American Glory

In a tribute to all the good that has come from the American experiment, with respect for the scientific and technological fruits of western civilization, and with just a bit of mocking of knee-jerk patriotism, we dedicate this robotic kinetic sculpture on this day, the Fourth of July, 2002.

The "American Glory" is a flag waving machine. State of the art microprocessor control, conceived and realized by the artist, executes choreographed movements that last five to ten seconds each after which the artwork returns to parade rest for a respectful minute or two before snapping to attention for the next element of the performance.

Watch the Video

You can watch the only authorized video of American Glory. In this clip Glory executes the move "1:2 Lissajous" while assistant choreographer Chris Cunningham observes.

Windows Media or Quicktime

How it Works

             ATtiny12
              --v--
        rst -|     |- vcc
xservo pb3 -|     |- pb2 sck
yservo pb4 -|     |- pb1 miso
        gnd -|     |- pb0 mosi
              -----

An Atmel AVR Tiny12 microcontroller generates two channels of pulse width modulated control signal for a pair of Airtronics 94102 servo motors. Custom subroutines interpret moves in polar coordinates using a four quadrant fractional multiply and table lookup transcendental functions.

Here is a script excerpt from "Reverse Flaring Spiral".

spiral: ldi    t,0
         ldi    r,0
         ldi    v,-3
spi1:    ldi    p,10
spi2:    rcall polar
         add    t,v
         dec    p
         brne   spi2
         inc    r
         cpi    r,120
         brne   spi1

Kudos for Glory

It is rare to see a work that melds artistic sensitivity, technology, and patriotism in such a graceful fashion.

Careful attention to the ironic ontologies of modern military industrial disthaestic gestalt is simultaneously an homage to the jejeune inventions of an assassimated feudo-pluto-hypno-mechastate, and the old, old challenge to disingenuity in all art everywhere. Let's hope he sells 'em by the sack.

Brilliant. This young artist ties it all together in this piece, a collector's dream.

How about an igniter option? (To light a sparkler, of course!) Have you considered the cat toy market?

It's brilliant! I want one. I'd be happy to pay any price you want. Do you have a payment plan?

Limited Reproductions

Order hand-made and numbered reproductions by the author starting at $20,000. Reservations are being accepted now for 2003 production season. Contact the artist at ward@c2.com. Serious collectors only, please.