The company, located on Taft Street NE, hopes to scale up its output to around 200 tables per month. Since last September, Sisyphus has shipped more than 1,300 tables, and is now taking orders for its steel and wood models. The company’s first responsibility after going into production was to send the promised rewards to its backers. He made his initial goal of $50,000 in 24 hours, and went on to raise more than $1.9 million. In 2016, Shapiro launched a Kickstarter campaign to finance the production set-up for his Sisyphus tables. His work is permanently installed in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia. He practiced medicine in California and Minnesota for several years, but left the field to return to what he describes as his childhood enchantment with music, electronics, and “making things.” By 1990, he had devoted himself to making motion-control tools for art and education. Shapiro completed medical school at the University of Minnesota, where he met his wife, Beverly. Shapiro says he has spent the past 25 years “dedicated to exploring motion control as an emerging medium for artistic expression, building CNC art and kinetic sculpture that combine my love of art, science and education.” The art that the table produces is created by an advanced type of computer numerical control (CNC), the automation of machine tools by means of computers executing pre-programmed sequences of machine control. Shapiro calls it Sisyphus – the kinetic art table. Shapiro’s company, Sisyphus Industries, produces a glass-covered table that seems to come alive with the touch of a finger – from across the room. Wood, steel, glass, for sure but also sand, ball bearings, motherboards and motion-control technology. But the term is inadequate to describe the materials he uses. To call Bruce Shapiro a furniture maker would be true he does make furniture.
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