On Thursday March 16th, during Fab Academy 2017 Week 08, a very inspiring lecture was given by artist Olafur Eliasson: I already knew some of his works, in particular the Blind Pavillion at Venice Biennale. It was very interesting to browse around and have a look to his studio: some things, for example geodesic-like structures, immediately communicated to me, as far as I can tell from my everyday experience, a great affinity in general with the Fab Lab Network (and ideas behind it: such as research, collaboration, sustainability) and in particular with Crunchlab -the lab that I contribute to run in San Dona'di Piave (Venice Metropolitan Area, Italy) and the one which I refer as the facility for machines and materials during my Fab Academy 2017 weekly assignments: as a matter of facts this lab is mainly populated by artists and architects, being located inside the context of Parco della Scultura in Architettura, an open-air public park museum with works from well known artists and architects (Sol LeWitt, Bruno Munari, Alvaro Siza Viera, Aldo Rossi, Alberto Campo Baeza among the others).

At the end of his lecture, Olafur talked about "Smiling Works", a special assignment for Fab Academy 2017 students: "make a work of art using a smile"; that's about both form and content (maybe the essence of art itself: the way to amplify through the form a certain content); this special challenge about the theme of smile, it's in fact very interesting: Smiling WORKS 1.from a chemical point-of-view (endorphins release) 2.from a social point-of-view (smiles between two or more individuals) a 3.from a sociological point-of-view (degree of trust in modern societies). Since Olafur kept this assignment with no particular constraints (on this point I noticed the difference from Neil's assignments, but art is free for definition!) we were free to chose between different and controversial points-of-view about smile, and even choose between working on individual or group assignment.

Content: material and immaterial

I discussed a little about this topics with some friends here at the Crunchlab, and the I decided to go for the individual assignment: first of all because I'm the only Fab Academy student from here, and then because I declaratedly didn't want to necessarily reach the solution to the problem, but just some ideas to be maybe further discussed and developed. Since the challenge is basically "how to work with smile at a representational level", here I find in fact the BIG problem: because for instance I don't believe it's just about working with a Smiley (even if Smiley is "form" and nowadays -through the web and online social networks "emoticons"- heavily part part of global culture and everyone's life, therefore it's in some ways POP-ART) but it's something more: for me it's about "connecting the dots" -it's about finding a deep link beetween Olafur's and Neil's worlds; in both of which, at this point of my life, I feel by chance "inside". The link I'm looking for could possibly be: "getting material the immaterial / getting immaterial the material"? Because a smile have a strong immaterial content, being deeply correlated to sentiments (love, complicity, empathy, understanding, compassion, happiness, deep joy, ...), and what we do in Fab Academy is dealing with immaterial stuff (bits) and material stuff (atoms), and building machines :)

Form: "The Smile Dispenser Machine"

Since in Fab Academy we learn to build machines, my proposal for Olafur's assignment is a Smile Dispenser Machine; it can be made as a lottery machine, in the form of a geodesic sphere, according to Olafur's poetics and as an hommage to american architect and designer Richard Buckminster Fuller; as different size options, it can be tiny, small, medium, large or extra-large size; depending on the place where it has to be installed, and of course budget.

Machine will be distributing to people random personalized "smiling" messages from sets of 100 or more different messages, inside small yellow containers like the one of the worldwide famous candy Kinder Surprise; these containers 1.have a characteristic shape that reminds joy (smile!), childhood (smile!), happiness (smile!), chocolate (chemical smile!), 2.are part of popular culture and 3.are largerly used for DIY modding (derivative "artworks": including minions, chicks, and smileys itself!) 4.are reminding of a big pill (smile as a big medicine, "the cause and solution to, all of life's problems"); messages can be crafted in order to make people smile, or just being famous quotes about smile, or just a mix; the idea is more or less that of the Fortune Cookies (BTW also Fortune messages can be used, some of them makes smile a lot, sometimes even not on purpose :) -as a reference and option, there's also famous command line software found on unix-like systems called "fortune", with very good sets).

Here's is some quote examples:

• "I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection" (Leonardo da Vinci)
• "Let my soul smile through my heart and my heart smile through my eyes, that I may scatter rich smiles in sad hearts (Paramahansa Yogananda)
• "Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray" (Lord Byron)
• "If you're able to help some people and make them smile, then that's worth so much more than buying a pair of shoes (Maria Sharapova)
• "Man who puts hand in bush not always gardener!" (Confucius -more like in "fortune/stand-up" style)

Machine can be automatic, have motors and pulleys to transfer movement and deliver the containers; pulleys can be made of CNC milled wood, for instance from 18mm thick plywood panels

the final effect could be possibly that of a Leonardo's Machine; during revision about mechanical design, also a wonderful Marble Machine was shown to the class:

Last but not least, machine can be interactive, through the use of a microcontrolled DIY milled board, sensors and actuators. The most simple sensor could possibly be a big red "mushroom" button, to start a single message draw.

Well, I believe that's all for now; at the moment everything is just an idea, even if I don't know how yet exactly how to make such a machine, Fab Lab Network knows :) -let's collaborate! Anyway, this challenge made me think about fab, art and myself, and made me feel creative and smile a lot: thanks again Olafur for your inspiring recitation!

:)