Whatever happened, Happened
“Whatever happened, Happened” is the title of Daniel Palacios’ latest work (WhH), powered by an Arduino Uno, representing the flow of time, how hard it is to stop it, and the human need for a point of reference to compare to. In his own words:
WhH is a machine which creates growth rings in a section of virgin wood, so that we may be part of a process which we believed before to be foreign to us, because we weren’t capable of perceiving it.
The machine engraves concentric rings in the wood surface by laser, so that the result is closer to reality than a computer-generated graphic. It is just as important that the graphic is realised slowly over time, involving external factors which could affect the process, separating us from the instantaneousness of a printer in order to understand the process that it is giving at that exact instant, while confronting the vision we are accustomed to, because we will always be able to make a comparison with the rings that it already drew at the moment of our visit.
Every day the machine begins drawing a new ring, taking as a reference point the shape of the previous one from the day before. However, the distance of this and variation of its perimeter with be directly tied to the number of people in the hall and their movements; this will also affect the number of passes the machine makes over the ring throughout the day, thus influencing its thickness and depth.
Daniel is known for his pieces including microcontroller technology. His first solo piece Waves that represented sound physically ran on an Arduino Diecimila using a bunch of PIR sensors and some relays, OutComes was a collection of human-size antennas made of pipes that would play depending on how people affected the electromagnetic field of a room stuffed with those (he made his own Arduino derivatives for this project), and now WhH is a self-made laser engraver replicating the growth of a tree running on Arduino Uno that reads information from the room.
Something I like from Daniel’s work is that he is happy to share. All his pieces come with the technical description on how he made them. And a CC-SA-NC license that will allow you replicating his work. This link will give you the information about WhH.
For more information, visit Daniel Palacios’ website.