TED Blog » Tom Shannon

The painter and the pendulum: Tom Shannon on TED.com

Matthew Trost — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:31:22 +0000

TED visits Tom Shannon in his Manhattan studio for an intimate look at his science-inspired art. An eye-opening, personal conversation with John Hockenberry reveals how nature’s forces — and the onset of Parkinson’s tremors — interact in his life and craft. (TED in the Field: Recorded May 2009, New York, NY. Duration: 13:22)

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

Watch Tom Shannon’s talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 600+ TEDTalks.

The week in comments

Shanna Carpenter — Sat, 09 May 2009 08:56:40 +0000

This week’s comment round-up is a tribute to TED.com’s spiffy new commenting system, that lets you rate others’ statements up or down and have threaded conversations! Rather than using our own editorial tastes to select comments, today we’ve let you, the community, pick your top 5. Here are the highest rated comments on each talk at the moment:

On Louise Fresco’s TEDTalk:How to feed the whole world (the case for white bread):
I am a fan of permaculture. However, I think the important thing to note is the shades of grey being discussed. Everyone has an axe to grind. she is not really promoting big agribusiness per se, (in fact she explicitly stated how destructive it is) but she is instead talking about the use of high and low tech. Most people only seem to listen for there own key words and hot buttons. Even though I actually had the privilege of learning about permaculture back in the early 90s by living and working on a collective farm and eating the incredible produce, I still think that saying RAH-RAH PERMACULTURE is still as pointless as saying GO GO AGRIBUSINESS. Think of it as mental monoculture. People are starving and that kind of narrowness is one of the main reasons. — Brock (+5)

On Al Gore’s TEDTalk: Alarming new slides depict a worsening climate crisis:
“I was simply pointing out that if the earth has been cooling for over 7 years, the term “global warming” is presently inaccurate.”
By that logic global warming is inaccurate every night and accurate every day. — Markku (+3)

On Tom Shannon’s TEDTalk: Gravity-defying sculpture inspired by the sun, the earth, the moon:
This guy is a genius, reminds me of a modern day da Vinci. I really like the idea of an artistic “conscious” orb. — Eli (+4)

On Mae Jemison’s TEDTalk: A bold vision for teaching arts and sciences — together:
Fabulous, my favorite quote from this, “Science provides an understanding of a universal experience, and arts provide a universal understanding of a personal experience.” Love it! — Nathalie (+7)

On Sean Gourley’s TEDTalk: The mathematics of war:
My only comment as a first time TED poster is that he is strictly rating effectiveness of an attack based upon the casualty figures. Would an attack on power substation that causes no casualties be ineffective? Furthermore, major news organizations tend to share source data so I am not sure how effective using multiple media outlets would be. Without access to the original source data you will have no real idea on how many sources are really producing your base data. — Jason (+4)

Here’s to a new system and more conversation!

Pendulum paintings of Tom Shannon

tedchris — Wed, 06 May 2009 11:45:52 +0000

I’m a huge fan of sculptor & painter Tom Shannon, a gentle genius who turns science into art and art into science. We just posted today his 2003 TED talk showing his gorgeous science-inspired sculptures and his vision for the Air Genie video airship. In the last few months he has returned to a form of painting he invented more than 20 years ago. He created a mechanized paint dispenser that is suspended on a giant pendulum over a canvas on the floor. Tom sets the pendulum in motion, typically on an oval pathway, and then uses a remote control device to select with careful precision which paints are streamed onto the canvas and in what quantity.

At his Manhattan studio the other evening, I watched him in action. The results are spectacular. He’s given me permission to share some of these images, none of which are up on his site yet. (Apart from the first two, these are details of larger paintings.) They are to be the subject of an exhibition in New York later this year. (Watch this space).

View the images in the Flickr set “New work from Tom Shannon” >>

or watch the slideshow:

Gravity-defying sculpture inspired by the sun, the earth, the moon: Tom Shannon on TED.com

Matthew Trost — Wed, 06 May 2009 10:22:05 +0000

Tom Shannon http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/tom_shannon_s_magnetic_sculpture.html

“>shows off his gravity-defying, otherworldly sculpture — made of simple, earthly materials — that floats and spins like planets on magnets and suspension wire. (Recorded at TED2003, February 2003, in Monterey, California. Duration: 11:55.)

Watch Tom Shannon’s talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 400+ TEDTalks.

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