The Dress Bjork Should Have Worn
The Dress Bjork Should Have Worn1 was first exhibited May 2001 as an entry to the 7th Leonardo Challenge sponsored by the Eli Whitney Museum, New Haven CT
“Turns of Mind”
The Prime Movements
Nature turns wheels with muscle, wind and water in dutiful simplicity. Leonardo’s mind reconstructs that movement. He collects and contrives twists and turns to compose an infinite choreography: sometimes a dull march, sometimes a graceful waltz, sometimes a jazzy jitterbug.
The Controller
The Museum constructs MacroChip Controllers to teach basic mechanics and basic invention. A crank and shaft move cams which alter the direction, the motion and, the speed of three or more lifters. The limited movement of the rotating shaft can be divided, transmitted coordinated and combined in unlimited applications.
The Challenge
Explore the simple movement vocabulary of this common controller. Adapt it, install it, transform it in a construction – that moves or not – to enrich our anthology of the infinite twists of the creative mind.
We will send you a kit to assemble the basic Controller along with a 12×12 inch box which you may use – or not – to stabilize the work. It may be part of the construction or just a display platform. The idea of Controller is a launching point for your thinking. Elaborate it, transform it, enlarge it, reduce it, conceal it, reveal it: in all cases, the essence of the Controller. [Eli Whitney Museum]
