -0800

It's Seurat by me. Iconic album covers by the Beatles and the Clash. Mixed media (a metric buttload of Rubik's cubes shown in Dailymotion video). (via)

By: Flashman

Flashman — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:24:03 -0800

That's cool. This might be a terribly offensive or ignorant question, but did he actually have to solve the rubik's cube for each pattern he needed (based I'm sure on somethng pre-plotted on paper), or would he have just - as I would have done!- peeled off the stickers and switched them around? I'm a rubik neophyte; maybe twisting the cube to get each pattern isn't quite as mind-bogglingly difficult as it seems to me.

By: idiopath

idiopath — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:43:56 -0800

Flashman: I am not an expert myself, but my understanding is that once you master the algorithm, getting the sides lined up is faster and easier than lining up the little stickers cleanly. I presume the algorithm for solving a cube is easily adaptable for getting specific combinations of colors rather than solid faces. And, presuming he started with pre-solved cubes as the video made it appear, he could use the same computer program that showed him the grid of colors to give him a step by step set of twists to give him that grid from a solved cube.

By: Cool Papa Bell

Cool Papa Bell — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:47:36 -0800

Very cool. but did he actually have to solve the rubik's cube for each pattern he needed It's actually pretty easy to start with a previously solved cube, right out of the box, and get the pattern you need on a single side. It would take about the same time as peeling and replacing stickers, IMO. If I were him, I would've started with a scan of the album cover, pixelated it and color-corrected it with photoshop, and then planned out the entire grid on paper ("Cube #A1 has three reds across the top, and two whites...")

By: Lipstick Thespian

Lipstick Thespian — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:28:19 -0800

Metafilter: Giving Him That Grid From A Solved Cube. Hey - you know what goes good in a burrito? Steak, sweet potato, extra cheese and big, meaty mushrooms. If that won't get you out of bed, you can add cilantro for another fifty cents.

By: cyphill

cyphill — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:34:59 -0800

Context: This is a trailer for an exhibition at the Jonathan Levine Gallery in New York. Here's a bunch of pics from the show showing all the finished albums and and other work by the artist, Invader.

By: Slack-a-gogo

Slack-a-gogo — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:52:17 -0800

Very cool. But he can't do Smell the Glove.

By: philip-random

philip-random — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:29:59 -0800

not enough pixels

By: Joey Michaels

Joey Michaels — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:32:07 -0800

[This, my friends, is good.]

By: idiopath

idiopath — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:23:04 -0800

Coming back to this thread I see that I did not articulate myself very well. Solving the rubix cube has a simple set of algorithms. Given this fact, I presume that it would be maybe a four hour programming job to write a script that would break an image into 9 pixel grids, and then give a coded set of instructions for turning a solved cube into each grid. This would be much less work than removing and replacing that many stickers.

By: heyho

heyho — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 09:04:26 -0800

If I'd thought back in the mid-80s -- after I'd shaved my head and began listening to better music (yay!university!) -- that I would say anything like, "Neat! This makes me want to download London Calling from iTunes," I'd have put on some Joy Division and slit my own wrists. I just realized I don't have any Clash anymore; I lost it a few years ago in the Great Reformatting Debacle. hmm. I'm officially old and nerdy. My 20-year old self would flip me right the fuck off.

By: natalinha

natalinha — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:02:49 -0800

Yeah, but can he do The Seldom Seen Kid?