Pixels for you, pixels for me.

January 3, 2006 12:25 AM

Random Screen is a mechanical thermo dynamic display which does not rely on any electricity. Stuff you learnt in school helps!
posted by riffola (18 comments total)

Cue Travolta.
posted by HTuttle at 12:31 AM on January 3, 2006

Be sure to see the video.
posted by riffola at 12:31 AM on January 3, 2006

I want one, anyone find plans?
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:35 AM on January 3, 2006

I thought it had been sped up significantly until I saw the hand reach in.

It´s like a classy version of the redneck bug zapper and six pack evening.
posted by stavrogin at 12:43 AM on January 3, 2006

This seems like a do-able DIY project: Cardboard squares covered with thin paper. Set up something like a basic German candle pyramid behind each one?
posted by vacapinta at 12:45 AM on January 3, 2006

Neat, but looks like a fire accident waiting to happen...
posted by Firas at 12:52 AM on January 3, 2006

Metafiler: Neat, but looks like a fire accident waiting to happen.
posted by rawfishy at 12:57 AM on January 3, 2006

'Filter'. meh.
posted by rawfishy at 12:58 AM on January 3, 2006

For me pretty colors are worth a little electricity--movie here too. Same basic design, different light source. Grid structure is rigid white plastic (light needs to bounce around in each cubicle), and the front screen is card-weight translucent mylar?, to diffuse light. Simple, ingenious, makes pretty patterns.
posted by tula at 1:10 AM on January 3, 2006 [1 favorite]

That's insanely cool, fire hazard or no. I want (to make) one.

I'm not sure who first made these cellular lightboxes, but the first references I've heard of them are related to either William Burroughs or Genesis P. Orridge and/or Temple ov Psychick Youth. I've seen many variations of these under the umbrella label of "Psychic TV" - ones that are just de-tunered CRTs which you play with with magnets, TVs tuned to a dead channel with a thick glass of rippled, fractured acrylic slab and melt over the screen, lightboxes, weird tuner configurations, active oscillators, and more.

I have a friend who once built a very tiny lightboxed TV out of an old pocket color TV. The cells were comprised of equal-width strips of paper rolled up into varying-width cylinders packed together on end, with a thin semi-opaque sheet of plastic or vellum over them. The random, bubble-or-foam-packed-style nature of the screen with the round cells was gorgeous and mesmerising. It worked quite well.

There's also something ultimately very neat about mixed, diffused, colored light. It's much different than a naked CRT, or even natural light.
posted by loquacious at 2:30 AM on January 3, 2006

Here in the UK you can buy the Habitat daft punk coffee table (The official website is a mess of flash animations, so thats an old ebay auction.)
posted by Lanark at 3:36 AM on January 3, 2006

For me pretty colors are worth a little electricity

Don't need it. Just put gels around the cans that spin around the candle.

The high output version would use old carbide lamps. This also boosts the danger from "house burns down" to "house blows up". On the other hand, there's no downside.
posted by eriko at 5:37 AM on January 3, 2006

Now we just need a mechanical thermodynamic computer which doesn't rely on any electricity to send signals to this monitor.
posted by Citizen Premier at 6:23 AM on January 3, 2006

That is cool. Thanks for the link.
posted by StarForce5 at 8:31 AM on January 3, 2006

I wish I was creative and smart.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:19 AM on January 3, 2006

very beautiful.
posted by 3.2.3 at 10:02 AM on January 3, 2006

I like it. I wish Slarty Bartfast was creative and smart too.
posted by OmieWise at 1:02 PM on January 3, 2006

[this is good.]
posted by weston at 9:37 PM on January 3, 2006