
design. I started to post my renders online, and
people got excited about them, so I turned it into
a sort of art project. I invented a fictional company
called Integrated Thermionic and assigned part
numbers and branding to my creations. I went so
far as to design packaging and sales materials for
Integrated Thermionic, with the eventual goal of
publishing an art book in the style of a catalog.
Every now and then, a particularly convincing
rendering would escape its context and send folks
to eBay looking for a tube that never existed. At
that point, I started to seriously consider just how
difficult it might be to make my own real vacuum