Plotty

A whiteboard V-Plotter that makes generative art.

V-Plotter \ Arduino

Plotty is a V-Plotter that makes generative art (and also works as a normal plotter)

I designed and 3D-Printed a gondola in Fusion 360 and build the electronics. Plotty is based on an Arduino Mega and works with two stepper motors that are connected to the gondola via gear belts.
The software is based on Johnny-Five, express js and socket IO. It features a graphical web interface and is – besides the generative art component – a fully working vertical plotter.
The Idea was to build a plotter that generates a line “painting” driven by the twitter stream on the topic of NFTs. As most NFTs are procedurally generated it seemed tempting to reuse it aesthethical uselesness to generate new physical art that is not a speculative asset that only exists to be owned by one.

The electronic heart and brain of plotty

Inspiration for generative art. Hommage à Paul Klee - Frieder Nake, 1965

Links

The basis for the software approach is from Ian London \ This is a recommended read on the topic of NFT by Aram Bartholl

A 3D model of the gondola