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"I remember the first time my bulb burned out. I thought, 'That's it! I'm burnt out! Eighty-sixed!' […] And then the master gave me a brand new bulb… and I just glowed." - Lampy, The Brave Little ToasterFormer Design Academy Eindhoven student Echo Yang is having his "master" moment, breathing new life into a few lucky old gadgets. As part of his Autonomous Machines Project, the recent I-D grad has eschewed contemporary solder-and-code methods of producing generative artworks, opting instead to repurpose phased-out analog technologies into art-creating robots.Take the hand-mixer, for instance. Once a boon for any homemaker who wanted whipped cream peaks without a week's worth of whisking, the cord-powered technology now only resides in the cupboards of the most tennis-elbow weathered weekend warriors. But with the addition of some paintbrush bristles and watercolor paint, Echo Yang has the time-worn technology whipping up sumi-e Zen circles with the push of an old plastic button.The rest of the results are just as revitalizing: wind-up toys making pointilist spin art, vacuum-cleaner splatter painters, and electric shavers pretty much recreating your standard Photoshop paintbrush. It's an experiment we can all take notes from, especially since piles of e-waste have been growing since the Industrial Revolution.Check out more of Echo Yang's work via Cargo, and see if you can't come up with any more uses for this newly-old, but now, officially newly-new technology.h/t psfk.com
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