Simple Simon

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Animator Ismael Sanz-Pena has brought the sculptural facade of Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway to life through a unique continuous motion animation that uses just one photograph. Sanz-Pena’s pairing of the video with a lively, fast-paced Liberian field recording of chants, cheers, and drumming adds an extra element of vitality. The artist described his process to Colossal:

The idea behind the film was to find the innate movement inherit in still forms. Every sculpture has movement in it, and it is the task of the animator to discover it. It was through the process of editing my imagery that I discovered that a single image would suffice to create the animation. The film was made by zooming into the image and panning row by row while making sure that different architectural motives aligned in every increment. This also gave a structure to the film.

Originally hailing from Spain, Sanz-Pena has studied and worked in the field of animation around the world and is currently an assistant professor of animation at the Kansas City Art Institute.

Pennywise the clown working as the department IT guy and being overburden with tech support work

As requested by Chris Gosdin 

Massachusetts-based design studio Nervous System writes unique computer programs that aim to imitate processes found in nature. These systems produce housewares and jewelry based on organic forms, creating pieces such as algae-inspired necklaces and 3D printed leaf-shaped lamps.  The company recently designed a geode jigsaw puzzle modeled after slices of agate, a type of rock characterized by its repeated colorful bands.

Every geode puzzle designed by Nervous System is completely different. The studio’s computer simulation ensures that natural variations influence the puzzle’s shape, color, and pattern, essentially “growing” the artificial geode in a similar way to how it would be formed in nature. Puzzles are each cut from birch plywood and sold at 180 or 370 pieces. You can view and purchase dozens of other original agate designs in the studio’s online shop. (via My Modern Met)

An illuminated greenhouse fills Tokyo Midtown’s garden space, encouraging visitors to touch the variety of vegetables that grow inside. The functional plant shelter was created by design studio PARTY for the city’s 2017 Design Touch event, a month-long festival that focuses on the experiential elements of good design.

Each plant in the Digital Vegetables installation is rigged to trigger a symphony of light and sound when touched. Each color and noise reflect a specific aspect of the plant, allowing the visitor to connect to the organic matter with senses that lay outside of taste or smell.

“Sounds of rubbing seeds. Sounds of touching leaves. Sounds of eating fruits,” says Digital Vegetables’ Sound Designer Ray Kunimoto. “I recorded the sounds created with actual vegetables. Then, I mixed them with the sounds of orchestra instruments on the computer to make 7 melodies.”

Kunimoto’s technique makes sure there is a unique sound for each. When visitors touch a tomato they will hear the sound of a violin, carrots will trigger trumpets, and cabbages will activate the deep sounds of the oboe.

The installation is free, and will be displayed in Tokyo Midtown through November 5th, 2017. You can see the greenhouse in action in a short video of Digital Vegetables below. (via Spoon&Tamago)

As part of his ongoing series titled the Coincidence Project, photographer Denis Cherim (previously) seems to find the miraculous amongst the mundane in his exquisitely timed and positioned photos that align the world in strangely satisfying ways. Playing with perspective, scale, and certainly a bit of luck, Cherim places himself at the precise vantage point where moments of synchronicity seem to appear out of nowhere. Most recently the photographer traveled through London, Madrid, Valencia, and Plovdiv, and is now taking part in a 3-month residency in Taiwan at the Pier-2 Art Center. You can follow his work on Instagram.

Taking inspiration from a wide variety of electronic brands, designer Vinicius Araújo designed this alphabet of Helvetica letterforms, each modeled after a brand’s namesake product. The letter “N” for Nintendo becomes a retro-styled NES gaming system while the “B” for Beats grabs the aesthetic of comfy headphones. Araújo went even further with several of the letters to create a few brief animations. You can see the entire series titled 36days Electronics on Behance.

In a shoot for Nordic cookware brand Eva, Copenhagen-based photographer Mikkel Jul Hvilshøj lets the ingredients speak for themselves. With his flatlay photos on rich matte backgrounds, Hvilshøj creates compositions of raw recipe materials like carrots, star anise, and lemon that seem to suggest that the cookware itself is an essential element in classic Scandinavian food and drink. You can see the full series on Behance.

This past April a massive 80-foot steel kraken was purposefully sunk into the Caribbean Sea on top of a decorated WW2 ship. The former Navy fuel barge and its monstrous passenger were placed underwater in order to jumpstart a new coral ecosystem, while also serving as a cutting-edge education center for marine researchers and local students from the surrounding British Virgin Islands. The project is titled the BVI Art Reef, and aims to use sculptures like the porous kraken as a base to grow transplanted coral.

The Kodiak Queen, formerly a Navy fuel barge named the YO-44, was discovered by British photographer Owen Buggy approximately two and a half years ago on the island of Tortola. Instead of letting the historic vessel get picked apart for scrap metal, Buggy approached former boss Sir Richard Branson about collaborating on a restorative art installation. Together with nonprofit Unite B.V.I., artist group Secret Samurai Productions, social justice entrepreneurial group Maverick1000, and ocean education nonprofit Beneath the Waves, the project was established as both an eco-friendly art installation, and a philanthropic measure to rehabilitate native marine species.

“It’s envisioned that within just a short space of time the ship and artwork will attract a myriad of sea creatures,” said Clive Petrovic who consults on the environmental impact of the BVI Art Reef. “Everything from corals to sea sponges, sharks and turtles will live on, in, and around the wreck. The ship will become valuable for future research by scientists and local students alike.”

To sink the massive ship, the project sought the help of the Commercial Dive Services who safely submerged the vessel off the coast of the island Virgin Gorda. It was the first time the ship had been in the water for nearly 17 years, and was lead to its final resting place by a bevy of boats and helicopters.

Filmmaker Rob Sorrenti filmed both the construction and sinking of the kraken and its ship. The full-length documentary is currently in post-production, with an estimated release early next year. You can watch a clip from the upcoming film below. For information on visiting the BVI Art Reef, and to learn more about its educational programs, visit the project’s website and Facebook.

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German photographer Robert Götzfried (previously) seeks out unique architecture for series that focus on one particular element of a culture or place. Previous projects have documented the pipe organs of 20 German Catholic churches, observed the creative construction of Cambodia’s roadside barber shops, and captured abandoned storefronts that exist across Australia.

For the last few years Götzfried has focused on photographing the design of bowling alleys and “Kegelbahnen” across Southern Germany, most of which exist from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. Kegeln is a German sport similar to bowling, however with smaller balls, only nine pins, and shortened lanes. The sport has fallen from popularity, and many of the photographed lanes’ quality has diminished with the times. You can see a larger selection of Götzfried’s photographic projects on his website, Instagram, and Behance. (via This Isn’t Happiness)

London-based photographer Rich McCor, or paperboyo (previously) travels across the globe giving creative updates to buildings, bridges, and signs through the use of simple paper cutouts. By placing a black design in the foreground of his image, London’s Tower Bridge is instantly transformed into a looping roller coaster, and a Canadian building miraculously appears like a lengthy accordion. Although many of McCor’s pictures engage with architectural elements, the paper artist also makes use of the natural environment as a creative backdrop for his paper works. Recently he published a book based on his cutout journeys, titled Around the World in Cut-Outs. You can see more of his photographic collages on Instagram.

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Niaz Uddin is a photographer, director, and filmmaker that explores a variety of natural landscapes from high above. His color-saturated photographs explore crowded beaches and remote tide pools, capturing each of the scenic environments from a bird’s eye view. One of my favorite images is the picture above, which provides a rare perspective of the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park. You can see even more sky-high images on his Instagram, and buy limited prints on his website.

Jeffrey Tsang is a maritime vlogger, sailor, and photographer on a container ship that travels across the globe. His latest video is a timelapse that captures 30 days of the barge’s journey, tracing its path from the Red Sea all the way to Hong Kong. The 4K video is composed of nearly 80,000 photos which capture breathtaking views of quickly shifting skies, deep red sunsets, and brilliant blue lightening amidst ferocious storms.

“Sailing in the open sea is a truly unique way to grasp how significantly small we are in the beautiful world,” says the Canadian photographer. “Chasing the endless horizon, witnessing the ever changing weather, and appreciating the bright stars and galaxies.”

We highly recommend you watch the video in full screen, a viewing experience that transports you directly to the bow of the globe-trotting ship. You can see more of Tsang’s maritime photography on his Instagram and Youtube. (via Coudal)

Housed in what was once Cape Town’s tallest building is the newly unveiled Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), created by London-based architect Thomas Heatherwick. The institution’s 80 gallery spaces were converted from 42 historic grain silos, storage units which were once used to hold and grade maize from all over South Africa.

Heatherwick Studio transformed the tightly packed tubes into open areas of contemplation, carving out various oblong shapes to make room for large social spaces and lots of light from overhead windows. Heatherwick wished to clear out large spaces for the galleries, however he was also careful about not eliminating the tubular structure of the building completely.

“We realised we needed to do something that your eye couldn’t instantly predict,” Heatherwick told Dezeen. “Our role was destructing rather than constructing, but trying to destruct with a confidence and an energy, and not treating the building as a shrine.”

The nearly 20,000 square foot museum is one of many facilities that form the V&A Waterfront, a cultural center dotted with several bars and restaurants on the city’s harbor. (via Dezeen)

Photographer Maria Svarbova is fascinated by the sterile, geometric aesthetic of old swimming pools, especially those built during the Socialist Era in her native country of Slovakia. Each scene she photographs is highly controlled, from the subjects of her works to the bright colors and dramatic shadows that compose each shot.

“The figures are mid-movement, but there is no joyful playfulness to them,” says Sarbova’s artist statement about the project. “Frozen in the composition, the swimmers are as smooth and cold as the pools tiles…Despite the retro setting, the pictures somehow evoke a futuristic feeling as well, as if they were taken somewhere completely alien.”

The series, In the Swimming Pool, began in 2014 and is her largest to date. Recently she published a book on the project through The New Heroes and Pioneers aptly titled The Swimming Pool Book which you can pre-order on Amazon. To see more of her photographs centered around Eastern European pools, head to her Instagram or Behance. (via Visual Fodder)

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Since we last checked in with Dinara Kasko, the Ukrainian pastry chef has continued to innovate at a dizzying pace, further incorporating her use of mathematical algorithms and 3D printing into her baking process. Many of the cake designs begin as a collaboration with mathematicians or sculptors who help develop the patterns she then utilizes to print special molds. The final desserts are interpretations of cakes, tarts, and other fully edible desserts that might look more at home inside an art gallery than on a dinner table.

Kasko now sells a variety of silicone molds on her website so you can try your hand at many of the desserts seen here. You can follow more of her baking experiments on Instagram.

A post shared by Dinara Kasko (@dinarakasko) on Aug 25, 2017 at 6:15am PDT

A post shared by Dinara Kasko (@dinarakasko) on Dec 11, 2016 at 11:16pm PST

Physical damage but no injuries. Impressive! Reportedly filmed at Vallabrègues, on the left bank of the Rhône River, in the Gard department in southern France, the video below shows two Canadair CL-415 water bomber aircraft involved in a firefighting mission on Aug. 27, 2017. One of the “Superscooper” planes hit a barge with its left hand […]

Designer J.R. Schmidt has a great isometric rendering of New York City as built with LEGO bricks which is available in a number of print sizes. You can see more of his data-driven art, illustration, and motion graphic work over on Behance. (via Kottke)

There’s simply no compelling way to describe this unusual short film from director Daihei Shibata which attempts to plot the movement of everyday objects such as a light switch or a spring as a real-time graph. Sibata explains this as a film that expresses “the various thresholds hidden in everyday life.” OK, interesting enough, but when paired with a score by the EX NOVO Chamber Choir—turn up the volume—it suddenly becomes completely amazing. I’d love to see a whole series of these. If you like this, all check out The Beauty of Mathematics. (via The Awesomer)

No traces of radioactive materials, including xenon gas, were detected following North Korea’s latest nuclear test. Here are the aircraft that helped determining that. On Sunday Aug. 3, North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test. According to Pyongyang the test involved a hydrogen bomb that can be loaded onto a long-range missile. […]

Over four years ago, designer Tyler Haywood started posting GIFs on Tumblr under the name Angular Geometry. Haywood liked the process so much, he’s never stopped posting, creating a new custom GIF for his blog every single day. The GIFs are related to his interest in motion graphics, focusing on the tiny but captivating movements of Rubik’s Cube-like structures, rippling water, and dazzling rainbows.

“I have always thought of Angular Geometry as a sketchbook,” Haywood shares with Colossal. “Just open it up and see what happens. Every day is a fresh start, so there is no need to worry all that much. Sometimes I will scroll through my archive of over 1500 GIFs and see patterns or ideas that come through in my art that I didn’t realize were there in the moment of creation. It is an interesting catalog of my subconscious in some ways.”

His digital “sketchbook” just celebrated its four year anniversary, making him officially the longest running daily GIF artist on Tumblr. You can see more of his GIFs on his site Angular Geometry.

Dad’s Army of Darkness

As requested via Twitter by @GeekCliche

Based out of a Tokyo candy shop called Ameshin, candy artisan Shinri Tezuka (previously) crafts some of the most unusual lollipops you’re ever likely to eat from wiggling goldfish to statuesque lions or prickly hedgehogs. The translucent candy seems to have more in common with glassmaking than confectionery design, and perhaps it’s no surprise that the process of working with hot sugar even shares similar tools—a traditional Japanese craft called amezaiku. Tezuka recently shared a variety of new lollipop designs on his Instagram account and you can step inside the Ameshin candy shop in a video from DogaTV below.