By Evan Ackerman

The reason that dominoes are so much fun to knock over is that they take so much effort to set up. This is doubly true if someone else does all the setting up, and you knock them all over by “accident.” This sculpture, by artist Karl Lautman, makes the whole thing moot by doing the setting up and knocking down in one unbroken cycle. Appropriately, it’s called Ouroborus, after the mythical serpent who had the genius idea of continually eating its own tail at the same rate that its front half was growing, providing an endless source of food (and, one has to assume, entertainment).

I can’t attest to how the serpent pulls it off, but the sculpture relies on each domino being attached to a solenoid by some polyester threads in the base. A microcontroller fires off the solenoids in sequence to haul the dominoes back up at the same rate as they topple, which (in case you were wondering) is apparently a crazy hard number to calculate. If anyone wants to work through that, feel free, or just find yourself a bunch of dominoes, a ruler, and a stopwatch.

[ Karl Lautman ] VIA [ Boing Boing ]

This art installation seems to date back to 2006, but since it’s new to me, I’m going to assume it’s new to at least a few of you as well. In the same way a television uses colored pixels to produce images, the VSSTV plotter injects bubble wrap with cyan, magenta and yellow ink using a printhead featuring 3 long needles.

Created by Gebhard Sengmüller, in collaboration with Jakob Edlbacher, Johannes Obermayr, Gerhard Proksch-Weilguni, Ludwig Ertl and Andreas Konecky, the VSSTV is supposed to be a new television format built upon something called SSTV or ‘Slow Scan Television’ which is an image transmission system used by ham radio enthusiasts. Except that since the VSSTV system they developed can only produce a single frame of ‘video’ per day, I think they have a tough battle ahead of them when it comes to convincing the public, no matter how fun bubble wrap is!

[ Gebhard Sengmüller - VSSTV - Very Slow Scan Television ] VIA [ Rhizome ]

By Chris Scott Barr

When a person buys a new lamp, the last thing they want is for it to get broken. Here’s an interesting twist, what if there was a lamp that you were supposed to break as soon as you take it out of the box? That’s exactly what the Less Lamp wants you to do.

When you unbox the Less Lamp, you’ll find that it’s the absolute worst excuse for a lighting fixture, as it’s basically just a solid black egg. The idea is that you’ll use the included pick to poke holes in it. Heck, you can even break off the bottom portion of the egg to let out more light. As you can imagine, nothing this artsy-sounding ever comes cheap. This particular lamp will set you back $800. That’s right, eight hundred smackeroos for a lamp that you’re going to break immediately.

[ MoMA ] VIA [ Technabob ]

By Evan Ackerman

Want this piece of art? It can be yours, since it’s for sale on eBay. Always. Called “A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter,” this black box has some software inside it plus an internet connection. Every 10 minutes, the box checks eBay to see if it’s currently listed for sale. If not, it creates an auction for itself that starts at the price it was last auctioned for. If you win the auction, you’re agreeing to a contract between you an the artist where you promise to connect the box to the internet when you get it, and then send it along to whoever wins the next auction. You do get to keep the money, at least.

People say that art is a good investment, and if you’re looking for something with a quicker than normal turnaround, you can follow the current auction of the piece here.

[ Caleb Larsen ] VIA [ Make ]

By David Ponce

Though we don’t often cover art on OhGizmo!, we can’t pass up the opportunity to show you the work of Shi Jinsong, currently on display as part of the “China – Contemporary Revival” exhibition at the Palazo Reale in Milan, Italy. The one piece that we’re lusting after is this badass baby carriage.

We think the picture pretty much speaks for itself so no further description is necessary. Suffice it to say this is a one-off piece of art and is likely priced in accordance. Meaning you can’t get one…

But you can hit the jump for a couple more pictures.

VIA [ DesignBoom ]

By David Ponce

What else can be said about this, other than I’ve enjoyed ruining your childhood now that mine has been.

Remember: it cannot be unseen!

VIA [ Geekologie ]

By David Ponce

This seems to have been around since 2008, but it’s only now making the rounds on the blogs, so we thought to let y’all know about it too. The video we’ve embedded after the jump shows a creation by Japanese artist Mio I-zawa. It’s a rubber (or latex, we’re not sure) bladder shaped and painted to look like a tumor. It’s connected to a series of motors and pneumatic actuators, and the whole apparatus is controlled by a piece of software on the PC to which its attached. When the load on the CPU is low, the tumor gently pulsates. But start doing something CPU-intensive, and it’ll grow, giving you a direct, organic connection to the current load on the PC.

We’re not entirely sure why the use of a tumor, as opposed to say a fake lung. We get the whole bridging the gap between inorganic digital stress and biological stress; kind of anthropomorphizing the most inanimate of objects. But heck, even a heart would have made more sense… Why a tumor?

Hit the jump for the creepy video.

[ Artist's Website ] VIA [ Pink Tentacle ]

By David Ponce

Kenny Irwin is an interesting artist who likes to use a microwave to create. In this case, he took an OLPC and straight out melted it. He then added some “mixed media” (looks like parrafin if you ask me) and turned it into a slug. It’s called the OLPCSlug. We’re not sure what it means, as art, or whether he’s trying to make some kind of statement, but there you have it. Kenny then decided to put it up on eBay to raise money for the OLPC Foundation. Thing is, he’s asking $26,001 for this, 80% of which will be given away. I’d like to point out that this is still a 5 figure number for a melted laptop. Is it worth it? Keep reading for a gallery and pictures, and a VERY trippy video of the making of the OLPCSlug.

[ eBay Auction Page ] VIA [ Engadget ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Usually here at OhGizmo we try to cover the latest in cool gadgets. However, once in a while I’ll run across something extremely low-tech that seems brilliant. You’ll have to bear with me, as today is one of those days. It seems that someone came up with the idea to make an eraser, which has an attached brush on one end. What for? For brushing away all of those little eraser crumbs, that’s what!

Most of you will scoff at this, which is understandable. After all, you’ve got a pinkie that’s perfectly capable of performing the exact same task. However, the artists out there will ooh and aah as I have. You see, when you slide your pinkie across a paper you’ve drawn on, you smear the graphite just a little. After just a few times, your illustration starts to develop some unintended shading. This brush looks like it wouldn’t yield the same smudgy results. If you’re an artist, or just fascinated by things with brushes attached to them, you can pick one of these up for around $10.

[ Eraser Brush ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By David Ponce

Don’t shortchange your kid and give him regular old Crayons when you could be giving him these Rich Color Crayons. They’re pretty much made of the same material as regular Crayons, but instead of being one solid color, they’re marbled with a variety of color speckles that produce a richer color pattern. As you can see from the image above, the results can be impressive. Then again, these are obviously marketing renderings made by some kind of professional. But still, the idea is interesting.

Seeing as you can’t quite give each crayon an actual color name, they’ve been affectionately dubbed “Passion & Orange”, “StrawberrySpecial”, “CandyPop”, “CitrusHerb”, “BerryMix” and “ChocolateAlmond”. A box of these six “flavors” will set you back 1,200 Yen, or about $13.

Hit the jump for a few more pictures and links.

[ Product Page (Google Translate From Japanese) ] VIA [ Incredible Things ]