{"id":22833,"date":"2016-09-02T13:08:42","date_gmt":"2016-09-02T18:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/?p=22833"},"modified":"2016-09-02T13:08:42","modified_gmt":"2016-09-02T18:08:42","slug":"tiny-lego-wonders-art-you-can-make-and-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/02\/tiny-lego-wonders-art-you-can-make-and-break\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny Lego Wonders: Art you can make and break"},"content":{"rendered":"

I remember watching, decades ago, a short film with Picasso. There was a glass wall that you could not see, and Picasso was standing behind it, dressed like a French Artist and holding painting equipment. He then proceeded to draw lines on the glass. Each line had a particular orientation and shape. He put just a couple of lines on the glass, and in so doing, created a great work of art. If I recall correctly, he made a few of them. Years later, visiting Picasso’s home in Paris, I saw a bicycle handlebar thad had been broken and welded roughly back together again. Two pieces of metal, each with a particular size and shape, made into a great work of art.<\/p>\n

\"Just<\/a>
Just a few pieces make three different cars, with a fair amount of detail.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Anybody can do that, right? Draw a couple of lines and call it art? Stick a couple of pieces of metal together and call it art? Or like those modern artists, spill some paint on the floor, frame it, and call it art?<\/p>\n

Well, yes. You can call it art. But it won’t be art. It will be drek.<\/p>\n

\"Track<\/a>
Track not included in design. A minimal brick interurban commuter system.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And, sadly, that is also what happens when the average person takes four or five pieces of LEGO and sticks them together. You get drek. Nothing. Nada.<\/p>\n

But, if you are an artist, you may have a sense of form, color, shape, etc. and when you stick a few pieces of LEGO together, you might get a form that is arguably artistic. Many artists are quite capable of working in a media unfamiliar, in this case LEGO bricks, to produce something, maybe something quite nice. Try it. If you know any artists, give them a handful of LEGO bricks and see what they can do.<\/p>\n

\"Instructions<\/a>
Instructions are as detailed as needed to get the job done, as per usual.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And, it turns out there is a subset of artists who are experts on LEGO — this is their medium — and who can take a handful of LEGO bricks and put them together, and get …. Tiny LEGO Wonders: Build 40 Surprisingly Realistic Mini-Models!<\/a>\"\".<\/p>\n

Tiny LEGO Wonders: Build 40 Surprisingly Realistic Mini-Models!<\/a>\"\" demonstrates 40 different minature models.<\/p>\n

\"TinyLEGOWonders_cover\"<\/a>There are cars, planes, ships, trains, etc. There is a Space Shuttle, and France’s TGV train. There is even a cement mixer.<\/p>\n

The models and designs are very generalizable, so if you have a reasonable collection of LEGO bricks, you can use that collection and this book to construct quite a few miniature models of your own, even if you don’t have the exact pieces.<\/p>\n

The author is Mattia Zamboni, who has written other books on LEGO, and has been a “LEGO Ambassador” since 2015. His day job is to build robots at the University of Applied Science and Arts of Souther Switzerland.<\/p>\n

Here is the table of contents of this fine book:<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

Picasso:<\/p>\n