Domino Art
When people hear the word domino, they think of a game that involves laying tiles with numbers on them side-by-side and then forming chains that lead to one end or another. A player takes turns playing tiles, positioning them on the table so that each new tile touches only one of the ends of an existing chain (or, in the case of a double-six set, two of the six).
The first domino to fall lands on a “blank” or a number that matches the color of the adjacent tile (in this example, a 4). Each subsequent tile must land on a matching color to keep the chain going. If the players can’t find a match, the chain stops and they lose.
Dominos were first used in China in the 12th or 13th century. They later made their way to Europe, where they were initially used as a tool for settling property disputes. Throughout the years, many different games were developed for domino, with some requiring more skill than others. Today, the most popular are probably the traditional dominoes and double-twelve.
Some of the more elaborate domino constructions are pieces of art. For these, the artist designs a track on which to place the dominoes and then carefully draws arrows to show the path that they will take when they are pushed over. This can include straight lines, curved lines, grids that form pictures, 3D structures like towers and pyramids, and more.
Domino art is an excellent way to exercise your imagination. It’s also a great way to relax, as you can take your time to create each piece and watch it develop over the course of several hours or days. It’s also a fantastic way to challenge yourself, as it’s not uncommon for the most difficult designs to take weeks to complete.
One of the most popular types of domino art is called domino engineering, which requires you to construct an elaborate layout of dominoes that will eventually make a specific picture or shape. These are often displayed at special events such as festivals and fairs, where the artist will try to beat the previous domino art record.
The best known examples of domino engineering are the large, complex circular arrangements that Hevesh, a professional domino artist with more than 2 million YouTube subscribers, makes. The largest of these setups can take several nail-biting minutes to fall, because dominoes have inertia and will resist motion unless a force is applied to them. To ensure that her creations work as planned, Hevesh makes test versions of each individual section and then films them in slow-motion to pinpoint any problems before putting them all together.