Magnetic Sculpture

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Instead of a solid, heavy form, he tried to tried to create a kind of sculpture that floats in space.

MAGNETS ARE A CHOKING HAZARD AND WORSE! Magnets are one of the few items that when swallowed may need surgical removal. If you have a child who even stands the remote chance of putting a magnet in their mouth please save this activity until they are older. Alternatively complete adult supervision is required for this activity. To make it safer we used large industrial sized magnets rather than small neodymium magnets which are just too tiny and tempting for little ones to put in their mouth. Takis's studio, he began developing it in the 1960s or the early 1970s and it wasn't completed until much later. The possibilities are endless for creating awe-inspiring works of art using magnets in a range of shapes and sizes. These pieces can make a great desktop piece for your office, or even just a fun conversation piece for your living room. The best part? You can easily change the shape of the sculpture over time. A fascinating and intriguing object that is ideal for the home or office and is sure to amaze friends and colleagues.

You can gather your own parts for this project or use the kit (shown below) from Make magazine. You'll also need: FIRST AND FOREMOST BEFORE WE GET STARTED, A WORD OF CAUTION: Magnets should never ever be ingested. Ever. Any magnet that is sized small enough to fit into a child’s mouth should only be used with adult supervision, or better yet, not used. When working with magnets and kids use LARGE magnets that are not choking hazards please! See more info on the Tips section below. Also note that nuts and bolts are choking hazards so please supervise when trying this project with kids! Ceramic magnets can chip. When they chip a sharp shard may break off. Again, adult supervision of this activity is recommended. If a magnets chips or breaks remove it from the play. It's something contemplative and Takis is often thought about in relationship to the cosmos and to energy fields and the sounds of the universe.

Knowledge of magnetism could have even predated the Monte Alto culture, Chinchilla says. Archaeologists discovered a magnetized bar rich in hematite dating from 1400 B.C. to 1000 B.C. at San Lorenzo in the present-day Mexican state of Veracruz, one of the major cities of the Olmec. If this bar was somehow used as a magnetic tool, it would mean that Mesoamerican knowledge of magnetic forces predates even the early descriptions by Thales of Miletus. This project uses some serious magnets, and with that comes serious potential for damage and injury. Here's the obligatory lecture to help you avoid trouble... The people of Monte Alto] chose the boulders, and they shaped them in such a way that the magnetism would be measurable at certain points of the anatomy of the sculptures,” Chinchilla says. It's best to build a base for your sculpture. Instructables recommended using a cylindrical project box, which provides an ideal platform for displaying your finished piece. After heating up your hot glue gun, apply some of the glue to a few disc magnets and affix them to the inside of the box. If you follow this technique, you can actually use metal nuts and bolts to build sculptures on top of the project box. Note: The stronger the magnets you use, the taller the structures you can create. He was self-taught and an autodidact in all types of material whether it was philosophy or history or politics.And while waiting for the train he becomes inspired by the flashing lights and the antenna and aerials that he sees around the station platform.

Pull the stop knot tight, then grasp the clevis pin and pull the other end of the line until the stop knot is pulled up tight against the overhand knot. Now trim the line close to the stop knot and use a flame to melt the new end of the line into a small ball. The ball keeps the stop knot from pulling through, and the stop knot keeps the overhand knot on the clevis from pulling through. He started to make sculpture which he called Signals and which became one of his most iconic type of work. Spectra fishing line is strong and abrasion-resistant, but it's also a little "slippery" for knot tying purposes. We can use that to our advantage, though. Thread one end of the line through the hole in the clevis pin and tie an overhand knot around the end of the clevis. Our goal is to keep the knot small, so it doesn't show beneath the cube, so the overhand knot is a good choice for that. On the other hand, it will slip, and this is slippery line. The solution is to tie another overhand knot on the loose end of the line to act as a stop knot (see series of pictures below). After priming and painting our nuts Ican’t say I recommend this step. The paint just doesn’t adhere well to the metal. It did add a lovely splash of color which was enticing to my kids but be prepared for lots of chipped paint!At least some of the stones used to craft sculptures were hit by lightning at some point in the past, magnetizing the material, according to the research conducted on 11 basalt figures. Moreover, the potbellied sculptures were carved in such a way that protruding features had the strongest magnetic forces, suggesting the artisans knew which parts of the material were most magnetic. The people of Monte Alto carved large stone heads in addition to potbellied sculptures, many of which are strongly magnetized, suggesting the 2,000-year-old culture was aware of magnetism.

Keep these magnets at least a foot away from all magnetic media, including computers, hard drives, floppy disks, cassette tapes, VHS tapes, and credit cards. Keep them away from consumer electronics, including computer monitors, VCR's, TV's, cameras, cellphones, and personal music devices. Keep them away from things you don't want magnetized, like watches and tools. Keep them away from people with pacemakers or other implants.There's something sensual about these works that brings the audience in to look closely and take delight in these sculptural and sonic worlds.