LEGO Rubber Band Gun

For some reason the James Bond Goldeneye video I made of this will not upload. I will try again tomorrow. =[ !!!

Basically i wanted to make something that worked! What better way to make use of LEGO than to make a gun! I had done some early pictures of me blowing my head off that got a good reception from other people. I decided not to exhibit this piece because my work was going up in a Chappel and im sure it had the ability to offend. I also creatded the LEGO crossbow on the digital app but that was not going to work.

I got together to making a LEGO gun by starting with a very simple mechanism. It was all about the elastic streaching and being on a trigger that could let it loose. I set up so i had a wedged cog holding the elastic band. When the wedge was removed it fired … whooooo!

I built in a manual trigger and decided to use a band on that to help it to reset. As this worked suprisingly well i finished by making a case and fitted a Lugar style barrel to the gun. Im pretty happy with the power and accuracy i can get from this. I will try at some point to improve it so i can fire LEGO bricks themselves!

Len Lye at the Icon

Nipped down to the icon today to see the LEn Lye exhibition. The Icon is a stunning gallery as the building itself is a piece of art and i can get lost playing in the lift. Often i find the artists there a a little hit and miss.

Len Lye i think i like most of his work. This may be because he works with light and sound to give his work another dimension.

I took pictures when the guards were looking away  of these two pieces. The first spikey piece is called ‘Fountain’. The stainless steel rods all move everso slightly as a breese comes past or as you enter the room. Becasue of this the shadow cast underneath crosses over causing a visually stunning effect. The shadows are cast by a light hung from the ceiling above.

The second piece of his that I liked was called ‘Storm King’. This was a long flat piece of stainless steel wobbling of a constantly wobbling motor. As i hung the steel wobbled and caused a storm noise. As i was in the room for a while i noticed the motor was set to 3 (or maybe more) different speeds that changed the way the steel moved and the noide it made. The fastest motor made a truly terrifying noise!!!!

The third one that took my fancy was a video called ‘Raibbow dance’. For obvious reasons i didnt sneak a photo. This was  a series of shadow images of people playing sports or doing every day tasks. There were then different colour gels that had been added to the film to make fish swim past and other varied light effects. I enjoyed it greatly.

Finally i liked the cardboard model. This is actually by Nathan Coley and was made to celebrate the Icons 40th birthday. For the first time in a while i actually though ’ I can do that’. I think my next project will steer back to cardboard modelling.

LEGO Letterpress

Ted sent me this link to a letter priting press made from LEGO. It is pretty stunning considering how it has been made. I suppose LEGO works in a wonderful veriety of ways.

I made this crossbow! It took hours and it may even work! I like it to look at but I really think it would struggle to take the tension needed to fire the bolt. Back to the drawing board.

I made this crossbow!

It took hours and it may even work! I like it to look at but I really think it would struggle to take the tension needed to fire the bolt. Back to the drawing board.

Post- Modern -

Term used to describe the attempt to modify and extend the tradition of modernism in the 20thc.

The dictionary of art Terms: Edward Lucie-Smith

Got a star wars character, haven’t got the millennium falcon…. Build one. Happiness is a bag of LEGO.
Marcus Brigdtocke - Comidian

There is something about the engineering in all of this isn’t there, you know the same sort of urge to build pyramids that’s what it is I think there is something really basic about that procedure that enables me to make sense of the world. Everyone on the planet just loves LEGO.
Jason Bradbury - TV Presenter

I was one of these kids who never actually followed the stuff that was on the box I got a picture of a car and created a space ship and that is what the beauty of Lego is you can actually create anything you want from these amazing bricks. That’s the great thing about Lego, it’s just something that lets the imagination take control.
Andy Akinwolere - Blue Peter presenter

LEGO was the glue for all other toys. You could incorporate Lego into any other toy. So for Barbie you could make a house for her out of Lego.
Megan Prescott - Actress Katie in Skins

The treachery of images. So for this one i picked a piece of post modern art. Looked at it for a bit. Then went to making it. After 20 mins of searching for a needle in a haystack (or a pipe in a big box of LEGO) i finally found this piece which was going to be perfect for my pipe. I took the picture using a macro camera and photoshopped the text in after. I like this one for its simplicity. Quite happy with my mimicary of this piece of contemporary art. As Margritte responded to the picture, you try filling it with tobacco and then tell me again that it is a pipe.

The treachery of images.

So for this one i picked a piece of post modern art. Looked at it for a bit. Then went to making it.

After 20 mins of searching for a needle in a haystack (or a pipe in a big box of LEGO) i finally found this piece which was going to be perfect for my pipe.

I took the picture using a macro camera and photoshopped the text in after. I like this one for its simplicity.

Quite happy with my mimicary of this piece of contemporary art. As Margritte responded to the picture, you try filling it with tobacco and then tell me again that it is a pipe.