Brad Litwin sent us this video of his latest kinetic sculpture, on display at the "re.action" exhibition at the Annmarie Garden Sculpture Park and Arts Center in Solomons, Maryland, starting on June 1st.

More projects from Brad [BradLitwin.com]

Toriton Plus is a musical instrument that reacts to fingers dipped in a bowl of water.

How does it work? Lasers over the face of the deep, interrupted by ripples. Only a few inches deep, but still.

Toriton plus prototype: first look [Toriton via Makezine]

With its central profusion of arcade buttons, the Midibox promises satisfaction: this is an electronic musical instrument to be pounded like a 6-button fighter. Built around a PIC microcontroller—a low cost computer chip backed by a vast library of applications—it has 16 knobs, 5 faders, 32 MIDI controlled LED buttons, and 16 arcade buttons.

Flickr Set [William's Photos]
Project Page [UCApps.de via MAKE]

The blogger who runs Palm Sounds just picked up a vintage Casio VL-1 and recorded this short video showing off its filtered squarewave timbres.

Casio VL-1 Pictures and video [Palm Sounds]

Portable console designer Ben Heck's latest project is a Guitar Hero hack that adds a useable floor pedal to the guitar controller. The pedal's most universal application is to allow you to use the whammy bar like a wa-wa pedal, but it also lets one-armed amputees play Guitar Hero by strumming with their foot. That's probably the way I'd use it too: as it is, it's hard to strum and keep your hand triumphantly aloft in a digital devil horns gesture.

Guitar Hero Pedal Controllers [Ben Heck]

United in plosive time lapse synchronicity, three bottle-blowers play a song known to Russians as Korobeiniki but to most Americans as Gameboy Tetris Music Type A, and it's just about the best version of the song since Ozma took a stab at it. At first, I suspected trickery: surely no three individuals could remain in such musical synchronicity after having emptied what appears to be a couple dozen bottles of beer, wine and vodka between them. Then it all made sense: their song choice betrays them as Russians, after all.

Tetris Theme on Bottles [Snotr via Gizmodo]

Dell is now selling their Inspiron 1525 series of laptops with designs by artist Mike Ming. They're designed to be "attuned to youth culture," which is one of those artfully clueless turns of phrase that could only be put earnestly on paper by a press release writer secretly mystified by these crazy kids today with their Dinosaur Comics and their LOLCats and their Substance D.

One Ming Inspiron will set you back about $699, although from my mother's anecdotal experience ordering what Beschizza might have called a "whore red" laptop from Dell, I wonder if the Ming design is just a sticker, in which case you're probably better off just going to Gelaskins. Hell, Dell should just team up with those guys: they're awesome.

Mike Ming Inspirons [Dell via Crunchgear]

At last weekend's awesome MAKEr Faire — where everything was steampunk, apparently! — steampunk / goth band Abney Park debuted this fantastic violin mod on stage for the first time. Modified with vacuum tubes and blinking LEDs, the violin was designed by Molly "Porkshanks" Friedrich, and the vacuum tubes pulse with color as the strings vibrate. But I'm going to re-echo Slashgear's question on the sound quality: don't violins require a certain form for optimal tonality?

Abney Park Violin [MAKE]

It's not new—the SKDUBS GOLD double bass boombox fiddle was made in 2005—but it's wonderful enough by far to warrant a belated look. Only three were built, apparently, and the remaining example is $15,000.

Built in a real double bass, the media are listed as "spraypaint, casters, oak, plywood, metal, iPod, two tube pre-amps, B and C mids and tweeters, Electro-voice woofers, JVC tweeters, Crown XLS 602 Poweramp, and Behringer equalizer."

SKDUBS GOLD[David Ellis via Dvice]

Image: Syntopia

IC Die Photography

During a discussion we three were having today about the use of the ellipsis in manga, anime, and videogames to indicate speechlessness, I remembered seeing the same technique used by Jack Davis in the story "Hah! Noon!" in MAD Magazine issue #9, February-March, 1954 (a parody of High Noon). So now you know: while I'm not familiar enough with Occupation-era manga to say if ellipses were used in this manner during the '40s, it's not a new technique — and certainly pre-dates its use in Japanese role-playing videogames.

One can now order one's Mii—a cutesy avatar system built into Nintendo's runaway Wii—in the flesh. The Miro wax-putty flesh.

"We are specializing in custom hand made sculptures. We have a team of artists, create sculpture base on photo you provided. ... You can even send us your photo of Mii and your Mii number."

They're expensive, at $75, but they're hand-made by a living, breathing artist. That's a low price to pay to transform an empty, soulless simulacrum of the human form into a cake topper!

Product Page [Mii Sculptures]

[via Near Future Laboratory]

Beamz, an electonic musical instrument that combines theremin and laser, is now available for a face-shriveling $600 at Sharper Image and the official website.

"Inspired by a childhood memory of a simple, light-activated door announcer at his local ice cream shop, [inventor] Jerry Riopelle has since leveraged decades of professional musical experience to develop this invention. His years of tinkering resulted in a breakthrough product that uses six laser beams like strings. Players simply pass their hands through each beam to trigger streams of musical notes or sounds. Each performance produces an original composition and the patented software ensures that the music played always will be harmonious, no matter which beam is engaged."

Connect it to your computer via USB, and set it up the way you want it with the included software, and you've got a spectacular-looking public performance. Whether it sounds all that good in person — or if it's anything more complex than a triggering mechanism for pre-produced clips and sequences — is another matter entirely.

Does it not look like a laser-fence? You know, those things in derivative science fiction movies and games that slice up intruders like so much Prosciutto.

Product Page [thebeamz.com]
Press release [PR Newswire]

Thailand has an 18-foot abacus, fronting the counter at a pharmacy in Rayong. The pharmacist reports being able to calculate bills on it faster than with a standard electronic calculator.

Abacus [Reuters via Red Ferret Journal]

A demented facsimile of a folk tune presented itself in mind the moment I set eyes on the ouija board guitar, a contemporary mashup to honor it's crazy blend of art, music and madness.

From the URL, it looks like the artist's name is Nick Holcomb. I'd love to see and hear video of this in action.

Gallery page [via GearFuse]

From the talented Darkpony, drawrer.

Commenting on Alex Handy's remarkable find—the legendary Atari 2600 version of Cabbage Patch Kids Adventure in the Park—reader SC_Wolf points to an entire cloud of these mysterious vapors.

Somehow, I don't think we'll be finding these at the flea market. But we may dream!

Fun From Yesterday! [Mighty God King]

This surreal and haunting video shows Charles Cohen on the "Buchla Music Easel," an almost ancient synthesizer — 1973! — that uses a modular system to allow musicians to generate and modify musical noises within the same unit. Don Buchla created the Music Easel's predecessor, the "Music Box," in 1963, the same year Bob Moog invented his famous synth.

The Music Easel can be run on batteries and easily transported, weighing only 30 pounds. Sadly, only 14 were ever made.

The most beautiful piece of synth porn I've ever seen [Music Thing]

In this video, the man responsible for creating the wireframe images of the Death Star and trench that were used in the briefing scenes of A New Hope explains how he used real computers to "digitize" images. I'm sure I'm not the first to make this observation, but it's really hilarious how futuristic Star Wars seems with its space ships and laser swords, the latest versions of which were wholly created by computers.

Despite having nothing to do with Cheap Trick at all — except for the cheap trick we all play on ourselves believing there is anything unique or selfish about the need to love and to be loved — "I Want You to Want Me" is an interactive art project built from data mined from various dating sites, organizing into a heart-achingly beautiful touchscreen presentation where each person is represented as a balloon.

It was one of the pieces at MoMA's "Design and the Elastic Mind" show, which is apparently no longer on display. I'm kicking myself for missing it.

[via Cool Hunting]

Artist Martin Belger builds remarkable pin-hole cameras, their design meant to evoke the spirit of the object he is photographing. Pictured, his HIV Camera, which contains actual HIV infected blood. Rusty gears, tanned skins and broken antlers are some of the other materials he uses. According to his wacky artist's statement:

I create the cameras from Aluminum, Titanium, Copper, Brass, Bronze, Steel, Silver, Gold, Wood, Acrylic, Glass, Horn, Ivory, Bone, Human Bone, Human Skulls, Human Organs, Formaldehyde, HIV+ Blood and relics all designed to be the sacred bridge of a communion offering between myself and the subject. All to witness and be a tool of the horrors of creation and the beauty of decay presented by the author light and time.

O, ye mortals, be witness and be tool to the UNFATHOMABLE HORRORS OF CREATION! The beauty of decay presented by ME, the Unholy God, The Alpha and Omega, LIGHT AND TIME! Behold my works, ye digital photographers, and DESPAIR!

Sheesh! But awesome cameras. Just don't drop the HIV model.

The Art of Wayne Martin Belger [Official Site via Core 77]

Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks has acquired the rights to 'Ghost in the Shell,' reports Variety, to be made into a 3D live-action movie. Above, the intro to the original anime movie (based on an earlier manga), which includes quite a bit of cartoon female nudity. Should be a corker. Even bad Spielberg sci-fi movies are fun to watch once.

DreamWorks to make 'Ghost' in 3-D [Variety via Complex]

Previously • RED Scarlet 3K camcorder, James Cameron on the future of digital cinema, and trying to grok all these pixels [BBG]

Eleven, the Beautiful Game, is table football with a difference: you can't buy it, and even if you could, you probably could not afford it.

"For many of us, table football is a game that is close to our hearts, holding cherished memories of our childhood and youth. Its popularity also reflects the passion and love that millions of people around the world share for 'the beautiful game' of football."

GRO design's chrome-tastic representation of this classic prelude to pub and family violence will be on show at Milan Design Week, from 16-21 April, and other venues listed at its news page.

The current revisions of the Table Football article at wikipedia—wherein we learn that "stoopid retard is a common name in English" and that "Steven is a man eater"—is a blast.

Product Page [Thanks, Eliot!]

Are you sick of Tetris-themed decor being absurdly expensive? If one is in that particularly weird little club (hi!), these vinyl stickers, crafted by "Fame" of Vancouver, look like they might be a pleasantly cheap.

$42 buys you a set; still not quite as reasonable as they should be, but a snap compared to the ludicrous prices that Tetris shelving allegedly fetches.

Product Page [Fame at Etsy via Technabob]

Update: A group of fun-loving hackers have built a two-player Tetris rig, called 'Tressling,' controlled by arm wrestling.

Project Page (Warning: 'Eye of the Tiger' video auto-plays) [Tresling.org via Engadget]

These disembodied, cart-pushing robot legs highlight the plight of the homeless. Their bursting into flames is said to be unintentional — but to me, it just means that they especially highlight the plight of the homeless in South London.

Walking Shopping Cart [GizmoGarden via Make and Gizmodo]

Alone in art history, the Berwyn Spindle is the only work of sculpture specifically recognized as being of great historical value by the 1992 Paramount tour de force, Wayne's World. A fifty foot tall stiletto skewering 8 rusting hulks, the Spindle deftly sidesteps some irony points by eschewing a Chevy Impala from its line-up of perforated cars.

But now, maybe someone out there will get the chance to deliver that final masterstroke that turns a work of mere sublime beauty into a masterpiece perfectly encapsulating the human condition. Thanks to a campaign by Berwyn residents who have hated the Spindle ever since it was first erected to tickle their collective o-rings, the Spindle has been put up on eBay for auction. The opening bid is $50,000, but like all eBay auctions, they're reaming prospective buyers on shipping: the winner will have to pay $100,000 for delivery.

I'm looking forward to the news stories to come out of this after it's sold. "Impaled Skeleton Found In Red Spindle Volkswagen; Police Mystified By Smile, Box of Kleenex."

Spindle Art Work In Berwyn Illinois [eBay]

Cole Ranze hand-painted these Chuck Taylors with a selection of the most popular Nintendo characters. He's auctioning them off on eBay. They're up to $250 so far, which is a lot of scratch for shoes too eminently radical to ever actually wear.

Hand Painted Nintendo Kicks [Deviant Art via Kotaku]