Joseph Griffith’s bicycle drawing machine

Materials: Felt-tip markers, exercise equipment, bicycle wheels, steel, aluminium, rope, rubber, timber, plastic, cement, found materials.

2009 Melbourne Fashion Festival

PENTHOUSE MOUSE
The Capitol – Toorak Rd. South Yarra
Melbourne VIC 3000 Australia

The project consists of a stationary bike, which when pedalled by a user becomes a tool for drawing on a canvas. the spinning front wheel of the bike powers a special apparatus that draws circles on the surface using coloured markers.

There is also another drawing element attached to the bike’s handle bars. this part draws based on the side to side motion of the handle bars. the whole system creates art through the user, but each piece is completely random and unpredictable.

My thoughts

I actually really like this device. This concept has fundamentally the same concept as using the Cycloid Drawing Machine which looks something like this:

I felt very amazed by how a set machine was able to create different drawing with different users depending on the speed of the cycling, the colors choice of the user and the overall raw look of the device.

I feel that if there are two more drawing walls on the left, right, the user will feel extremely engaged. It would be good to see a version where the ‘ink’ of the artwork is changed to paint instead of using pen or pencils.