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Art Photography

Neon Hues Paint Puddles of ‘Regular Rain’ in Images by Slava Semeniuta

Russian artist and photographer Slava Semeniuta aka VISUAL SCIENTIST (previously) retouches digital photographs of puddles to create vibrant compositions of “REGULAR RAIN.” Every color of the light spectrum is reflected in neon on the smooth surface of water as it falls and sits on the asphalt. The macro view of wet streets creates a cosmic feeling for common terrestrial scenes.

Semeniuta tells Colossal that he was inspired to create the photo series a couple of weeks ago in Sochi. The way the light shimmered on the wet plants, tiles, and asphalt compelled him to return home for his camera to shoot “everything that seemed to me impressive, something that touched me. I especially liked the look of the reflection of neon light in the water,” he adds, “which froze in a thick layer, not yet having time to soak into the asphalt structure. These reflections in the puddles give me a strange feeling that I am looking into some other dimension.”

Keep scrolling down to be transported to another dimension through Semeniuta’s images, and see more of the artist’s work over on his Instagram.

Art

Rainwater Collecting Installation by John Grade Dazzles Like an Outdoor Chandelier

Situated in a clearing within an Italian forest, John Grade’s latest installation, Reservoir, appears like a chandelier glistening among the pine trees. Reservoir is featured in the Arte Sella Sculpture Park in Borgo Valsugana and is made up of five thousand clear droplets each of which is delicately attached to translucent nets, supported by tree trunks.

On designing Reservoir, Grade (previously) studied the Park’s ecosystem, carefully planning the installation in harmony with the surrounding landscape. “I became most interested in the way rain falls through this grove of trees, the canopy delaying the droplet’s journey to the ground as well as how quiet and sheltered the forest was during a heavy rain,” Grade tells Colossal. “I wanted to make a sculpture that responded to the rain directly as well as a sculpture that responded to people.”

Reservoir is constructed from heat-formed plastic parts framed with steam-bent strips of Alaskan yellow cedar. Each droplet is attached to marine nets with fishing line which are then incorporated with stainless steel rings to maintain tensions and support the tree trunks above the structure. The shape of the translucent droplets are formed from casts of human hands cupped together. “We cast ten different people’s hands for variations in scale,” Grade explains.

When rain falls or snow lands the water accumulates within Reservoir’s clear pouches, giving them their droplet-like shape. In doing slow, the installation gets heavier and lowers, while in sunny, warm weather, it rises back into its original structure as the liquid evaporates. “The sculpture rises and falls with precipitation differently each time it rains or snows,” says Grade. Springs below the installation limit the vertical range of movement, so Reservoir always remains 10 feet above the forest floor.

The dry sculpture in its original configuration weighs 70 pounds, but when filled with rainwater, it can exceed 800 pounds. Reservoir serves as a water resource for the surrounding landscape: when the water it holds evaporates, it creates a humid environment for the surrounding vegetation to flourish.

Movement also manipulates the structure of Reservoir, and, as part of the project, Arte Sella connected Grade with Andrea Rampazzo, a dance artist based in Italy. Rampazzo choreographed a performance, where four dancers would interact with the sculpture, making the installation rise and fall depending on their movements. “Each tree has a cable connecting the net to the ground running down its length via pulleys which can either engage the spring limiting its downward trajectory to 12 feet of movement or bypass the spring to a second pulley near the base of the tree at waist height,” Grade explains. “This way the dancers can pull or release any of the nine lines to create varied movement in the sculpture.”

Occurring during one day of festivities, the dance lasted 45 minutes and was performed three times during the day. “The four dancers also had the assistance of four members of my studio team to help work the lines during the performance,” says Grade. Due to more control over Reservoir, the dancers brought the sculpture down to two feet from the ground, so their bodies were fully immersed in the thousands of droplet-like forms. “Because we were lucky to have rainfall, the dancers were able to abruptly jerk the movements and shower themselves with water,” Grade explains. “Now we can watch the sculpture collect and release and move over the seasons and build upon those nuances to create a second installation. Wind may become a significant inspiration the next time.”

You can view more of Grade’s work on his website, or visit his Instagram page.

 

 

Animation Illustration

Vanishing Thoughts Explored in High Contrast GIFs by Tracy J Lee

Chicago-based art director, designer, and illustrator Tracy J Lee creates animated city scenes drenched in high contrast light and shadow with subjects who are lost in deep inner thought. In several of the GIFs the central character steps outside of their self as a ghostly doppelgänger that disappears almost as quickly as it enters the frame. The figure plays a duet next to its twin, or attempts to help himself up from a position on the floor. The last few GIFs were inspired by the South Korean boy band BTS, and feature interpretations of some of Lee’s favorite songs. You can see more of her illustrations on her Tumblr, Instagram, and Behance. (via The Art of Animation)

Art

Rainy Australian Cityscapes by Mike Barr

Australian painter Mike Barr focuses his work almost exclusively on rainy cityscapes, the moments of hazy gray that become illuminated by a city’s cars and traffic lights. There is a unity found in these dreary urban landscapes, a similarity of imagery which it makes it difficult to pinpoint which city is being captured. The city featured here however is Melbourne, a city Barr often focuses on in his umbrella spotted pieces. You can see more of Barr’s paintings on his Facebook and website.

Animation Music Science

A Mesmerizing Sequence of Biological Simulations by Maxime Causeret for Max Cooper’s ‘Order from Chaos’

Starting with a recording of raindrops hitting the skylight in his old apartment, this track titled Order from Chaos from London-based artist Max Cooper‘s newest album Emergence is the culmination of three years work merging his interests in science, music and visual arts. French visual effects artist Maxime Causeret was asked to provide the visuals and the result is a mesmerizing blend of biological simulations and music video. Cellular forms appear to collide, merge, and even compete for resources while brain-like structures explode and crash across the screen. Cooper explains a bit of the science behind the art:

Maxime Causeret selected this track to work with, under the brief to map the emergent rhythm to an exploration of emergence in living form. His video shows the raindrops initially, then going into simple cellular forms and then showing the important idea of cooperation between simple cells to form more robust colonies of life. This develops into a visualisation of the idea of endosymbiosis, where simpler smaller organisms can live inside larger cells, each providing a benefit to the other, and eventually forming parts of the same organism as they evolve to be entirely dependent on each other.

Fullscreen, headphones, you know the drill. This is definitely worth getting lost in for a moment. You can listen to Cooper’s full album here.

Design Science

The Tempescope is an Ambient Weather Device that Simulates the Forecast on Your Desktop

The Tempescope is a novel device designed by Ken Kawamoto that displays the upcoming forecast by simulating weather conditions inside a small translucent box. The device is capable of downloading information about upcoming weather off the internet, which it then translates into a variety of modes to replicate sunshine, clouds, rain, and even lighting. Kawamoto made an early version of the device available as a free open-source project called OpenTempescope so you can try building your own, but a consumer version is planned for Kickstarter later this year. If you liked this, don’t miss The Cloud. (via Sixpenceee)