The domin-ation of the Starry Night

Impressed. I can’t really find any other word to describe my impression when I first saw Flippy Cat’s amazing video of Starry Night by Vincent van DominoGogh. Van Gogh’s famous painting was recreated by 7067 dominoes in an attempt which took more than 11 hours to be completed.

Super cool or what…

See also:

• Guernica comes to life
• Ceci n’est pas une post
• Wireless dominoes
• The sky turned blood red

Folding buildings

Folding paper to create the lines of a building, without using any pen or pencil, color or shading. That is the concept behind Simon Schubert’s project entitled ‘Papierarbeiten’, meaning “paper work” in German, in which he creates complex architectural ‘drawings’ with the use of just one piece of paper and nothing else.

Pretty amazing, don’t you think? See more after the jump

A fountain of time

A fountain at Osaka Station City which serves as a clock.

A fountain of time, whose minutes passes in beautiful patterns of words, numbers, flowers and pictures.

Pretty amazing, don’t you think?

via Design Taxi

See also:

• Hours as colors
• Time put to words
• An eCLOUD in the sky

Trippy: watch nano-origami unfold

Well it is actually kirigami (for I suspect scissor work) but it is still mesmerizing. Tiny folded papers unfold slowly when they touch the water surface (due to a physical phenomenon called capillarity)

Flottille by Etienne Cliquet

via kottke

See also:

• Origami social icons
• Etsy finds: origami fashion
• Strange things that do exist: Computational Origami at MIT

Etsy finds: Uloni’s crochet sculptures

I’ve been following this Etsy shop since my first days in Etsy. And I am always amazed by Uloni‘s creativity. She takes a most traditional, if not boring, medium (crochet) and completely reinvents it.

The forms she creates are organic, fluid and sometimes almost alive. And always unique. In fact, they are never replicated and once they leave the shop you can never find them again. thankfully, here is some of her best past work, from her flickr account:

Truly one of a kind.

Etsy finds: retrowhale’s indie portraits (and more)

Who’s your favorite writer? Your favorite movie director? Your favorite band? Animal? Chances are that retrowhale has already created a quirky drawing of them in a wood panel. The discovery that lead me to this shop was this portrait series of writers: Hunter S Thompson, Charles Bukowski, Silvia Plath and Jack Kerouac. Amazing, huh?

Or you can go all nouvelle vague and get a set of french directors:

And if this sounds a tad pretentious to you, there is lots of pop culture to choose from, too. For example this series of (mainly John Hughes) 80’s teen movies:

Or choose your favorite music band out of these almost infographic illustrations:

The rest you have to discover by yourselves!

3D geopolitical maps out of LEGO

Collecting data from the Development Research Center on Migration, Globalization and Poverty, artist Samuel Granados has created a geographical map made of Lego bricks that shows emigration and immigration data between American countries. With each LEGO piece representing 10,000 immigrants, these migration maps reveal the topography as it evolves across North America.

Matryoska electronic music

Picture this: a line of Japanese people sitting cross-legged. They’re holding matryoska dolls. They have stethoscopes on. The move their hands in unison, never touching the matryoskas. What are they doing? Playing music of course!

These matryoskas are called matryomins and are theremin instruments.If, up to now, you didn’t know what theremins are, that makes two of us.

Theremin is the original electronic music instrument, invented in 1928 by Russian engineer Leon Theremin. According to wikipedia “the controlling section usually consists of two metal antennas which sense the position of the player’s hands and control oscillators for frequency with one hand, and amplitude (volume) with the other, so it can be played without being touched”. Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the first composers to experiment with theremin and it was popular up to the ’60 in movie soundtracks (most notably Miklós Rózsa’s works), but fell out of fashion as more advanced electronic music instruments emerged. It still has a niche audience, and a DIY movement that goes along with it.

Impressive stuff.

via Dvice

See also:

• Mobile phone matrioshkas
• Barcodes as notes
• Touch music again

Before I die I want to go to the Galapagos Islands

What are your wildest dreams? What is your deepest existential wish? Now it is time to express it. And in public view.

Candy Chang turned one side of an abandoned house in her neighborhood in New Orleans into a giant chalkboard where residents could fill in the blank by expressing what they would want to do before they die.

The feedback  was massive and the Before I die … in NORL chalkboard was completely filled out within 24 hours. Check out the wall of responses after one day.

More photos after the jump

The art of making movie sounds

Have you ever thought that some of the sounds that you hear in a movie, such as the galloping of a horse, or the sounds of swords, are not actually real, but often created during production? Gary Hecker is a “Foley artist“, someone who specializes in creating everyday sounds for movies.

Right in time for the Oscars.

via Open Culture

Etsy finds: helvetica

If you’ve ever met a designer you’ll know that they only worship one thing: helvetica,the sans-serif typeface that made history. It is of no surprise then that all those crafters at Etsy have created beautiful objects with it.

I ❤ helvetica etsy treasury list:

1. ASCII Heart Necklace by bekathwia
2. helvetica typography acrylic necklace (red) by plastique
3. Large Wood letter D by Hindsvik
4. Uppercase Scarf by TheLittleFactory
5. perpetual necklace – 8am by ofmatter
6. END WAR html by punkpatriot
7. Hellvetica Moleskine – Lined, Screenprinted by VictoriaGabrielle
8. Urban Throw Pillow – Style no17 – NYC – Pillow Cover Only by NestaHome
9. Helvetica for Typography Nerds – Choose your letter and color by Cupcakes and Mace
10. Doodle jewelry / Connect the numbers necklace in silver by tickette
11. Type Nerd 4-Color Process Card Pack of 6 by ShedLetterpress
12. You and Me – Ampersand pendant by melaniefavreau
13. Spell It Out for Me Clock by chromalab
14. Ctrl Alt Del – Black and White Typography Word Art – 8×10 by colorbee
15. TYPO-BAG: Helvetica by caratterino
16. Helvetica Hello Kraft/Ice Blue Note Cards by madebygood

See more etsy finds

Barcodes as notes

Imagine a piano, whose keyboard is composed by barcodes instead of the black and white keys and music is made by placing these barcodes in different order. It gets a little bit confusing, doesn’t it? Well, let me explain it a bit further.

Barcode piano does exist and aims at helping children understand the notion of barcodes. Through a wooden interface, children have the opportunity to play with specific barcode bricks and practically “assemble” sounds, when combining them on the Barcode piano.

Barcode piano was created by Marco Triverio, Hao-Ting Chang, and Helle Rohde Andersen at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, and was first exhibited in Copenhagen.

See also:

• Finger flipping
• I know the music you would like to hear
• Touch music again

Wasted time

We are huge procrastinators. As such, we don’t believe that there is such a thing as wasted time. No time is wasted, no matter the activity.

Alyson Provax, however, is self-conscious about it. She has created this witty series of one-liners, documenting the time she spent not being productive:

You can buy her print at her etsy shop. See more wasted time experiments after the jump.

Etsy finds: life’s a stitch

What I love about the hand-craft movement is how it has reinvented old crafts. Take embroidery, for example. It’s no longer just for grandmothers and old maids. Just look at these quirky stitches that find inspiration from such diverse sources as music from the Pixies and Tears for Fears, the paintings of Frida Kahlo, human anatomy, Twitter, and toilet etiquette:

Life’s a stitch Etsy treasury list:

• hand embroidery-connection no. 1 by marysgranddaughter
• Tears for Fears embroidery – Shout Shout Let It All Out by GraceyMay
• original embroidery by mummysam
• Bicep Muscle Diagram Handmade Embroidery Wall Art by itsastitch
• Subliminal Wall Wear by neawear
• CMYK Color Wheel Cross Stitch by youheartus
• Art Heart – valentine softie. art plush. pincushion. toy by DollsAfterDark
• Lady Marmalade by Moxiedoll
• John Hodgman Tweet Stitch by youheartus
• Embroidered Notebook Paper Love Note by cornflowerbluestudio
• PDF Mini Embroidery Pattern – Vote by wildolive
• Pixies Inspired Embroidery by coppywanna
• sprig – original hand embroidered artwork by Benandi
• stiched paper collage by kspago
• House 2 – Wall Art (6′ x 4′) by donnarule
• Je t’aime Embroidery by naomicayne

Escher’s paradoxical waterfall brought to life

Escher’s Waterfall is practically a river flowing uphill. Which is impossible in real life. Or is it?

And the original:

via Vulture

The thread of hypertextuality

Hypertext has changed the way we consume information. Long gone is the linearity of printed narratives; we, web addicts, enjoy the content-hopping experience of following links ad infinitum.

It has been a paradigm shift. It has been central to postmodern literary theory. And now it finds its way back to the printed book.

Traumgedanken (Thoughts on dreams) is a book by information designer Maria Fischer. It is an anthology of literary, psychological, philosophical and scientific essays on dreams. But each topic, or content node, is connected to other instances of itself in the book by a colorful thread. By following the various threads you practically navigate the book in a hypertextual way, creating your own narratives.

I need to hold it in my hands, but it does look like a successful analog implementation of a digital concept. And, what’s more, it is really beautiful. I am impressed.

Etsy finds: origami fashion

If there is a place for origami in MIT and in space, then there is definitely place for it in fashion:

Origami fashion: folds, ripples, pleats, drapes etsy treasury list:

1. Honeycomb MADE TO ORDER by emilyryan
2. Grey Origami Fabric Necklace by chomelchomel
3. Rippled by MQuin
4. Origami Charcoal Top by LaBronz
5. Origami kurukuru necklace B/W by Homako
6. check print. kimono dolly. soft pleats top. by annyschoo
7. Medium Eggplant Leather Petals by HakNik
8. Pleated Batwing Tunic by emilyryan
9. cropped double t-shirt dress by takeoffyourclothes
10. CUORE Wave Statement Neckpiece – Cowl – Snood – Scarf in Pebble Grey by giia
11. Origami Curve Tunic Black color by isabelamyo
12. Red Recycled Origami Clutch by Relogyyy
13. starburst clutch – metallic by yorktownroad
14. Ruffle Dress by lizarietz
15. Ninfea in black. Vegan bag by ninu
16. Folded Top for Fall black white grey by outofline

Strange things that do exist: Computational Origami at MIT

MIT prof. Erik Demaine (a homeschooled prodigy who enrolled in University at 12 and became the youngest faculty member at MIT at 20 years old) teaches such courses as Geometric Folding Algorithms: Linkages, Origami, Polyhedra (video lectures available online).

Demaine is a mathematician, but also an origami artist himself with exhibits in MoMA’s permanent collection:

[And if you are wondering why MIT holds courses in origami, this is the reason: origami folding techniques are used in industrial products like airbags, and, especially, in space technology with objects such as foldable telescopes and satellite wings]

Related Articles

• MIT Researchers Develop Self-Folding Origami, Programmable Material (techeblog.com)

Touch music again

Do you miss the feeling of going to the shelf, browsing through your LPs or CDs, taking a few out, choosing one, opening it, glancing at the sleeve, then taking the actual disk, putting it in your Hi-Fi and then pressing play? That feeling of touching music? Do you miss the physicality of music?

Now everything is digital, or rather virtual, stored in files and folders and the only physicality is that of the touch screen of an iPod touch. The good people at I miss my pencil missed the tactility of music and felt so nostalgic about mixtapes that they created C60 Redux. It is an innovative prototype of a media player: a vinyl table where you place cards and it recognizes them as songs, thus playing the corresponding music file. You can even create playlists by moving the cards around.

P.S. This just re-opens the debate of digital vs analog music. Here at it’s a small web we are divided. While I embrace digital music and haven’t bought a physical cd in years, elina is still buying vinyl records from record stores. Go figure.

via core77

Etsy finds: Black Swan

Or, as our friend S. put it, the fragile power of perfection.

We recently went to watch the Black Swan. In typical Aronofsky fashion it is a tale of a person’s downward spiral of self-destruction, in this case though, and as opposed to the realistic third point view of his previous works, we – the audience – are trapped in the mind of an introvert ballerina; a mind that soon becomes a battlefield between the Apollonian White Swan and the Dionysian Black Swan. It’s a world of quiet disquiet, filled with intimidating stage moms, manipulating directors, alluring rivals and decadent divas and we are powerless spectators of her painful metamorphosis, until she reaches perfection in her art. To what cost though?

The movie is haunting in its imagery, and climaxes in one of the most poetic scenes of recent cinema. To that scene we dedicate this treasury list:

BlackSwan etsy treasury list:

• Couture Black Wings Headpiece by ArturoRios
• BLACK SWAN – She’s After Me T-Shirt by lovejonny
• Coral Bridal headpiece by spacecadetjewelry
• Ballerina – 8×8 Original Signed Fine Art Photograph by alicebgardens
• The Swan by damestarbaby
• Perspex swan cut out chain by genmotley
• White Feather Long Full Bridal Skirt – Bird Feather by austineshu
• Coco Black Silk Chiffon and Lace Backless Dress with satin bow by hollystalder
• Swan by simonabarbu
• Coque feather collar by Kathycoleman
• Black Feather Necklace – Black Leather and Gunmetal Chain by LoveAtFirstBlush
• A loss of dance 20×16 by whitshoots
• Couture Black Feather Knee-High Skirt 45cm Length by austineshu
• Black & White Acrylic Feather Necklace by byalamode
• Black Swan inspired head-piece by elizlfe
• SECONDITION Queen No.1 by irisschwarz