Ascending and Descending

I am so excited about this: Andrew Lipson and Daniel Shiu are reproducing M.C. Escher drawings in LEGO! Escher is one of my favorite artists because of the fantastic ways in which he plays with tilings and with perspective. Lipson and Shiu have taken on the seemingly impossible task of reproducing these, using a combination of sophisticated LEGO construction technique and clever photography manipulation. Of the five they’ve done so far, my favorites are Relativity and Ascending and Descending. In addition to providing comparisons of the LEGO photos with the original Escher drawings, they explain various technical details of the models’ construction. I never realized how much advanced technique could be involved in playing with LEGOs! In fact, Lipson has constructed all sorts of crazy LEGO sculptures, including an impressive collection of mathematical constructions (such as mobius strips, knots, a klein bottle, and some others that I had never heard of).