Dot
In the 2020 Spring, I was in a trip in Sweden and it's during that trip that I discovered what's commonly refered as "Flip dot display".
It's a kinetic display composed of a collection of magnetic dots, usually hundred of them. These dots can be controlled and used to render images, videos and doing all sort of effects.
I liked it so much that I decided to buy one of these display and start experimenting with it.
Tunrs out these things are hard to find or pretty expensive.
A few options are possible if you desire to acquire one of them. You can find some used display on eBay - these are are usually pretty cheap but can be hard to program. Another solution is to make your own display from scratch. Finally some manufacturer exists and you can order from them online.
Hardware
I was able to put my hands on a AlfaZeta display, with a controller board.
I have acquired the XY5 model. The display dimension is 14x28 and each dot is a 15mm disk. In order to communicate with the panel, I needed some hardware parts.
Components
AlfaZeta FlipDot display
USB to Mini-B cable
USB to RS-485 converter card
24V variable power supply
Connecting Everything
You send instructions to the display using the RS-485 standard. The Computer will serve as the driver and send USB messages. Those message are then converted to RS-485 using the USB to RS-485 converter card ans sent to the display.
Software
Since I couldn't find any proper tool to work on the visuals, I decided to create one. It's called Dot.
The philosophy and design of Dot is inspired by a program called Ronin. In this tool, you use code to draw images.
It's a little bit different for Dot. The program act as a pixel shader. The same function is called for each dots of the display but with different parameters (here I use X, Y coordinates and the current frame). 0 for Black and 1 for White.
I integrated Lua to Dot to be used as my "shading language". This allow me to update my visuals live, it's also easy to save/load (It's a simple Lua file).
Andy Duboc (b. 1988 in Paris, France) is a French digital artist and designer who uses code to express his creative vision.
He graduated in 2013 with a Master of Science from Université Lyon 2, France, and worked in the video game industry for almost 10 years thereafter.
Shifting his focus to explore the possibilities of crafting digital imagery and motion using code, he aims to create visuals that are constantly evolving and dynamic.
Exhibitions
cornell_Box
2025 - Solo Exhibition
Bideotikan
2025 - Bilbao, Spain - Festival
MIRA
2025 - Barcelona, Spain - Festival
Layer
2025 - Curated Collection
RGB
2024 - Montreal, Canada - Group Exhibition
Unity in Variety
2024 - Barcelona, Spain - Group Exhibition
Minimal
2024 - Online
GENERATIVE
2023 - Lugano, Switzerland - Group Exhibition
Responsive Dreams
2023 - Barcelona, Spain - Group Exhibition
DEMO Festival
2022 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands - Festival
FRAMED
2020 - Custom Artwork, Online
Design In Motion Festival
2019 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Festival
MAPP_MTL
2019 - Montreal, Canada - Group Exhibition
Clients
Apple
FIELD.IO
IBM
Interbrand
Logitech
NONOIA
onformative
SOOT