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Chalkbot

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Adding to the list of gadgets that you never knew you needed in life is this Chalkbot, a machine that "prints" road chalk messages for the Livestrong Foundation and Nike.

It's making the rounds of France during the year's biggest bike race -- check out the photo gallery. The content of the uniformly heart-warming messages show a deep concern for cancer victims and survivors. Beyond that, though, the mechanics of this thing are pretty cool.


Aside from the canisters of chalk and the hydraulic release system, it looks like there's a pretty beefy internal tech system. It would be interesting to see whether the text messages are translated directly to the road chalk or if they go through a human screener first.

The Leonardo experimented with SMS art during BODY WORLDS when Brooklyn-based artist Paul Notzold created "The Only Certainty: Death and TXTs," a flash skeleton projection that changed positions and thought bubbles based on text messages from visitors.

The Only Certainty, Death and TXT's from paul notzold on Vimeo.

Creating art with a technology that visitors use every day made participatory art possible, interesting and inventive in the museum's main lobby during the months that BODY WORLDS was in town. It's great to see how SMS art is branching out to new applications...and I'd love to try a version of the Chalkbot in Salt Lake someday.

Labels: DIY, technology, video

Posted by The Leonardo at 7/08/2009 02:23:00 PM 0 comments

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