line segments

/connecting the world, one line at a time
//story
In collaboration with Booooooom! (founded by Jeff Hamada), we launched Line Segments as a project to build on site at the IAM (Internet Age Media) Festival in Barcelona, Spain. The idea was to build a sculpture whose final shape couldn’t be predicted, but rather would be determined and changed as IAM participants added on to it over the course of the event.

We wanted to connect people from all over the world, so Booooooom! and Tangible put up an online callout for pencils of any sort. The response was astounding and more than 1,500 pencils (carved, painted, etched…) came in from around the world: North and South America, Asia, Europe, Australia, India, and Sri Lanka. It is said that all people are separated by six degrees. We loved creating a project that closed that gap and brought people together through a universal object - the pencil.
//how it works
We designed custom 3D-printed connectors in three varying angles to connect the pencils. While these provided only a few variables for building, the sculpture’s shape changed and morphed throughout construction. The final structure grew to four feet in diameter, held together by connections of people from around the world who had never met.

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