Cavity Mechanism #12 w/ Glass Dome. 2013. Mixed. 23″ x 13″ x 13″. All images via Dan Grayber.
Dan Grayber‘s works exist at the intersection of sculpture and physics, pieces carefully designed to solve the problems created by their own existence. The sculptures each include a rock suspended within a glass enclosure, the rock’s weight perfectly balanced by the mechanisms, systems, and pulleys that surround it.
Grayber relates this play of tension and balance to personal relationships, which serves as another influence to his work outside of visual interests in industrial design, construction machinery, and the children’s game Cat’s Cradle.
“Cavity Mechanism #6, from 2009, [seen below] is one of the most obvious pieces to speak about interpersonal relationships that I’ve made,” said Grayber to Venison Magazine. “There are two identical mechanisms inside of a glass display dome, and one small cable that runs between the two mechanisms. This cable holds all of the tension between the two mechanisms, and they both need to remain in place to maintain the tension. I was really thinking about co-dependence when I made the piece. If either mechanism were to slip, or the connection between them to break, it would cause both to fail.”
During the quieter moments of the day, when model Sheena Liam is somewhere between travelling and photoshoots, she picks up her embroidery hoop and creates portraits of girls with flowing thread hair. The project has enabled Liam to explore her own taste for art direction, and each embroidered piece appears as an inventive contemporary approach to a traditional craft. Liam’s simple line drawings, created with a needle and thread, are layered with a technique of allowing the thread to sit loose against and beyond the canvas. This graces Liam’s work with another dimension, through the impression of flowing hair. The girls in each frame embrace this new possibility of interaction–they appear to be readjusting the thread, cutting it with tiny scissors and even dipping the ends in noodle soup. This endearing play with portraiture is explained by Liam as bringing “a certain sort of soul to the pieces.”
Focused on environmental change rather than flavor, art students Hung I-chen, Guo Yi-hui, and Cheng Yu-ti from the National Taiwan University of the Arts concocted a line of “frozen treats” titled Polluted Water Popsicles. The group collected polluted water from 100 locations in Taiwan, first freezing the collected sewage samples and then preserving their creations in polyester resin.
At first glance the visually pleasing treats seem to imitate the aesthetic of recent craft and artisanal food trends. However on closed inspection you can identify the trash contained within each mold—bits of plastic, bottle caps, and wrappers lying within the popsicles’ murky waters.
The project is intended to spread awareness about water pollution and its deep effect on our world’s population. The 100 pieces, which also included designed wrappers, was nominated for the Young Pin Design Award and featured in the New Generation of Design Exhibition this May at the Taipei World Trade Center. You can view more of the creatively designed inedible works in the video below. More information about the project can be found on the group’s Facebook. (via Mashable and Quartz)
From climate change to capitalism run amok, street artist Blu (previously) pulls no punches in his soaring multi-story murals on the streets of Italy. While mixed with a healthy dose of sarcasm and humor, the inspiration behind each artwork is anything but funny as he translates searing critiques into aesthetically beautiful paintings. For instance a 2016 piece criticizing housing problems in the Celadina district of Bergamo, Italy depicts cramped residents as a brightly hued rainbow but leaves a small group of authorities in the lower right completely devoid of color. Collected here is a selection of murals from the last year, you can see more detailed shots by flipping through his blog. You can also get an idea of how he works—perched on a tiny suspended seat—in this short GIF.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft launched in 2011, arriving at Jupiter in July of 2016 to begin a series of what will eventually be 12 orbits around the Solar System’s largest planet. The path selected for this particular mission is a wide polar orbit, most of which is spent well away from Jupiter. But once every 53 days Juno screams from top to bottom across the surface of the gaseous planet, recording data and snapping photographs for two hours. It takes around 1.5 days to download the six megabytes of data collected during the transit.
Juno only takes a handful of still photographs each time it passes Jupiter, all of which are made available to the public. Lucky for us Sean Doran stitched together the images from Juno’s last transit (colorized by Gerald Eichstädt) to create an approximate video/animation of what it looks like to fly over the giant planet. Music added by Avi Solomon.
Fashion model and embroidery artist Sheena Liam hand sews images of women whose hair seems to gracefully dangle from each of her 2D surfaces, Liam using black thread as a substitute for her subjects’ long locks. The works are all completed and displayed on embroidery hoops, with hair styles extending from the women in french braids, messy buns, and long ponytails. In one particular design, tiny pieces of thread are seen attached to the wall below the hoop, creating the illusion that the embroidered woman above is messily trimming her bangs.
Liam creates relatable, solitary moments within each hand sewn hoop. You can see more of her elegant designs, as well as snapshots from her travels, on her Instagram. (via Teen Vogue)
In his picture series ‘Home Less’ photographer Nelson Garrido shows the impact of financial crisis on Portuguese properties. He shot just one picture a day while capturing various abandoned houses.
As a result of the economic crisis, an increasing number of families have started living on the streets using caravans, campers and sometimes even cars as a shelter. In some way this phenomenon is reshaping the idea of 'home'.
Torre Angela. A suburb in the extreme periphery of Rome.
In a park lot reserved for taxi there is a little caravan which is not used for cheerful holidays but it's a proper 'home' for an Italian couple hit by the great economic crisis.
This is the place where Tommaso and Donatella live and fight their struggle to survive.
He was a carpenter and she was a hairdresser but they had to retire from their job because of the crisis. Tommaso is a disabled person so they were assigned for social housing but their place has been illegally occupied and they have never retrieved their house. They lived in their car with two dogs for ten months.
In spite of all the adversities they held their dignity and a strong will to go on so that they decided to transform the caravan in their new house.
They live with a minimum retirement pension and Donatella does little tailoring works. Sometimes they also benefit from the help and solidarity of other residents that love this family and consider them as a symbol of this quarter.
Also the authorities who tried to remove them at the beginning are now tolerating this 'strange' presence.
Tommaso opened up his first carpenter's shop in this quarter and his memories flow very fast from the beginnings to the happy moments of his life...the wedding, the family, his sons and daughters, until their actual situation.
Talking about their story help them to ease their pain and to find out the strenght to look ahead and to care about themselves and try not to be a burden for their sons and daughters.
The door of their caravan is always open and they are ready to make a good coffee to share with friend and to enjoy the company.
The famous Le Corbusier's quote 'A house is a machine for living in' seems to be written to describe Tommaso and Donatella's story.
Home is the place where we come back, it's a shelter and protection from the external agents, and that is what Tommaso and Donatella found in a camper: their right place.
I have never seen The Garden of the Words, but as far as anime movies go, it’s apparently one of the most beautiful movies of the genre you can see. In the picture gallery below, you can compare some of the visuals of the film with their real life equivalent in Tokyo. Please note that in all of the pictures, the top section is from the anime, and the bottom one from a real photo of the location.
I’m sure you’ve all seen plenty of Rube Goldberg machines on the web in the past, some of them as big as a whole warehouse. However, in this video, Seiko presents us what is probably the world’s tiniest Rube Goldberg machine, made entirely from mechanical watch parts.
Illustrator Diego Sanches has put together a series of pixel art for a forthcoming game featuring famous scientists, each of whom has special attacks based on their work. They include Charles Darwin using evolution:
Stephen Hawking using a wormhole:
And Isaac Newton using gravity:
Check out Diego’s site for the full set of animation.
Spider embryo. Molecular characterization and embryonic origin of the eyes in the common house spider Parasteatoda tepidariorum. Göttingen University.
Taken from recent research into the development of eyes in spiders, this microscopic image shows what a common house spider looks like as it develops inside an egg. For some reason, it’s disturbingly… cute? This little cthulhu-like spider embryo is nearing the final stage before hatching and appears to be stuck in a tiny self hug. You can learn more about the embryonic origin of eyes in common house spider over on BioMed Central. (via Reddit, Göttingen University)
These amazing street photos of Hong Kong catured by Self taught Chinese photographer Fan Ho. He arrived from Shanghai in 1949 and he fascinated by streets of Hong Kong. These Photos are part of his book “A Hong Kong Memoir“.
One of about 20 Russian soldiers fired the BUK missile that brought down flight MH17 in July 2014, according to international research collective Bellingcat. All of the 20 soldiers know who gave the orders and who actually pressed the button, Eliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat, said
The death of film has been widely reported, but technologies are only perfected after they’ve been made obsolete. It may not be instant photography, but there is at least one machine that will take 35mm film and 5×7″ prints and develop them automatically. It’s called the Filmomat, and while it won’t end up in the studios of many photographers, it is an incredible example of automation.
The Filmomat is an incredible confabulation of valves, tubes, and pumps that will automatically process any reasonably sized film, from 35mm to 5×7 color slides. The main body of the machine is an acrylic cube subdivided into different sections containing photo processing chemicals, rinse water, and baths. With a microcontroller, an OLED display, and a rotary encoder, different developing processes can be programmed in, the chemicals heated, developer agitated, and film processed. The Filomat is capable of storing fifty different processes that use three chemicals and a maximum of ten steps.
The video for this device is what sells it, although not quite yet; if enough people are interested, the Filmomat might be sold one day. This is likely the easiest film developing will ever get, but then again a technology is only perfected after it has been made obsolete.
With its 5.7-inch QHD AMOLED display the Nexus 6P is a little smaller than last year's Nexus 6 in terms of both display size and overall dimensions. It comes with an aluminum shell and overall high-end specs, along with a new 12.3MP Sony sensor and an F2.0 aperture. DxOMark's mobile evaluation puts it at third place in its rankings - find out why. Read more
Every other Monday, our team of blacksmiths and craftsman will be building some of your favorite weapons, and some weapons that you’ve never seen before. This week, we’re forging a big fan request – the wicked Soul Reaver Sword from Legacy of Kain!
Habitat: found from New York to Florida and west to Colorado and Texas
Status: No Conservation Concerns
No, this isn’t a Swarovski crystal creation, but it very well could be! Instead, it’s a Spun Glass Caterpillar (Isochaetes beutenmuelleri) that has dozens of glittering, almost frosty-looking, spines radiating from its body. Don’t be tempted by its beautiful crystalline gaze, though. Those puppies do sting. You’ll want to look, but definitely don’t touch!
Reminds me of when your parents took you to an antique shop when you were little and you were told DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING. Then, you proceeded to secretly touch everything, especially the glass stuff. One time, I ended up breaking something – that was a more of a sting for my parents than for me, though.
If you look closely at the photo above, you’ll notice that you can see right through this creature! That dark green stripe running down the length of its body is actually its stomach.
Ultimately, it’s strange how these truly incredible spun glass caterpillars can transform into such plain Jane adults. Gotta grow up sometime and lose all your mystical qualities… I guess…
Film News: CineStill releases another film!
Thats right! Another JCH exclusive scoop! Some really great film news, just in time for Photokina. Cinestill, the guys behind the wonderful 800T film are back with a great black and white film. Yes, a new film on the market! Check it out.
These days it seems like we have less and less choices for film, with the major players cutting their film lines, instead of restructuring their business model. So when I hear that CineStill are going to add a new film to their lineup my heart goes all of a flutter.
As you all probably might have guessed, I am a staunch supporter of film and of small manufacturers. So CineStill is right up my alley. I have already been really impressed with their 800T film and I have seen people get really stunning results from it.
So when the guys at CineStill contacted me asking if I would be interested in debuting their latest film it didn’t really take all that much for me to grab that opportunity with both hands!
Now before all of you purists shout at me and tell me it is not a new film, you are correct. It is an old film that has been resurrected. This film was available in the past and there are people who are still re-rolling it. But it is a film that is being commercially released onto the market, when the current trend seems to be to remove films from the market. So in a way it is a new film.
So here it is, CineStill bwXX (double-x) 36exp. 135 black and white motion picture negative film
CineStill bwXX is a high speed, classic black & white film emulsion, with an EI of 250 under daylight and 200 under tungsten lighting. Recommended development in Kodak D-96 developer, but is compatible will all black and white film developers.
36 exposures professionally spooled into high quality 135 Non Dx-Coded Cartridges.
Double-x is a classic black and white film stock left relatively unchanged since it’s release in 1959 for still and motion picture use. Some of the movies using the classic Eastman double-x film stock (5222) include: Schindler’s List (1993), Memento (2000), Kafka (1991), Casino Royale (2006), I’m Not There (2007), and many many more.
Kodak no longer offers this wonderful still stock to the still photography community so CineStill Film has decided to release and distribute it under their label. This is a limited run will sell out fast no doubt, but if all goes well it will become a regularly stocked CineStill Film’s emulsion.
CineStill bwXX is an excellent choice for those looking for a classic film stock to fill the void left by the discontinuation of it’s wonderful sister films, Kodak Plus-x (discontinued in 2010) and TXP320.
This is really great news for the film community. It is only a limited run, but if it is popular then this could go into greater production. And if this is anything like as successful as the 800T then that should definitely happen. It looks to be lovely and grainy with plenty of contrast. I have just got some rolls so I shall be running a few as quickly as I can.
But wait! There is more! Haha, yes in celebration of this new release we have a giveaway for you. CineStill have been cool enough to give me a whole bunch of film to giveaway. So, here is the deal, if you buy a 135 film case from my store, you enter the chance to win a roll of bwXX film with your film case. The more cases you buy, the more chance of winning some film. And a couple of lucky people will win a film case full of bwXX and 800T film!
Check out the Cinestill website for more information on their films and where you can get some locally to you. www.cinestillfilm.com
And just when you thought it was over….CineStill will be attending Photokina later this month and will have some more big news for you all, news that I am sure will make a great deal of people very very happy. That is all I can say, but make sure you keep on checking JCH as there will be another awesome exclusive!
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