A Simple Yet Ingenious Cardboard Sculpture That Provides the Illusion of Floating Structural Compression

Things Made of Cardboard, who previously built a harmonograph with a robotic arm that draws Lissajous curves with an attached pen, created a simple, but ingenious cardboard sculpture that demonstrates the principle of tensegrity (floating compression) through an optical illusion.

I made a sculpture out of cardboard based on the principle of tensional integrity (tensegrity for short), where all the strings are under continuous tension. The result is the impression that the sculpture levitates.

Tensegrity Sculpture

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.