Cometen Werck

✪ Handpowered topological swirl membrane.

2008-09-19T07:51:00.001Z

✪ Meteoric Stamps

2008-07-08T14:32:00.004Z

Some nice examples of stamps featuring meteorites and comets can be found here.

The Decent.

2008-06-20T09:58:00.004Z

Thierry de Duve once stated that Manet's Painting of the Decent from the Cross, marks the start of Modernism because it depicts a state hovering between life and death. Just such a state is described by astronauts when they report about looking down to Earth hovering in the black of space. Manet's painting has a remarkable resemblance to the photo's of astronauts, being carried from their landing capsules. After long space missions their weakened bodies look frail and powerless.

✪ Chinese Elephant Man

2008-01-14T09:47:00.000Z

Mr Huang Chuncai aged 31 from China.

✪ Root-man.

2007-12-05T10:50:00.001Z

✪ Reprap the home-made 3-d printer.

2007-10-24T13:38:00.000Z

More on rapid prototyping in this article I wrote earlier.
This is the result so far with our Reprap 3-d printer at [foAm] (Pics).
You may notice that it even has some wooden parts!

Before this I went to the fablab that is set up in Mediamatic. Here's some images from the workshop there:

✪ Swiss army bunker-chalets.

2007-10-11T16:51:00.000Z

Ojode Pez a wonderful documentary-photography magazine, recently featured a collection of photographs of some strange architecture, taken by Christian Schwager.

Certainly this highlight from the history of military architecture deserves a closer look, for some of its features can be found in more recent large scale housing-projects and mass-urban-planning, where homes can look as fake as these bunkers do.

What looks warm and comfortable from afar, becomes chilling and lifeless under closer inspection.

And some more can be found on flickr:

✪ Satellite sees CME tear comet tail off.

2007-10-03T11:36:00.000Z

NASA's STEREO satellite captured the first images ever of a collision between a coronal mass ejection (CME), and a comet. The collision caused the complete detachment of the comet's plasma tail.

✪ The dignity that comes with manual labor.

2007-10-02T15:24:00.000Z

For a hundred years the villiage of Oeschberg near Bern has featured an old-folks-home for Knechte und Mägde: farmhands and maids, who served on farms all their lives. Now they are spending their latter years working for themselves at the home. Photographer Andreas Reeg made some impressive pictures of them.

I don't want to romanticize old-fashioned ways of living, but obviously any snotty little rapper driving his tribal tattoos around in some pimped-up Hummer, will in his hart of harts know that these people have a dignity and strength of character that he will never have.

And crafts are technology too!!!

✪ Tomytronic, gaming technology from 1980.

2007-09-05T18:45:00.000Z

In case you're wondering if in the future there will ever be a handheld game with 3-D visuals and 3-D sound, you will be surprised to hear that this game of the future has already been made, in the early eighties.

This is the handheld game. Really wonderful to play, and an experience beyond anything that that your playstation can throw up.

✪Shark Attack ✪Planet Zeon ✪Skyattack

The best of all is the 1983 Skyfighters game, when your airplane flies out-off the left side of the picture, and the sound passes behind your head, all-around, until the plane shows-up again on the right of the screen. Now that is what I call VR.

More on Tomy in the handheldmuseum.

✪ The fabbing revolution is coming.

2007-09-05T12:13:00.000Z

When the prehistoric world was introduced to ceramic technology, it really knocked people over. Until that time they had to fashion their tools by crudely or delicately knocking stones together and using the different types of flint that this produced.

But then ceramics hit the scene.
With pottery however you could simply mold any shape you liked and color could be added.. it was just unbelievable. To us these objects may look simple, to these people it was magic.

A similar revolution may hit society today:
Personal Fabrication

It enables you to create any new technology or gadget you may wish to build. A 3-D printer can help you to manufacture anything that mayor companies like Philips, Sony or Apple can build. Let's hope this liberates todays passive consumers, to become active participators and inventors.

The possibilities are amazing, just take a look at the printer and these printed models (the curly one is made of sugar):

The fabbing printer was created by Neil Gershenfeld, who likens its development to that of the first personal computers.
(klik his portrait for an video interview.)

Neil Gershenfeld

for more on fabbing check out: foam and waag websites.

✪ Pala Di San Martino

2007-08-22T07:58:00.001Z

This mountain range can be found in the Dolomites. Part of it is known as Pala di San Martino, or the Balls of Saint Martin. It is possible to walk and climb around these Holy testicles and when you do so it takes you into the strange landscape of lifeless rock-formations.

A curious effect of the barren stone landscape is that it is very difficult to asses its scale. The only thing you can estimate about the size of your surroundings is that it lies between certain limits that depend upon common sense. But with little effort these giant rocks can even be imagined to be the size of a pebble.

It is only when people or chalets appear in the landscape that its true scale becomes apparent.

This effect can be found in reverse order in the Suiseki or Penjing stones of Japan and China. These objects were used to let the mind wander through a landscape that fits on your desk.

Klik on the picture for a previous post on those stones:

Alton Delong has done very interesting work on scale and human perception.
When he asked people to play Pong on a 7-inch and a 23-inch screen he found that the size reduction considerably improved concentration in players.

When he created three model waiting-rooms he discovered that scale reduction compresses the perceived time of people.

At scale 1/6 : 30 min becomes 5.43 min on average.
At scale 1/12: 30 min becomes 2.66 min on average.
At scale 1/24: 30 min becomes 1.49 min on average.

(Delong 1983, 2000)

Delong has also worked on class-room designs.

I came across his work and the Penjing stones in a stunning book by Douglass W. Bailey called Prehistoric Figurines; Representation and corporeality in the Neolithic.

✪ Eertclootschrift.

2007-07-29T08:20:00.000Z

Stevin, die eerst der zeeën vloed
En ’s aerdrijks omzwaei heeft bevroed

Some wonderful expressions used by Simon Stevin in his Wisconstige Gedachtenissen.

Eertclootschrift: geography
Eertclootschrijvers: geographers
Dwaeler: planet
Dwaelerloopen: orbits
Stofroersel: material sciences
Stofscheyders: alchemists
Spieghelaer: theoretician
tuychwercklick: mechanical
Sichteinder: horizon
Hemelloop: astronomy
Deursichtighe: optics
Gaslagher: observer
Lycksydicheyt: symmetry

✪ Suiseki or Penjing stones.

2007-07-28T20:34:00.000Z

A collection of Suiseki or Penjing stones.

Suiseki are traditional Japanese viewing stones they also appear in China as tray-sized landscapes: Penjing which have a long tradition in Chinese scholarly art, dating from the Qin an Han Dynasties.
It's four aesthetic concepts:

gugao or aloofness
jianjie or sparseness
ya or refined elegance
pingdan or plainness

These stones would enable the scholar to mentally walk through a landscape using the stone on a desk as a lithic virtual reality. A way to travel without moving.

✪ Albrecht Altdorfer.

2007-05-09T12:29:00.000Z

Look upon his works, ye mighty and despair!

From 1480 until 1538 Germany was home to a man so visionary that his feet probably rarely hit its soil. Albrecht Altdorfer was by choice of topics and his radiant drawing-hand, the Vincent Van Gogh of his age. With the same out-of-sync rhythm, he rendered a strange vision of the world that must make him one of Europe's greats.

Just see the face of this man:

Or this landscape:

The fact that these two masters have never really been linked is to me an art-historic enigma, which could be resolved by bringing Altdorfer to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.

✪ LOFAR

2007-04-27T18:50:00.000Z

Great news for Dutch people today. There has not been much to cheer about for us Dutchees lately; our politics are dodgy, our footbal team hopeless, and soon were all going to be flooded. But until then there is one thing at least to bragg about:

LOFAR, a new window on the cosmos, in the Netherlands.

✪ On grazing hermits.

2007-03-20T17:51:00.001Z

On one of my explorations through hagiographic literature in the Central Library of Amsterdam, I came across a text which just mentioned a piece of very very odd behavior.

When Christianity was legalized by Roman Emperor Constantine, the Christian Saints were no longer prosecuted. To prove their dedication to faith they found a new way to suffer, Asceticism.

Soon this practice got really out off hand and people would come up with ever less comfortable ways of existence. Starving and suffering, they could go for hours, or even days without the normal signs of life.

Dead to the world they lived in God. Saints became like athletes of Christ and in this passage I read the most stunning account yet, that there were even hermits who grazed like sheep. The golden age of grazers was the 6th century, when people ate grass all their lives at the coasts of the Red Sea.

Further research has shown these Bosci or Boskoi to be either animal-like in behaviour or to be nomadic people living of grass they foraged using sickles. The most fantastic account comes from a chapter called 'The Mental Condition of Hermits', in 'A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe', by John William Draper.

'If they were not recorded by many truthful authors, the extravagancies of some of these enthusiasts would pass belief. Men and women ran naked upon all fours, associating themselves with the beasts of the field. In the spring season, when the grass is tender, the grazing hermits of Mesopotamia went forth to the plains, sharing with the cattle their filth and their food.'

More on: Libarynth

✪ Science for artists and designers.

2007-03-19T18:47:00.000Z

The scientific view of the world and its inner workings and principles is very precise and imaginative. For such ingenious descriptions and for things that are counter-intuitive, science could really enrich the vocabulary of artists and designers.

✪ Science for artists:

Symmetry:
In physics symmetry is a beautiful and highly advanced concept. In art we only know things like mirror-symmetry, but in physics any change to the universe that does not affect its workings, is known as a symmetry.

But there are some shocking results that came from studying symmetries.
It turns out that if you photo-shopped the universe, and tried to flip it horizontally, this mirror version doesn't work. There is some obscure particle that has no mirror-image of itself, just like a vampire.

It turns out that the world probably keeps on functioning normally if you; mirror it, and then make it run backwards, and finally, swap all particles for their associated anti-particles. But were not quite sure, its called CPT symmetry.

This brings us to:

Noethers Theorem:
Emmy Noether probably came up with the most beautiful idea ever about nature. There are some things in nature that are constant, the total amount of energy in the universe for instance. Emmy Noether saw a way to connect these conserved properties of the universe with symmetries:

the symmetry that the laws of nature are the same at any moment in time is linked with the fact that the total amount of energy in the universe does not change.

So the perpetuum mobile does not exist if the laws of nature don't change in time.

the symmetry that the laws of nature are the same anywhere, is linked to the fact that the total amount of momentum in the universe does not change.

So when you crash your car into a pedestrian, the pedestrian brakes his legs and flies through the air, because the laws of nature are the same everywhere. And this is true of anything that ever bumped into something else.

the symmetry that the laws of nature are the same in any direction from where you are, is linked to the fact that the total amount of angular momentum does not change.

So when your dangling from a rope, you can only stop spinning around by putting your feet on the ground, because the laws of nature are the same in any direction you look. And this applies to all things that ever spinned around.

Such an advanced view of symmetry could really enrich the analysis and development of artworks, especially in media and time-based arts.

✪ Here are a few concepts useful to designers:

Allotropy:
The phenomenon of an element existing in two or more physical forms, which can be very interesting from a design perspective, think for instance of the element Carbon, which can take the form of graphite or diamond.

Dysteleology:
The study of uselessness in nature, which is probably especially interesting to poets, but also to designers because it seems to deal with design-flaws in nature, which go against the widespread belief that in nature, form follows function.

Kinetogenesis:
The notion that animal stature originates from the way they move. This is a design-principle where form does follow function. It is the exact opposite of a choreography, because choreographies are studies of the types of movements the shape of our bodies can make.

Phytonomy:
The laws that govern the coming into existence and growth of plants, which seems an interesting study for architects.

Stereognosis:
Perceiving an object only by the sense of touch. This must have countless applications in the fields of the arts and design, and it is nice to have such a precise word for it.

Tropotaxis:
The adaptation of an organism to a substance that can serve as food. Processes like this no doubt pop-up in design assignments of high complexity and interdependence. In such projects tropotaxis can be a useful metaphor from biology.

✪ Art for Scientists.

2007-03-13T20:16:00.000Z

As a frequent visitor of lectures by scientists, occasionally you will come across the most uninspired and dull visuals in power point presentations. Worst of all are the wobbly stick figures that look like the work of someones half witted nephew.
Clearly there is room for improvement and where better to look, than with the experts of visual representation, the artists.

Take for instance this brilliant artwork by mister Maurizio Cattelan.

La Nona Ora (the Ninth Hour)

Or this; could there be a more poetic illustration of the Holographic principle than this work by Noble and Webster?

Dirty White Trash.

This work by Yael Davids can be seen as a work about topology.

Aquarium.

The dirty sick world of Paul McCarthy can be used to discuss anything from entropy to social oppression or waste management.

Bossy Burger.

For waste you can also take a look at this machine by Wim Devoye that produces the closest thing to shit currently possible.

Cloaca.

Marcel Duchamp used great mathematical and scientific stuff in his work, like this thing that he called 'Occulist Witness'. Apparently it was used to restore three-dimensional vision to people with only one working eye. There is lodes more of good stuff like this that he used.

Occulist Witness.

✪ Judgement stones.

2007-03-12T13:12:00.000Z

Great monoliths that were used to sentence ancient criminals, who were crushed when the stones toppled due to the wind.

These objects can be found on the British Isles, throughout Scandinavia and even in the Balkan. Many of them have names, and Logan stones seem to be a certain type of rocking-stone, which look like they could not be used for judgments because of the way they are situated.

The total number of these stones is unknown since many of them collect earth round their bases during the ages and lose their balance.

✪Logan Stones.

✪ Hydrated Man

2007-03-08T08:55:00.000Z

To show the influence of our size on science physicist William Crookes described what it would be like to be a tiny homunculus, exploring a leaf of cabbage:
This little person would be standing on a great green plane, full of glistening transparent domes of water, as high as the pyramids. The surface tension of these bubbles would be very tricky to deal with. Thus he showed how subjective our everyday experiences are.

Here is a guy who is even smaller, so tiny in fact that he is beaten-up by a gang of water-molecules. When I see a bottle of hydrating creme in the shower, I always imagine those aggressive bipolar molecules, as a gang of mafiosi.

✪ The face of God.

2007-03-06T22:51:00.000Z

In 1989 this picture caused a sensation because it was the first picture that shows the structure of the universe. It was presented by the first satellite devoted to cosmology, the Cosmic Background Explorer. This picture became controversially known as 'the Face of God':

It was later upgraded by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe to this:

But if God has a face I think it will resemble this ladies features, and if you zoom in on her forehead long enough you end-up with a picture approximating those produced by the satellites.

✪ On the Aesthetics of Windtunnels.

2007-03-02T21:12:00.000Z

Saint Joseph of Cupertino, the flying friar, during an aerodynamics test.

Hieronymus Bosch 'Ascent of the Blessed.' And part of a supersonic windtunnel.
If there is any place on Earth that resonates with Platonic beauty it is the wind-tunnel. A chilly, highly specialized place far removed from daily life, reminiscent even of Bosch's tunnel of light that leads the way to heaven.

Lit beautifully by cold fluorescent light, this is a room that feels like its moving at high speed, yet isolated from the flow of duration. Wind inside a building is strange anyway, but a room constructed especially for it is an enigma, which I think is at its best when seen empty.

✪ 17th century Dutch views on Comets.

2007-03-01T22:32:00.000Z

Reading notes on a text by Eric Jorink: Van omineuze tot glorieuze hemeltekens; Veranderende opvattingen over kometen in de Republiek in de zeventiende eeuw.

Which is in: Kometen, monsters en muilezels. Uitgeverij Arcadia, Haarlem 1999, ISBN: 90-6613-008-3

Constantijn Huygens:

Ick vraegh, waer hoort sij thuis die vreeslicke Comeet,
Daer elck soo veel af snapt en elck soo weinig weet
Sij wandelt om en om: wie dreight sij meer of minder
Een Coningh sterft in't Oost: daer over treurt men ginder.
From Huygens' poem: 'Cometen-Werck', on the comet of 15 Nov. 1680-6 Feb. 1681.

Jacob Cats:
't Is genouch voor ons te weten
Dat de steerten der Cometen
Voor gewis ons beelden aff
Teykens van des Heeren straff.
From Cats': 'Aenmerckinge op de tegenwoordighe Steertsterre.'

The 1680 comet above Rotterdam, by Lieven Verschuur.

Johannes Graevius:
Want wat sietmen schoonder, wat is'er vermaeckelijker, wat vintmen aengenaemer, dan dese Hemelsche vyerige klooten, met dewelcke door den onsterffelijcken Schepper ende Werckmeester van dit Geheel-al, de openen ende als onbepaelde velden des Hemels, gelijck een tuyn met aengename bloemen, door een verwonderendwaerdige veranderinge ende schoonheyd, besaeyt ende onderscheyden zijn.

From Graevius': 'Redenvoeringh ofte Oratie van de cometen vernietigende het gemeene gevoelen dat deselve yets quaets aenkondigen. - Utrecht 1682.

Nicolaus Mulerius:

Wy worden daghelijcx gheleert ende vermaent, dat Godt niet alleenlijck Rechtvaerdich is, maer oock Barmhertich. Sijn rechtvaerdicheyt siet op onse verdiensten, die niet clein zijn. Want door het stadich toenemen van onsen sonden, als van suypen, brassen, proncken ende hovaerdich pralen, mitsgaders lieghen ende bedriegen, ende t'ghene wy nu verswyghen, verwecken wy Gods toorn om sijn straffe te laten gaen over landen ende luyden: Maer sijn bermherticheyt is so groot dat hy ons laet waerschouwen door sijn extraordinaris boden, als nu door dese Hemelse Trompet ende Morgenwecker.

From Mulerus': 'Hemelsche Trompet ende Morgenwecker Ofte Comeet Met een Langebaert' (1618)

My notes:

To me as a reader, the poems by Cats and Huygens in which comets are presented as ominous signs of Gods wrath, remind me of the cold dark and forbidding view of the cosmos that resided in western society until the early nineties, when the Hubble space telescope suddenly filled the endless black void with pictures rich in textures and colors. Just think back to the menacing abyss through which the concrete and tarmacked spaceships of Battlestar Galactica drifted. Space seemed like an empty car-park, filled only with dead lumps of grey rock and hard white light from distant stars.

And after the Hubble-telescope, you get the new series of Startrek, where space is filled with coloured clouds, planets teeming with life. The space these organic spacecrafts traverse is like an underwater garden, biology now extends out from Earth to all corners or the universe as a united world, like Graevius sees in his text where comets are 'Heavenly Fiery Bollocks'.

✪ Foreknowlegde in martial history.

2007-03-01T19:34:00.000Z

This is a character named Otto and he is fiddling with a scale-model of a WW1-Ardennes landscape. Apparently his soldiers are desperate enough to have a 1790-s Herschel telescope to assess their future with. They are waiting for the Moon to appear. Luckily Otto has made one.

Celestial divination has long been a part of martial traditions. Omens were not just recognized in the properties of celestial objects, but also in the entrails of herbivores, particularly the liver because of its likeness to clay tablets, and of course there were oracles, like the one at Delphi, where the Pythia was seated on a tripod inhaling strange vapors that rose from the ground, to make largely unintelligible predictions The emerging gases were said to be the breath of a slain dragon, but came from a dormant volcano on the site.

Divination played a big part in early medicine, to such an extent in fact, that all the great early astronomers were primarily trained as physicians. Their activities were at first practically indistinguishable from those performed by traditional healers such as druids and by saints.

Foreknowing dominated some cultures more than others. The Babylonians were obsessed by it because their Gods could be tricked or bribed. But to the Greeks, fate was something inevitable and tragic, undermining the confidence without which their empire dwindled.