Concept Variant 1 – Obelisk
The first concept is a mechanically simpler design. It is a variation on an obelisk, or tekhenu, an Egyptian sculpture/monument that features four sides and a tapered capstone or pyramidon. They are traditionally associated with the Sun god Ra and are seen as frozen rays of light. My variation takes the standard tapered obelisk and turns the capstone into an actual ray of light in the form of a flame. The flame is encased in a cylindrical glass tube that helps the flame pull air up from the vents around the base and sides of the obelisk. This helps the flame grow taller, which increases the air it can pull, recursively growing the flame. The surface of the obelisk will either be sanded and painted white and gold to mimic the obelisks of old, or it will be sanded and coated in a metallic coating.
Concept Variant 2 – Rotating Storyboard
The second variant is significantly more mechanically complex. It is similar in concept to the nativity set seen above. Using a similar venturi effect as variant 1 to take a relatively small flame and increase its size by containing it and funneling more air through the glass tube. However, this variant uses that larger and hotter flame to rotate a small turbine blade located at the top of the glass tube which in turn spins a large diameter paper tube which depicts a story or pattern that rises up the paper.
Questions
What advice do you have for me? Have you worked with fire before?
Is there something that would make either of these concepts better?
I think that using fire as a medium is so bold and very fun. The unpredictable movement of fire could be really fun to mess around with and utilize. Have something that plays off of that could add a very unique and fluid aspect to your piece. I really like the simplicity of the first concept, I think that it could really allow the fire to be the centerpiece of the art.
I have not worked a lot with fire, but I can imagine that having some water at hand may be helpful.
So, your gonna burn the school down, great I am all for it, but in all seriousness though hats off to you for doing a fire project, the idea peaked my interest, but I figured the technical challenge of overall safety would be a difficulty one. In Highschool I did a capstone project based on burn a specific set of similar chemicals, and correlating their differences to the level of light produce when burned, so if I had to give you one piece of advice: DO NOT BURN ETHONAL OR METHONAL, they burn almost clear.
Aside for that I wanted to ask, in a lot of your examples you talked about kinematic structures that moved parts using the fire itself, but with your obelisk idea, only the fire will be spinning, so do you plan on adding any mechanical moving components?
Fire sounds great, and if you want to add some more pizzaz to it, you can consider getting different materials that burn in different colors. I think Carlos was somewhat alluding to this, but I think it would be cool to incorporate color.
I don’t have expertise in either of these types of projects, but the first thing that came to mind was the giant paper lantern from Hari and Deepti. It would deviate from the classic obelisk design, but you could make the flame at the top have a storyboard cutout around it that would cast its shadow to the flame.
I really like the fire vortex idea. Controlling fire for art is bold and id love to see it! I heard you were planning on 3d printing some of the obelisk and I have some suggestions. If you can use the laser cutter to do anything of size, you can get good detail in a non-flammable material and manufacturing will be much quicker.