Katie Paterson recorded the sound of 3 glaciers (Langjökull, Snæfellsjökull and Solheimajökull) on Iceland. She then pressed those recordings on ice record made of melt water from those glaciers. The records were played on 3 turntables and it took almost 2 hours till they were completely melted. You can listen to one here.
found at I’m Revolting
No, these aren’t some abstract paintings or some generative art, but photos from the surface of Mars. The NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been orbiting Mars since 2006 at a height approximately 300 km. The MRO has a very good camera on board: the HiRISE, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, which has a resolution of a few inches per pixel. You can find more stunning photos at The Big Picture.
Rachel Sussman photographed some of “The Oldest Living Things In The World”. This actinobacteria from Siberia is supposed to be over 400,000 years old. Mind blowing.
But actually this La Llareta from the atacama dessert in Chile, has the best looks for its age, it can be up to 3,000 years old.
found at kottke
The Endless Rain Record by Kyouei Design plays endlessly. On A side you’ll find the rain sound and on the B side 5 different rain drop sounds.
found at yatzer
Growth Modeling Device is a kinetic installation by David Bowen. The machine uses lasers to scan a plant, in this case an onion, from 3 different angles. That data is then used in real-time by a fuse deposition modeler, to create a plastic model of the current state of the plant. This process takes place every 24 hours, but each time the plant is scanned from a different angle. In the end you have several models illustrating the growth of the plant. You can see a video of this installation here.
This is actually a little similar to an older project of David: Growth Rendering Device.
Tantamount Series by JK Keller. He flattened the mountains elevation to a perfect horizontal line, in return he changed the ocean’s horizon to the original elevation of the mountains.
“Through The Green Fuse” is series of photos by Robert Buelteman, actually they are photograms. His technique is quite complex and dangerous, it’s based on Kirlian photography. He places flowers and leaves on a color transparency film, on top of that he lays plexiglas with a sheet of metal in between, floating in a liquid silicone. Then he hits everything with an electric pulse which causes the coronas and outlines to appear on the film. The last step he needs to do, is hand-painting it with a white light coming from an optical fiber. It can take up to 150 attempts to get this right. You can read more about it at Wired.
The results are just stunning.
