industrial arts

Back in 1935 surrealist artist Marcel Duchamp plied his craft in a purely commercial venture at the gadget fair Concours Lépine in Paris—a sort of invention-convention for debuting new household appliances—with his Rotoreliefs.
These kinetic works of art designed to rotate on a turntable and propagate optical illusions unfortunately missed the target audience at the fair, who were naturally more interested in the latest slicers and dicers than record albums that didn’t have any audio content. Duchamp was not disheartened by this entrepreneurial set-back and continued honing his trade in collaboration with other artists. Be sure to check out the whole curated article at Hyperallergic for more Rotoreliefs in action and short film Duchamp made with fellow surrealist Man Ray.