So it took me a while to figure out what the Pixel Factory, designed by Kenichi Okada, actually did. Something about the documentation told me that it had to be an amazing idea, and it is.
It’s basically a 7×7 pixel, completely mechanical, moving image player. It seems to be made out of cardboard, plexi, and fiber optics, and that’s it. No electronics or even a light source it seems. The “movies” are played by moving sheets of light patterns printed on transparent film across a linear array of 49 fiber optic leads. This linear array is then routed to a square grid on the side of the box, converting from one dimension to two dimensions.
The movie conversions seem to be made using a Max/MSP patch (the choice of discerning new media artists everywhere) and printed. Very creative.
Pixel Factory [via we-make-money-not-art]
