Tuesday 30 June 2009

'DADA' blog launched

DADA is a collaborative project between myself and Justin Windle, a feelance Interactive Designer and Developer who's work is often based on generative illustrations that merge hand drawn elements with computer generated structure.

DADA stands for 'Dynamic Autonomous Drawing Agent' and is the name given to a project that aims to construct a robot capable of drawing in a variety of media. The hardware platform is a recycled 3dof pick and place robot that was custom built for Thames Water some years ago.

Following retierment the robot was donated to the University of Reading who extracted various elements of the system, leaving a body with motors but no power or control. Luckily I happened to be in the right place and the right time and intercepted the robot before it arrived at its final destination, the skip. That was over 4 years ago and since that time the robot has sat immobile under various tables until this project came along.



While Justin works on creating the images that the robot will eventually draw I am working on turning the currently broken and incomplete shell of a machine into something capable of drawing the images that will merge the robot's mechanistic form and purpose with the organic nature of generative art that Justin creates.

The project's blog can be found at http://dada.soulwire.co.uk/about