The idea of a tree, by Katharina Mischer and Thomas Traxler:
This concept was inspired by a certain fascination for machines and nature… The goal of ‘the idea of a tree’- project was to bring the recording qualities of a tree and its dependence on natural cycles into products.
The final outcome is an autonomous mechanical production process which is a hybrid combination of natural input and mechanical process. It involves the translation of natural inputs through a mechanical apparatus in order to create one object a day. The recorder is totally dependent on sun light. Driven by solar energy, it reacts and incorporates the light intensity into an object.
The outcoming object reflects the various sunshine conditions that occur during a day. Like a tree the object becomes a three dimensional recording of its process and time of creation.
The machine starts producing when the sun rises and stops when the sun settles down. After sunset, the finished object can be ‘harvested’. It slowly grows the object, by pulling threads through a colouring device, a glue basin and finally winding them around a mould. The length/height of the resulting object depends on the sunhours of the day. The thickness of the layer and the colour is depending on the amount of sun-energy.
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