Flip Discs: Sensory Art at it's Finest
posted Mar 17, 2021, Elizabeth Lau (2021)
The evolution of art over time is very interesting and I suggest, if you have a little time on your hands, to study some art history. In today's age, it's really interesting to see how people have integrated our modern day advances into art. Today's spotlight is on BREAKFAST, a New York City based art collective that focuses on using media and technology to express creativity. They especially work to connect their audiences to new experiences and destinations while also highlighting powerful stories. Their focus is based around "a unique blend of computer science, mechanical engineering, and playful, emotionally-striking aesthetics" which allows them to break the boundaries of what is traditionally defined as art.
BREAKFAST has a ton of extremely interesting innovation, but what intrigued me the most was their Flip-Disc technology. You probably are already familiar with flip disc displays, they're the displays made up of digital dots that are often found on buses and signs around the world.
But BREAKFAST has taken that digital medium and flipped it to be physical and three dimensional. Watching a video of these things work is magical, from the little clicks of each pixel to the ripple effects that occur whenever the display changes. What intrigues me the most are the endless possibilities available with this technology. From motion sensors to game software, just looking at the videos available on BREAKFAST's site as well as countless other videos on the internet was a rabbit hole for me. Check out these two that I especially enjoyed:
But how does it work? BREAKFAST designed each dot with a magnetic spring to essentially propel the disc from one side to the other. The real engineering, however, is how one gets all those little dots to work together. For this, they designed a modular system of 28x28 pixels, each connected to their own driver circuits and microcontrollers, which allows the module to be controlled by an app or some other software. By combining many modules together, BREAKFAST designed something that could be used both aesthetically or conventionally. There's not much released about the actual technology of Flip-Discs which makes sense because with such advanced technology, BREAKFAST doesn't want to risk their work being stolen by others.
As beautiful as they are, Flip-Discs come attached with a hefty price tag. I did some digging around and the minimum price that one might have to pay to get the smallest installation of Flip-Discs which costs upwards of $100,000. Just a tad more than what I have in my bank account.
I suggest going through the rest of what BREAKFAST has to offer because this truly is just the tip of the iceberg. Their sculptures are amazing and just diving into their website alone had me stunned again and again at their brilliant blending of mechanical technology and art. Their vision is incredible and I personally cannot wait to see what they'll do next.