Machine Drawing Drawing Machines, a project for Pablo Garcia, is a narrative folio in which the patents of 12 historically significant drawing machines are recreated with an industrial Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine. Although CNC drawing is well trodden territory, this project carries poetic undertones in the ironic use of a highly specialized and powerful piece of manufacturing machinery to achieve a level of detail and accuracy that the last five centuries of drawing machines could only aspire towards.
Video from Pablo:
The plates included in the folio span from speculative designs from the 16th century, to commonplace drawing machines of the 20th century:
“Dürer’s Door”, Albrecht Dürer, 1525
Machine for Orthographic Projection, Hans Lencker, 1571
“Perspectograph” (Perspective Device), Baldassare Lanci, 1583
Projection Device, Ludovico Cigoli, 1600-13
Pantograph, Christoph Scheiner, 1608
“A verie easie way to describe a Towne or Castle being within the full sight thereof”, John Bate, 1634
Portable “Picture Box” Camera Obscura, Sir Robert Hooke, 1694
Machine for Anamorphosis, Jacob Leupold, 1713
Perspectograph, Johann Heinrich Lambert, 1752
Camera Lucida, William Hyde Wollaston, 1803
Profile Machine, Carl Augustus Schmalcalder, 1806
Drum Plotter “560″, Calcomp Technology, Inc. 1959
The project went through several stages of drawing tools and techniques before reaching a suitable workflow for production:
This project has been featured on NOTCOT, FastCo Design, Creator’s Project, Gizmodo, Architizer, Create Digital Motion, design boom, Geek.com