Apple Store Mosaic Workshop Chicago

On February 15, Artaic held a software launch workshop at Chicago’s Michigan Avenue Apple Store. The workshop began with a presentation from CEO, Ted Acworth about the history of mosaic and Artaic’s mission to revitalize the art-form with technology. Acworth was followed by Rob Cushman, who described Artaic’s unique custom mosaic process from CAD software to robotic fabrication.

Artaic CEO Ted Acworth

Artaic Creative Director, Paul Reiss then unveiled Artaic’s newest mosaic “Tessera Grid” software.

Four years ago, We developed a mosaic design software called ‘Tessera’ which revolutionized the design of large-scale ‘Opus Regulatum‘ tile mosaics, accelerating the process and lowering costs of production. We have learned much from four years creating unique mosaics with ‘Tessera.’ Given that acute knowledge, combined with advancements in processing technology we’ve created a powerful design tool unlike any other.

The new software development was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under a Small Business Innovation Research grant that has helped Artaic create innovative technologies both in software and robotics.

Artaic Creative Director, Paul Reiss

After a brief tutorial, attendees were given the opportunity to explore the software at individual workstations and create their own mosaic imagery from photographs they brought, images from the web, and images they took right there with the computer’s built-in camera.

We held our first workshop at the Boston Apple Store in 2010 at which public artists were paired off with Architects and Designers to come up with site-specific public art mosaics – with some great results. While a lot of the attendees came from the design industry, this workshop, designed to gather user feedback on the new software, had a broad range of attendees.

We were very pleased to have Manny Jaurez, Manager of Teen Initiatives at the Chicago Architecture Foundation and his group of eager students with a passion for architecture and design present to learn about new creative technologies. The future architects and designers created some great mosaics and we hope to work with them and the Chicago Architecture Foundation on some of their exciting initiatives in the future.

Paul Reiss working with Teens from the Chicago Architecture Foundation

We received a lot of valuable feedback from all the attendees who used the software which will help Artaic continue to better the tools to make mosaic art once again an option as a high-impact architectural surface finishing. If your interested in joining us for any of our future workshops, make sure you join our newsletter list at the bottom of the page to be informed about any upcoming events.