Gadgetory

welcome back to the show everybody we are here in the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles California if we found the man behind the hamster power and hamster drawing machine hamster poet hamster drying machines right here in front of us is right here in front of us we're looking right at it in real life and Neil Mendoza is the artist and designer behind that thank you first of all for letting us come here and check out the the hamster and the Machine the hamster pout Hampstead rowing machine no problem that's all yeah so we have to ask you why this like what made you think this was a great project to embark on because it seems like it was really a lot of work to make happen um it was a lot of work it kind of evolved into being what it is today started off with kind of a fascination with drawing machines and the ability to encode complicated drawings into mechanical devices so the the drawing of the hamster is encoded into the shape of the wheels around the outside so I started becoming really interested in that and then I built a drawing machine which work but then I was like what on earth is this thing in a drawer and so a hamster seemed good there's not really enough hamster art out there so I made it oh we agree we agree so I made a hamster drawing machine that I'm like oh I don't want people to turn it around or was this fits a hamster drawing machine then it should be powered by a hamster and so you came over the idea to draw a hamster before you thought of powering it with a hamster I think so it's kind of the men the memory is a little vague crazy all around the same time it's sort of yeah you your website has a lot of projects that sort of incorporate the intersection of digital and mechanical technologies and how when did you first start kind of getting into that as medium because it's a really interesting medium that I think not a lot of people think of when they think of art I don't think that combination is really prevalent and so to see something like this is is hey really delightful like people are I mean we were overjoyed to see it in person it's just it's so exciting and new and it feels really fresh so what what started you down that path I think I've always liked tinkering ever since I was a kid like taking things to pieces and putting them back together again and then but then I went to university and studied computer science and kind of resigned myself to a career kind of like in a gray cubicle but then yeah after going bit like a hamster I guess you're like a happy because I missed after well I'm swirl of life but then like at some point I came across like different people doing interesting stuff with technology and code and started trying to get into it myself and I already had some experience making you know doing programming electronic so then i took that experience i guess i started applying it to to art making so so what is the process of creating a drawing machine like this it's such a it's such a simple thing to turn a circle into a you know complicated drawing on a hamster and that's sarcasm so simple you're like it so such a simple thing no goes from a simple circle to see more time yeah yeah yeah so what is the how does one how does one go about making a hamster drawing machine um how do you help a hamster draw itself yeah I used a piece of open source source software called openframeworks and it's like a coding framework that allows you to easily make creative stuff like computer graphics or sound or take inputs in them I made a physics simulation of the drawing arm part of the machine and then I kind of like use that physics simulation to kind of trace out where the wheels would need to be if the pen was in the correct place and then so then i end up with these two circular drawings and then i used like a machine called a cnc machine which is basically like a big robot to kind of cut it out of wood for me and that's how you would go about it and but originally i cut out these two parts of the machine just out of wooden and tried to make them all rotate together but they were far too flimsy so then the whole thing is sitting on kind of like a big aluminium circle behind it with like the kind of chain you get in your bicycle sandwich between it yeah give it some weight and stiffness why I love the idea of you iterating on this idea over and over until you created what you want hit and then you had to employ the labor of the hamster commission taking a break yeah well you know it's exhausting yeah gonna run now will I can barely run down a flight of stairs that's hard work maybe he's going to post his selfie on Instagram that's true maybe he's really into social media heavy hat does the hamster have its own social media account is a great question um as far as I know no but it's not actually my hamster so the real guardians of the hamster would have the true answer for that this hamster feels like a celebrity is the hamster of a name Georgie jôji can you what kind of reaction have you been getting to this piece I mean people are really like happy I think guys just like they like they really like interested in how the drawing machine part of it works and then they're just really happy to see the whole thing come together I mean they like people's interest seems to shift between the two parts of it and then take it in as a whole and be kind of like wow that's really cute it's interesting because you know from one perspective you could look at it as almost a cage that he's forced to have this you know this kind of tyrannical rule to be forced to constantly make an image of himself or it could be this really joyous happy experience I like that people take the ladder I mean I kind of like it to be open to interpretation so if you wanna like interpret it as a kind of comment on evil capitalism man or if you want to interpret it as just nonsense you can also do that whimsical happiness that that's how I interpreted whimsical happiness um you you also have another piece here that is really interesting in that I don't even know how to describe this there are there's a microphone that picks up your scent your words and then it will project throw your words literally onto a screen and then the is a foot that can kick your words and there's also another receptacle that if it catches a word it will actually say the word out loud let's talk a little bit about that because you know one of those machines because I really I just love these fantastical sort of contraptions that you put together using technology oh this is really fascinating to me and how you kind of come up with the idea to sort of embark on these projects because in my wildest dreams I don't think of anything quite like that and so don't them have sort of a Rube Goldberg s very much yield to them yeah um where you mean how do I get those kind of ideas yeah that and also um if you want to talk a little bit about that particular project like I'd love to hear about how that even came together because it just seems like there's a lot of for lack of a better term like moving parts to it even though it's throwing words around so we're at first of all yeah where do you find inspiration for things how do you kind of decide on a path to take for a project I mean I think today a lot of times we take technology for granted like say you use Siri on your iPhone it's doing probably more complicated stuff than my my installation is doing but like I think it's really good to deconstruct that kind of stuff and make people think about technology and realize that a lot of the ways we use is arbitrary and get them to like reengage with it from a kind of like as if they're seeing it in you and I guess that's one of the things I try to do with my work is to kind of make people realize that a lot of technology we use today is kind of arbitrary and dictated to us by companies who have their own agendas so making a guess random nonsense to reignite people with interest in technology around us is one reason why I make it I guess that particular piece started with started with like voice recognition technology and kind of here tryna like maybe here show people the inside of how one of those systems might work will get people to re-engage with that a little bit more and then I guess just went down some kind of surreal nonsense my fav bit of a Monty Python 3 abstract monty python is beginning you know his animated bitch it feels a little like that I mean I think I was too I was playing around with two things at the same time and becoming one project I was playing around with like showing people like the inside of series brain possibly or and also like this idea of combining projection with physical objects so like the words by out the thing and then this actual robotic book can kick them so it's like I like kind of this interplay between the physical and digital Turkish often we spend our time staring at screens kind of absorbed in this kind of like virtual world where I think it's nice to kind of try and bring people back to you know three-dimensional reality but mix the two up at the same time because there's really interesting things you can do with virtual start and Peter graphic as well so do you um do you find yourself interested at all in augmented reality and virtual reality since that's like a new kind of upcoming thing is that something that maybe you're interested in taking your art and design to or a little bit less I mean I actually did some projects with that like a few years back like a fermented reality projects before it was like cool c'mon go can't believe I fucking won't go came out and it was fun it's a fun toy it it feels a little bit still feels a little bit gimmicky but I mean Pokemon go might be the first company that actually kind of you know you're okay right a killer app for sure it seems that way but the thing I don't really like about virtual reality is yeah it kind of like takes you away from the world it kind of enables escapism so it's like fun for gaming and stuff but I think with my work I want people so you know engage with the moment rather than escaping the moment and yeah even though maybe people will be able to create a lot awesome stuff in virtual worlds it's still going to be created by people and you know if we look at our cities they were just big like rectangular boxes so good no I think it's much easier also to connect with people in an emotional level if you're making three-dimensional stuff like we've evolved to kind of interact and perceive the world in three dimensions and so but yeah maybe virtual reality is going to get rid of that barrier and we'll trick our brains into thinking we're in some kind of three-dimensional virtual space but anyway so someday someday okay but well you've certainly evoked a lot of emotional happiness from us I'm so glad yeah and our viewers to I'm so glad that we got to actually see this in persons like very excited for us and thank you for talking to us about your projects and your art and if you want to check out Neil's work you go to Neil Mendoza com we'll have all the information on the website too and that's that's it for our interview so we are going to take a quick break and then we're going to magically appear back in the studio and continue the show so stick around its tomorrow daily