A cropped computer scan of Boticelli's Birth of Venus robot-rendered in glass mosaic tiles about 1 1/2 by 2 meters.
The owner of Mosaic4U, a company based in Herzelia, Israel, says artists working with the centuries-old technique of selecting and laying glass mosaic by hand have nothing to worry about from his new robotic system. “Personally I do not think that we are a threat to the conventional mosaic artist community,” wrote Boaz Glass, the CEO of Mosaic4U in response to emailed questions from the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet. “They are way more artistic than we are.” But his machine process that can lay one square meter of mosaic tiles in 9 hours based on a digital file will no doubt have serious ramifications for the field if the company’s claims live up to their billing.
A sign of the imprecision of the process is that best results are apparently achieved when the final image is at least 1 1/2 square meters, or 16 square feet. But working from a digital scan, photographic images are translated into a pattern of colored glass mosaic tiles chosen and arranged by a computer. Taking a cue from online business card companies, Mosaic4U will email you a “proof” of what your final image will look like for your approval, sometimes offering several iterations of an image. The chosen mosaic is then created and shipped to a customer for installation, usually within 14 days according to the company’s website.
This cut and paste of the iconic Obama Poster by appropriation artist Shephard Fairey is made permanent in glass mosaic at a local cafe.
The innovators behind this new process were two engineers and a computer science professor from Technion Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, who formed a partnership to develop this system in 2006. The group has partnered with Center for the Blind in Israel in the town of Herzelia, which employs the visually impaired in light industrial work for part of the Mosaic4U production process.
The machine used by Mosaic4U to build computer-generated, robotically placed glass mosaics.
At the heart of the process is a Blue Line Robot made by Techno Inc. Linear Motion Systems, a U.S. company based in Long Island, New York. Coupled with the new computer program developed in Israel, as well as the manufacturing process, this new product line has the potential to change the traditional business model of hand-placed mosaic tiles.
There seems to need to be more work to refine the process as some of the images on the company’s Flickr stream look pixilated, sort of like an unintentional Chuck Close experience of a viewer being made aware of how visual perception can assemble an image from individual blocks of color. Mosac4U’s owners seem to understand this and have posted the following subtle disclaimer on their website: “The mosaic is not intended to be identical to the original image, but rather inspired by it.”
Room for Improvement: This rendering of an iconic Picasso image in glass tiles unintentionally takes Cubism into Chuck Close territory.
Of particular note is how the computer process handles shadow and light. These are two expressive elements at the center of true hand-assembled glass mosaics. It’s what sets apart the work of true masters such as Italian mosaic photorealist Andrea Salvadore who is able to accomplish far more life-like results because his mosaic process is not, at heart, about direct transfer of image, but rather an understanding about how best to achieve the desired effect through the unique material of glass.
But like all areas of our increasingly digital culture, few have gotten rich betting against the power of new technology to redefine almost every aspect of our lives and work. Computer processes can be improved, and this is definitely a technology to watch.
—Andrew Page and Apeksha Vanjari