Archives for the Month of January, 2009

Monday Flotsom

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Aggregation 27 – Andy Lomas

Andy Lomas generates high-resolution growth aggregations inspired by the mathematical & biological work of Turing and Haeckle.

Eugene Andolsek uses repetitive and linear geometric forms to create complex mandalas, modulation systems and dynamic visual fields

Chris Musgrave sculpts sound into image creating synaesthetic oscillations, Moiré patterns and rhythmic strobe-like effects.

Hardformat celebrates ‘the sublime in musical design’ with some oldies & goldies and more curious artefacts in between.

The IMA gathers essays, texts and film clips of visual music pioneer Mary Ellen Bute.

Roland Flexner – Sumi Drawings

Roland Flexner
SN21 detail & SN2 – Roland Flexner

Roland Flexner evokes otherworldly landscapes, frozen lakes and deep space implosions in his Sumi Drawings. Using a set of process-based techniques, filaments, flows, reflections, stratifications and geological formations arise from techniques applied to the tradition of Sumigashi – a process where Sumi ink is floated on layers of gelatine and water. Blotting this temporarily immiscible solution before it dries allows the creation of metaphysical landscapes similar ones found in some Surrealist works. Max Ernst used a similar technique, known as décollage, to create some of his most well know works. What’s interesting is that this fleeting process simulates textures, erosions and deposits that occur geologically on earth over thousands of years. It’s as if the processes, not only converges the micro and the macroscopic but also unite elements of the microsecond with the Aeon.

Also worth checking out are Roland’s excellent bubble drawings.

More aesthetics of immiscibility can be found here

Ingrid Siliakus – Parallel Reflections

Ingrid Siliakus
Parallel reflections – Ingrid Siliakus

Ingrid Siliakus takes the pop-up book to complex and beautiful extremes engineering Escheresque architectures and so called ‘Rondings’ which contain impressive interwoven and interlinked geometries. The international buildings Flickr set includes remarkable paper structures, including a rendition of Gaudi’s masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia. But it’s in the self-invented structures that another level of mastery becomes apparent. (Her)-Innerrings contains concentric motifs evocative of astrological instruments, Elevation Blue finds the eye wandering up and down floors, in and out of spaces in a way only previously encouraged by Mr Escher himself.

Related:
Jen Stark – Spectrographic Paper Cut
Chris Natrop: Into the Silver See-Through

Flickr Fruits #22

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Heth-sketch_1-16_a – Harritn

Flickr’s automatic layout of images in multiplicity often creates alluring compositions by themselves. Trekeye’s photographs of trees from the ground create a fine rhizomatic tapestry of branches where aggregation-like patterns coalesque to form a unified field.

Mi ha’s lastest work with subdivision algorithms see the formation of tri-lateral symmetrical crystalline structures. The lighting and textures of these forms gives the impression of paper constructions, extra-terrestrial origami is hinted upon now hoped for.

Harritn’s generative work in Processing uses recursive growth algorithms to produce slick botanical structures in verdant oranges and reds.

M.a.y.u.k’s set of papercut shadows interplay diffused floral patterns lightly upon unsaturated natural hues.

Colin Keefe – Architectural Pollinations

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Architectural Pollination Drawing – Colin Keefe

The theory of self-organisation and emergence in cities has developed into a specialist scientific field of it own in recent years. Local agents create fascinating global structures, patterns and aggregations at every scale from ants colonies to the mega cities.

The organic life-like growth of cities from the bottom-up interaction of its parts seems to be a key aspect of Colin Keefe’s work. The Architectural Pollination drawings present architectural emergence as a kind of plant or crystal growth, repetitive elements coagulate into an intelligible geometric form. Of his recent work Colin says:

‘Lately I’ve been working on a set of drawings that explore methods for breeding buildings using organic models – multicellular organisms’ reproductive and propulsion methods, as well as pollination methods employed by plants’

Sharyn O’Mara – Walking Drawings

Sharyn O’Mara
Walking Books – Sharyn O’Mara

Sharyn O’Mara has a predilection for the line. All though she doesn’t explain the process behind the works the Walking Drawings made on route during her outdoor preambles appear to be seismographic and psychogeographic representations of movement, in each there is a direction of jagged flow. It’s as if a GPS device was recording location down to each individual footstep. Her Walking Books open up to reveal possible paths and roads taken – we are reminded of the seismographic drawings of Rod McLaren.

Felix Machines

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Felix Machines – Felix Thorn

Oli Laurelle recently brought to my attention the musical machines of Felix Thorn, some of which are currently on show in London at Gasworks. Felix Machines are, mostly likely, what many an electronic musician may have dreamed of at some point while glued to a monitor screen. A mechanical ensemble containing piano parts and drums is driven through solenoids, springs and motors. Each movement of the robotic band is augmented with a flicker of light – a key is hit and the spark of light occurs simultaneous. In whole the experience is a practical implementation of syneasthetic theory – be sure to check out this video of the machine in action. The compositions are reminiscent of minimalist composers such as Steve Reich, partly because of timbre and partly through the use of highly metered rhythms – the connection with music boxes and mechanical pianos is, of course, also implicit.

In December of last year Eileen Simpson and Ben White of the Open Music Archive, made a performance with the Felix Machines, the result is a ‘Out of Copyright’ compilation of music called ‘Perforations’ which can be downloaded here.

Daniel A Becker – Visualising DNA (and barcodes)

Visual-DNA - Daniel A Becker
Visual-DNA – Daniel A Becker

Daniel A Becker brings to light visual and aesthetic patterns contained within otherwise ‘unreadable’ code sequences. In his Visual DNA project he assigns colours and shapes to each of the 4 letters (A, C, G, T) that represent ‘the architects plan of life’. This is done for the first 1050 positions of the initial chromosome for different species. It allows us to have a more specific visual reading of the difference between the DNA sequences for humans and fruitflies, for example. A different work, Barcode Plantage, produces an organic representation of a standard barcode, which shows information about the product such as its country of origin and manufacturer. The data is formed into an abstract tree by connecting coloured bezier curves that ‘grow’ from the actual barcode itself.

Spherophilia

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Spherical Kitchen – Luigi Colani

The most perfect spheres ever created by humans sit snugly inside gyroscopes contained in the Gravity Probe B, orbiting 642Km above earth. The purpose of the GP-B mission is to experimentally investigate Albert Einstein’s 1916 general theory of relativity – examining his well-known theories of spacetime. The spheres, which deviate in perfection by, at most, 40 atoms are made of fused quartz. According to Wikipedia, if scaled to the size of the earth, the tallest mountains would be 2.4 meters high!

These ping-pong sized objects are just a little closer to the ‘Universal Music’ then we are ourselves. Musica universalis (The Music of the Spheres) popularised by Pythagoras, and later Johannes Kepler, is the ancient mystical/philosophical and mathematical concept that appreciates the movement of the planets in their periodicities as kind of music.

Dataisnature found a compilation of spherical links hiding on its hard drive from last year and now seems like the time to share:

Cabinet Magazine has an article, A Minor History of Giant Spheres, where among other things, you can learn about the 180-foot tall Perisphere, a giant ball housing a model of a Utopian garden city of the future called “Democracity.”

Luigi Colani is known for his futuristic organic design of houses, robots, and TV’s, among many other things – how could you not resist his chocolate orange spherical kitchen?

More spherical dwelling objects come in the form of Free Spirit Spheres – eco-friendly round houses that are hang from trees.

Heading back to space, well if it were 50yrs ago, we may well have flown past a giant Satelloon on our way. One of these exploded in 1959, ‘the result was a spectacular, 10-minute light show all along the east coast of the US as the thousands of fragments of the aluminium-covered balloon reflected the light of the setting sun.’

Finally here are a few generated spherical creations and destructions: AudioSphere, Wicker3, Tardigrade Synth, Figures.series_II_D, Spherical Harmonie.

Flickr Fruits #21

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Phytological History 1673 Nehemiah Grew – Pecay

Kick starting 09 @ D=N with a crop of Flickr finery:

If you spend time beachcombing the blogosphere for treasures, at some point you will have come across the excellent Bibliodyssey – a compendium of ‘Visual Materia Obscura’. For an immediate blast of eclectic illustration wonder over to Paul K’s image repository for Bibliodyssey – personal highlights include the Art Arabe, 16-20C Board Games, Mapping Mars and the Trunks and Roots sets.

Bibliodyssey has a post on the work of Erik Nitsche, a modernist graphic designer who came to prominence in the 1950s with a distinctive graphic style and subtle feeling for colour. Katie Varrati and Derrick Schultz maintain an excellent archive of Nitsche’s work. Particularly inspiring is his work done for Decca records, in which we find suggestive visualisations of musical movements in graphical terms.

Moving forward in time we arrive at digitally constructed compositions made with VVVV. Elektromier’s group of outputs, Specialformula, appear to be complex exploded organic containers – pinks, oranges and greens never tasted so good together. Sanchtv’s Mutation Phase 2 set applies reflections and refractions to abstracted robotic surfaces & evolving droid plants.