roomthily

Point Cloud, 2012 (James Leng) - 

an attempt to reimagine our daily interaction with weather data. Weather has always had a unique place in our lives, because it has a multiplicity that encompasses both the concrete and the indeterminate. It is the intangible context within which we build our lives and our cities, but it is also the physical element against which we create protective shelter. Most of the time it is an invisible network that we can see but are not aware of; yet it can manifest in a spectacle or disaster, come forward and activate our senses, make us forget our rationality in delight or fear. With modern scientific and technological developments, we can now deploy sophisticated monitoring devices to document and observe weather. Yet despite these advances, our analysis and understanding of meteorology is still largely approximate, and in many cases, inaccurate. Weather continues surprise us and elude our best attempts to predict, control, and harness the various elements.

…

the effects each push and pull ripple out along the elastic tension of the wire threads, and in combination with the syncopated rhythm of the servos, create movement that is complex, unexpected, and hopefully wondrous.

via TRIANGULATION BLOG

prostheticknowledge:

The Sound Of The Earth by Yuri Suzuki 

A globe-like spherical record with grooves arranged as world map, playing music related to geo-political positions:

THE SOUND OF EARTH BY YURI SUZUKI from Alice Masters on Vimeo.

The Sound of the Earth is a content of Yuri Suzuki`s spherical record project, the grooves representing
the outlines of the geographic land mass.  
Each country on the disc is engraved with a different sound, as the needle passes over it plays field
recordings collected by Yuri Suzuki from around the world over the course of four years;
traditional folk music, national anthems, popular music and spoken word broadcasts.

An aural journey around the world in 30 minutes.

You can find out more at Yuri’s website here, which includes a full audio recording of the piece.

supplementarytochange:

Mitchell Whitelaw

One thing I have been extremely interested in is physical data visualizations. These pieces are all from Mitchell Whitelaw using processing and a crazy intelligent brain.

1. Weather Bracelet

This first example of physical data visualization is a wearable data-object, based on 365 days of Canberra’s weather. The tip on the outside of the bracelet represents the daily high of temperature. Rainfall is presented through circular holes based on each week’s rainfall data.

2. Measuring Cup

This little cup measures Sydney’s temperature data over 150 years. It is roughly 6cm high. The data was collected by the UK Met Office’s HadCRUT subset. One horizontal layer of the cup is a single year of data. The bottom of the cup starts at 1859 and goes to 2009 at the top. Months are ordered clockwise around a full circle, and the data controls the radius of the form at each month. The product was developed through different software from Processing to Meshlab.

3. Local Colour

These bowl-like works are made using a laser cutter and reclaimed fruit and vegetable cardboard boxes. They are developed from a generative system based on Eden’s model; the layers of the form show the system’s growth over time.

All of his work are engaging designs the you can touch and feel. Although there are no words or numbers on his work, reading the photo captions you can understand straight away what the work is trying to communicate. Using white for the weather bracelet and cup creates a sense of sophistication, cleanliness and refined design. This represents the thought process that has gone into the creation of the designs very well. The idea of recycling for the local colour bowls is a great representation of eco friendly design but also draws in the audiences eye. Because it has so many layers the range of colours add depth with out cluttering the design.

edge (signe emma & alice young)

via . of paper and things .

Great Polish Map of Scotland - 

Set in the open air in the Peeblesshire landscape at Eddleston, General Maczek and his companions conceived The Great Polish Map of Scotland as a permanent three-dimensional reminder of Scotland’s hospitality to the Polish Forces. It was also a powerful symbol of their role in protecting Scotland from invasion in wartime and of the General’s instinctive appreciation of geography and landform. The coastline and relief of Scotland were laid out precisely in 1975 by Kazimierz Trafas, a young Polish student geographer-planner from the Jagiellonian University at Cracow, with a few of his Polish colleagues.

via things

All Possible Photons (Richard Feynman’s subatomic particle diagrams by Edward Tufte)

via kottke

scientificillustration:

Glass model of the radiolarian Heliosphaera actinota 

Made by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka

Landscape Abbreviated (Nova Jiang)

via TRIANGULATION BLOG

kinetic maze.

live moss collected from different places in new york city.

controlled by an arduino dynamically generating new maze patterns.

architectural abbreviation of grand ideas.

kugel earth (cork and moss)

via natureart

Lunar Topography: Theopholis (redgum carving)

by craig dorety