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Tatjana van Vark – The Harmonium

The Harmonium

The submitter of this link, dmacq, described the metal devices as heartbreakingly beautiful – and I’m inclined to agree. The Harmonium (above) is made by a creator of, well, many things. A very creative person, Tatjana van Vark is probably beyond my understanding, but the things he makes please my eye – the above Harmonium (that does something with fouriers) to the Dynamic Distractor with peculiar moving liquids, to the mind boggling but utterly Steampunk Coding Machine.

Thankfully, I don’t need to understand exactly what they do, to enjoy their Steampunkness.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 at 10:05 pm by Tinkergirl and is filed under Steampunk Images.

Steven Horii

If you enjoy what Tatjana van Vark has built, it is a good idea to return to her Web site regularly. Along the lines of the Harmonium, she completed a Henrici harmonic analyzer/Hele-Shaw planimeter. Original machines like this exist in the magnificent collection of the London Science Museum (they have, for example, a William Thompson (Lord Kelvin) mechanical tidal computer).

A link to the Henrici analyzer (the spheres have pickoffs at 90deg to generate sine and cosine components). There are a couple of these in the London museum:

http://www.tatjavanvark.nl/hha/

Tinkergirl

I apologise deeply if that is the case - I couldn't find a single pronoun on the site to give me a clue either way, and the photograph didn't help me too much either. I am also unfamiliar with the gender of name Tatjana, but I'll take your word for it. My greatest apologies for any insult to Ms. van Vark.

Thee Reverend Obskure

FYI, I believe that Tatjana van Vark is a "she" and not a "he".