My eye was just caught by this item on eBay.
It's a contemporary agglomeration based on an old clock and an Ideal-keyboard Hammond typewriter, like this one from Geoff Flash's collection.
The intricacy and oddity of the "typewriter" clock almost make me suspect that its design was generated by AI, but I think it's more likely that it was created by some Chinese designer who was looking for ways to appeal to the insatiable Western hunger for antiquity.
Tacky? Yes. Illogical? Yes. Nevertheless, kinda cool as yet another sign of the durable appeal of typewriters. Would you agree?
PS: If you want the object, go for it.
To me, it screams AI design, and I see nothing improbable about the idea that the company that made it generated dozens or hundreds of possible designs and chose one or more to fabricate.
ReplyDeleteYou may be right.
DeleteAs a follower suggested on Instagram: "It's a time travel device. You need to type in your destination."
ReplyDeleteGosh. Thats... odd.
ReplyDeleteHmm, prompts a thought for an experiment; hook an AI generator directly to a 3D printer -or maybe that is exactly what was done here.
Novel -and shows that at least elements of the typewriter are floating in our (and thus distortedly in AI) 'consciousness' :-D
I'm sure someone, somewhere, is working on three-dimensional generative AI. What will it create?
DeleteThere are already quite a few 3D digital object generators. Maybe 3D-printing them is relatively trivial?
DeleteGiven the link between the mechanics of clocks and typewriters (springs, pawls etc etc) it strikes me as almost appropriate. Remember Matthias Schwalbach and FXWagner came from generations of German clock makers.
ReplyDelete