Who would think that masking tape could be art? Well, art director and graphic designer Koji Iyama has made it just that. With his new installations across Japan, the latest arriving in the city of Sendai, Iyama has certainly been leaving his colorful mark.
His product of choice? Mt-masking tape. His setting of choice? Old warehouses with high ceilings create the perfect space for him to hang the rolls of tape. He covers the entire floor as well, and even proceeds to cover any objects in his way — bikes, tables, other installations. The result of his final design is pretty cool, and we can imagine very interactive for the people lucky enough to visit his presentations. What do you think of Iyama’s art ventures?
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Photo credit: Spoon & Tamago
Check out these absolutely brilliant photos by Japanese chemist and photographer, R. Tanaka. His goal was to capture a microscopic look into some of the world’s most photogenic elements, and he’s managed to do just that. We’re blown away by this rare mix of art + science, and his ability to turn these mysterious substances into a work of beauty and intrigue. He’s managed to bring the periodic table of elements to life with his fascinating project.
Watch him turn elements such as bismuth, platinum, and even lead into art below.
Bismuth
Gold
Osmium
Tellurium
Lead
Photo credit: Neatorama
Unique art is our passion. So it’s no wonder why we’re so inspired by Japanese artist Motoi Yamamoto, and his breathtaking art installations made from one of the most sought-after minerals in the world — salt. His project, titled “Saltscapes”, features incredibly detailed works of art created with basic table salt. His large installations have been known to take up entire gallery, church, and even soy brewery floors.
His installations take up hundreds of hours of time, and he must be very meticulous with pouring to avoid too many mistakes. While he does follow a basic guideline for each piece, most of his works of art are actually improvised. He often leaves his mistakes and imperfections intact as he is working.
Yamamoto uses salt as the main material in his art, as a way to honor his sister who passed away from brain cancer in 1994. Salt is often used in Japanese culture as a way to cleanse one of grief. To him the material signifies life, death, and above all, rebirth. Once the artist disassembles one of his complex installations he releases the salt back into the ocean, often inviting his fans to help him with the process. It’s a way of bringing new life to his masterpieces.
Photo credit: Huffington Post
Video credit: The Avant/Garde Diaries
We’re always captivated by original art projects that set themselves apart from the rest — much like our DNA art. “Black Hole” is a project by Swiss photographer Fabien Oefner. The setup of his project is very simple, Oefner drips various shades of acrylic paint onto a metallic rod, which is attached to a drill. He switches on the drill, and photographs the moment when the paint starts to move away from the rod caused by the centripetal force. Because the paint moves so quickly, the photo needs to be captured within a millisecond of the drill being switched on. He makes use of a sensor that is connected to the drill and camera, which allows him to accurately freeze frame the motion of the paint.
Video credit: Vimeo
Photo credit: Design Boom
Now this is an example of ingenuity at it’s finest! Viennese artist Andreas Franke has recently unveiled his photo project, The Sinking World, in an underwater art gallery. The exhibition is dubbed the Stavronikita Project, and will take place on the deck of the sunken SS Stavronikita, right off the coast of Barbados. We’re absolutely blown away by this mix of innovation and unique art. Via You the Designer:
In his most notable project called “The Sinking World“, Andreas Franke brings a strange, forgotten underwater world back to life by capturing some stills of sunken ships, then recreated what life could have been like aboard the ship with real actors. The amazing images are displayed on the deck of the shipwrecks where divers and art lovers can see his underwater gallery.
He has created two projects so far in The Sinking World series. The first one was The Vandenberg Project, featuring a gallery of surreal photographs of the sunken ship off the coast of Florida and combined the stills with images of staged actors representing everyday life, thus, creating a re-imagined and forgotten world of the sunken giant.
Another set of his Sinking World was The Stavronikita Project featuring a gallery staging the European era, the age of decadence with all its intoxicating extravagance and vanity, on the deck of the sunken ship of the same name right off the Caribbean island of Barbados.
The Stavronikita Project, underwater on SS Stavronikita, will run until April 2013.
We’ve recently been hearing some very big, and very interesting news out of the DNA world! Researchers have claimed to have found a more efficient alternative to storing information on a computer hard drive — rather they are suggesting they have the capabilities to replace the hard drive with DNA. Via Engadget:
We’ve seen scientists experiment with DNA as a storage medium — most recently with a Harvard team fitting 704TB of data onto a single gram of the genetic material — and it looks like that research trend is only picking up. Scientists at the European Bioinformatics Institute in the UK have encoded an MP3 file — along with a digital photo and all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets – into DNA, with a hulking storage density of 2.2 petabytes per gram. The information was written using the language of DNA’s four bases (A, T, C and G, if you remember high-school bio), and to provide error correction the scientists reserved one of the letters to break up long runs of any of the other three bases. In practice, this system allowed for 100-percent accuracy in sequencing and retrieving the encoded files. Though DNA storage is still quite expensive, the researchers say this method could eventually provide a viable option for archiving information, especially considering DNA’s high capacity and long life span. Still, you won’t be ditching that hard drive just yet.
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Photo credit: The Telegraph
This installation may be art + science at it’s finest! We’re amazed at how innovative, and unique this idea is — to see it in person would be truly thrilling. These photos were created by Dutch artist Berndnaut Smilde, and are a part of his Nimbus series. Here’s some more information behind the photos, via Colossal:
Smilde’s methods … are less mythic and more practical, instead relying on delicate balance of smoke, moisture and light. Of course science alone doesn’t account for the striking visual impact contained in each image, as the artist carefully selects the perfect location for the creation of each cloud and then painstakingly lights it from behind for the desired effect. Via email Smilde tells me that it can take quite a while to get all of the elements in place for each cloud and that the installation is so fleeting, the use of photography is critical in capturing the split second where everything becomes perfect.
Smilde has three upcoming exhibitions this year including Ronchini Gallery in London from January 16 through February 16, the SFAC Galleries in San Francisco from February through April, and at Land of Tomorrow in Louisville, Kentucky also from February through April.
If you’re looking to create your own personal work of art, check out our unique portrait ideas that also combine science and art.
Exciting news for those conspiracy theorists out there! A Texan researcher and her team of scientists claim to have confirmed the existence of what we refer to as Bigfoot — A.K.A. The Great Bear, Yeti, Sasquatch, Abominable Snowman, or Harry. Here is some more information on the study, and its findings via Red Orbit:
Researcher Melba Ketchum led a team of scientists in a five-year DNA study purporting to confirm the existence of the hominin hybrid species commonly referred to as Bigfoot. The findings of this study are not yet published and are currently undergoing peer review.
The study findings suggest that the mythical creature known as Bigfoot is a human relative that emerged approximately 1,500 years ago as a hybrid cross between modern Homo sapiens and another as yet unknown primate species. The team was a multi-disciplinary group of experts in genetics, forensics, imaging and pathology. Dr. Ketchum confirms that the team has sequenced three complete Sasquatch nuclear genomes and has determined that the species is definitively a human hybrid.
“Our study has sequenced 20 whole mitochondrial genomes and utilized next generation sequencing to obtain 3 whole nuclear genomes from purported Sasquatch samples. The genome sequencing shows that Sasquatch mtDNA is identical to modern Homo sapiens, but Sasquatch nuDNA is a novel, unknown hominin related to Homo sapiens and other primate species. Our data indicate that the North American Sasquatch is a hybrid species, the result of males of an unknown hominin species crossing with female Homo sapiens,” said Ketchum.
With any news or emerging research such as this, there is alot of scepticism surrounding the study. Via Neurologica:
Let me offer a preliminary alternate hypothesis. The hair samples that contain only human mtDNA are from a human. The samples from which the nuDNA is isolated are also from humans but with some contaminants or some other animal source mixed in. That seems to be a more parsimonious interpretation. I would like to know more about the source of the DNA, but I guess that will have to wait for the full details to be published. The fact that the human DNA is modern human (hence the need for the alleged hybridization to have occurred so recently in the past) is most easily explained as the source simply being modern humans.
While Ketchum does have the experience and expertise to lend to her credibility — she has over 27 years of research experience in genetics and forensics – many sources are saying she will likely have issues getting her study published. Many are thinking the study should have gone under peer review, before being released to the media. What are your opinions on her study? We’d love to hear from you!
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Photo credit: Huffington Post
On this Day in Science is a DNA 11 blog series featuring historical discoveries, births, or news in the science or genetics world.
Twelve years ago today, the International Space Station finally began operation two years after it was officially launched into orbit. The station has roughly the same volume as a five-bedroom house and can hold up to six crew members at a time. It’s still in use today, and has housed astronauts and cosmonauts from over a dozen different nations. Via National Geographic:
The International Space Station is an orbiting laboratory and construction site that synthesizes the scientific expertise of 16 nations to maintain a permanent human outpost in space.
While floating some 240 miles (390 kilometers) above Earth’s surface, the space station has hosted a rotating international crew since November 2000.
Astronauts and supplies are ferried by … the Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft. Astronauts who reach the facility aboard one of these missions typically live and work in orbit for about six months.
Simply by spending time in orbit, astronauts reveal much more about how humans can live and work in space. Crews have learned the difficulties of diet, in a world in which their sense of taste is decreased, and of getting a good night’s sleep while secured to a non-floating object.
But the crew is also occupied with a full suite of scientific experiments, the ongoing improvement and construction of the station, and a rigorous regime of physical training. Astronauts must exercise for two hours each day to counteract the detrimental effects of low gravity on the body’s skeleton and circulatory system.
COOL FACT: The state of Texas passed a piece of legislation in 1997 allowing US astronauts to vote even if they were serving a mission in space. To this day, American occupants of the ISS can “beam” down their ballots via a secure electronic system.
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Looking for a bit of craftsmanship in your electronics? Check out these amazing wooden keyboards created by French design group Orée, which allow users to go against the grain (literally!). Via Ultralinx:
If you like the feel of natural materials being part of your tech, you’ll love this wooden keyboard by Orée. The keyboard itself and the keys are all made from premium Maple wood. Each keyboard is made from a single piece of wood which means every keyboard will also have a different grain.
It’s got chiclet style keys which are now becoming very common in modern day keyboards – most notable in the Apple keyboards. You can clearly see that it was inspired by Apple’s own keyboard. Each keyboard is polished, oil rubbed and assembled by hand. It has Bluetooth 3.0 to connect to devices and only needs a pair of AAA batteries to run. They’re made to order so it’ll take a month or two to get to you.
Despite the popularity of touch screen devices, a physical keyboard is something that’s still sought after. Orée is targeting their new product at tablet users who have a knack for modern, minimalist design, as well as sustainable technology. Despite the fact that a single keyboard can take up to 5 weeks to make, they’re still only retailed for about €125. What do you think of Orée’s natural take on technology?
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Header image via Ultralinx.
Text image via Designboom.
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