For the past several years Richard Lang and Judith Selby Lang have been collecting tons of plastic debris off a small stretch of beach near their Norther California home. The plastic is cleaned, categorized and stored before its utilized in their assorted projects including sculptural work, photography, large-scale museum installations, jewelry and art prints. Learn more here. (via vimeo)
Industrial designer and tinkerer Markus Kayser spent the better part of a year building and experimenting with two fantastic devices that harness the sun’s power in some of the world’s harshest climates. The first he calls a Sun Cutter, a low-tech light cutter that uses a large ball lens to focus the sun’s rays onto a surface that’s moved by a cam-guided system. As the surface moves under the magnified light it cuts 2D components like a laser. The project was tested for the first time in August 2010 in the Egyptian desert and Kayser used thin plywood to create the parts for a few pairs of pretty sweet shades. But he didn’t stop there.
Next, Kayser began to examine the process of 3D printing. Merging two of the deserts most abundant resources, nearly unlimited quantities of sand and sun, he created the Solar Sinter, a device that melts sand to create 3D objects out of glass. Via his web site:
This process of converting a powdery substance via a heating process into a solid form is known as sintering and has in recent years become a central process in design prototyping known as 3D printing or SLS (selective laser sintering). [...] By using the sun’s rays instead of a laser and sand instead of resins, I had the basis of an entirely new solar-powered machine and production process for making glass objects that taps into the abundant supplies of sun and sand to be found in the deserts of the world.
In mid-May the Solar Sinter was tested for a two week period in the deserts of Siwa, Egypt, resulting in the amazing footage above. It’s incredible to think that the solar energy generated for both machines is used only to power electronics, servos and the mechanism that tracks the sun, while the power used to cut wood and melt sand is just raw, concentrated sunlight. While I fully understand the mechanics and science at work in Kayser’s devices, there’s something about them that just seems magical. Definitely head over to his website to explore more photos and info. (via stellar, sorry can’t link the post for some reason)
As part of the Dogwood Initiative’s No Tankers campaign, creative agency Rethink Canada designed these oil tanker posters printed with water-soluble ink that when exposed to rainwater proceed to bleed onto everything below them, simulating the potential for oil spills in the region. (via i believe in advertising)
Another really fun ad, this time by DDB in Paris for Tropicana.
We created a billboard that harnesses the energy from oranges to illuminate a neon sign that reads “Natural Energy”. Through several thousand spikes of copper and zinc, a lot of wiring and 3 months of testing we managed to make a giant multi-cell battery powerful enough to light up a billboard. The custom build was produced by Unit9 in collaboration with director Johnny Hardstaff who created the accompanying 90 second film.
Advertisement or not, this looks like it was a really cool endeavor. Gooooo science! (via i believe in advertising)
A great new letterpress print available from Heartfish Press. Printed with soy-based black ink, only $23. (via svpply)
Another stellar video promoting World Water Day, filmed and directed by Andrew Hinton of Pilgrim Films. Shot in India, the short clip won a YouTube nonprofit video award on Saturday and has since been viewed over 150,000 times. (via it’s nice that)
Reminiscent of Siren Elise Wilhelmsen’s knitting clock, London-based Merel Karhof has developed a fully functional windmill capable of knitting.
With the power of the wind, a knitting machine knits from the outside towards the inside of a building. The knitted material is harvested from time to time and rounded-off in individually packaged scarves. Each scarf has its own label which tells you in how much time it has been knitted and on which date.
(via swissmiss)
If you’re still feeling the vibe from the Earth Hour video, you’ll like these wind farm photos by Japanese photographer Yozo Takada. Takada has a mysterious and delicate approach to capturing such large and imposing machines. Beautiful.
