DE-CGI: MAKING THE UNREAL REAL

We challenged you to take something that is usually computerized and remake it with natural media. The incentive: great prizes from HP including a brand new laptop. Here are the entries we received, with the winners and runners-up at the bottom.

Jesse Vital of Hollywood (Homepage) painted this beautiful watercolor of an iPhone tuned to a live channel.

Jim Woodring — you know his work for sure – created this amazing wireframe Möbius thing that seems both wondrous and sinister.

Sean “LupinFan” Smiley offers “A light cycle that always cleans up the competition.”

Dorkus1218 (Dan FitzGerald ) recreated the Photoshop tool menu with real tools.

Andy Havens’ sidewalk has its own progress bar. I fear that luggage will be waiting a while.

K. McQueen converted a diagnostic electron microscope image of a computer chip defects into a three-dimensional wall art, complete with removable wearable element.

h0n0rb create a zoetrope featuring the Flying Toasters of legend.

Sillybicycle’s piece is a sound waveform recreated to be a tangible work of art

Rubirubi created a QR code quilt from recycled clothes.

The quilt is 33 squares wide by 33 squares high (1089 total). It is about 56 inches wide. I could not be sure until it was completed whether or not it would work. Although I did many tests with color threshholds, there was no way of telling if an imperfect seam or one misplaced square would render it unreadable. If so, I would have no way of knowing which one. In the end, though, everything worked and my quilt is readable, wrappable code.

glatt1’s stop motion animation “pays homage to the CGI that Pixar did in its famous first all CGI film, Luxo Jr. back in 1986.”

Boing Boing fans will recognize Jackhammer Jill and the Unicorn Chaser. The animation consists of 194 individual still shots that I took with my still camera and joined together into an animation. Jackhammer Jill and the unicorn were drawn by me in crayon and Sharpie.

Look at steotch‘s entry. Just look at it.

Vadermoss’s entry, ‘Totoro Wins Mario Kart’ was painted with watercolor on illustration board.

Sheala made a Pac-Man out of junk.

GarageDragon’s animated Paper Tetris looks like more fun than the (un)real thing! View the full-size animated GIF at Flickr.

Technoplastique writes in: “I’ve been doing some paintings of space, and since I’m pretty sure they aren’t actually making movies/tv shows on location in space yet (though I’m sure it will happen eventually) I think this probably qualifies.”

In Rogue Entomologist’s entry, an analog robot finds kitten.

Simon_for_hire’s Macaroni Matrix seems destined to glitch out in a pan of boiling water. Swallow the red sauce?

Robert Wheelwright made the 3d pipes screen saver from windows out of PVC piping: “It’s 96 frames, which took two evenings with the blinds closed (for uniform light) to take. There’s 30 feet of 1/2″ pvc pipe and 22 pipe couplers in the shot. Pictures were taken with a Nikon D60.” See his work in progress report.

Floris Kristin Wheelwright made an incredible arrangement “plucked from Pandora’s flower fields.”

Clara Plata animated an entire journey, with auto navigation
imitated with glass markers. Click the image to view the whole series assembled as a (4MB) animated GIF.

Also Seisaku Katayanagi-Van Enck “swore I’d never do an ironic Mario painting,” but found that “there are no certainties in life.”

I had to leave for school a day earlier than expected, so this turned into quite a rush job. I had about 2.5 hours to paint it. I was experimenting with a different surface, which cracked quite badly when heated. I fixed the crack and removed dust specks in Photoshop. I hope that doesn’t violate any guidelines. As I said, it’s quite rough currently, but hopefully someone finds it somewhat amusing.

:J.W. created a nuclear explosion with a unicorn chaser. Or is it a unicorn with a nuke chaser?

Luke Mathews’ drew a cute picture of blinky. Thanks, Luke!

WINNERS: BOY THIS WAS HARD!

The Winners are Rubirubi’s QR Code Quilt, Jim Woodring’s Möbius vector loop, and Dorkus1218’s life-size Photoshop tools!

The caliber of entries this time around was beyond all expectations. So high, that we’re offering some unnanounced runner-up prizes, sourced from the Dungeon of Unreturned Test Gadgets. If you’re in the list, pick from the following: an HP Netbook ($250 value), Joule iPod/iPad stand ($130 value), an iPad Sleeve from Saddleback Leather ($70 value), padded netbook sleeve ($40 value). First come, first served!
Winners:

The Runners-up are Steotch’s cross-stitched banana, GarageDragon’s Tetris animation, Jesse Vital’s watercolor painting, K. McQueen’s wall art and Floris Kristin Wheelwright’s glass flower.

Never has it been harder to deny every entry a prize. Truly amazing work! To receive your prizes, email rob at bb net with your mailing address.