Ephemerisle art ideas
Aug. 25th, 2009 05:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mattbellEphemerisle is kind of like a water-based libertarian version of Burning Man.
The area of floating art has not been extensively explored, creatively speaking. Here are some quick thoughts -- let me know if you might be interested in collaborating:
These all do tend toward "phenomena art", basically art that leverages some physical phenomenon for aesthetic purposes, as opposed to say, a floating mermaid.
1. Finding artistic ways to highlight the rippling of waves:
Waves are beautiful and their intersecting rippling motions can be hypnotic, as this post shows. It would be interesting to find ways of highlighting the water's motion at night.
Some ways of doing this:
- Deploy a grid of lights. The lights could be embedded on small buoys that rock as ripples pass through them. They could be connected together into a grid via plastic rods on hooks and swivels) These lights could change color based on the angle of the buoy. How to do that? One option would be to use accelerometers and a microcontroller to control the lights. The downside of this is that it would likely be somewhat time-consuming to build in large quantities. One alternative would be to use a backlit lenticular screen. These screens change their color based on the angle you look at them, so it wouldn't be hard at all to create one that does an interesting pattern as the buoy tilts. For this you'd just need a lamp, a cylindrical lens, and a photographic slide. Or perhaps there's already some LED-powered light that is encased in a plastic case that provides a diamond sparkle sort of effect. Then you could waterproof them and string them into a grid. It's the super lazy version. Also, the visual effect of the tilt could be increased by putting a long thin (but light!) vertical rod above the buoy. Thus, even a movement of a couple of degrees translates into a big jump at the top of the rod. Then instead of these fancy mechanisms you could put a simple light at the top, perhaps with a simple physical mechanism to cause the light to swing back and forth as the rod swings.
- Put one lamp either close to the surface or underwater and shine light along the surface onto a flat vertical screen a few feet away. The light would nicely ray-trace off the water onto the screen, creating a variety of interesting shapes. It's water theater.
2. Sea creatures that play with current
Because water has relatively high drag, lots of interesting things could be done with how water affects the motion of flexible objects.
Long glowing tentacles could be created using electroluminescent wire, ropelights, optic fibers, or UV-sensitive string with a UV light shining on it.
These tentacles could be attached in lots of ways. If there's enough current, they could be interesting to look at even while moored to a static platform. Otherwise, it will likely be necessary to create movement. A spinning platform would be fairly easy... then the tentacles could be attached to this platform. If the platform reverses directions randomly, it could be interesting to watch as the effects ripple out to through the tentacles. Another, probably more fun, possibility would be to attach the tentacles to a remote-control toy boat. The boat could be re-skinned to look like some psychedelic squid, with tentacle attachments in the back. As the squid drove around, its tentacles would follow in interesting ways. It might be possible to put an attachment along or at the end of each tentacle to increase the randomness of its motion. For example, an uneven attachment could provide lift, causing that section of the tentacle to move around.
Update: In case there's any doubt an R/C toy boat would be strong enough to pull a few dozen feet of EL wire... here's one pulling in a fish its size:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q_a0B6xl2Y
3. Aquatic erector set.
This falls more into the "interactive art" category. Basically, if you find poles of various lengths and construct receptacles for those poles out of foam or other materials, you could have a truly flexible building system. If the receptacles are made out of foam or hollow plastic, they would likely float. This would allow people to easily build a variety of interesting structures on the playa surface. Custom foam parts can be mass produced with expanding 2-part foam mix. Thus stuff is fairly brittle though... it would likely have to be reinforced with something.
4. Fire dancing on water
So this does go against the "no fire" rule, but perhaps if it was at a safe distance from everything else it would be fine. A line or network of flame could be created along the water using a variety of techniques. For example, a long U-shaped trench mounted along a series of buoys could be filled with liquid fuel (perhaps with Saran Wrap over the top of the trench to minimize spillage until it's time to burn) The fuel could also potentially be held in the trench using absorbent fire poi material. When one end of the trench is lit, the flame rapidly shoots along the lines of the trench until it gets to the other end, perhaps lighting off other (intended) fires along the way.
More dramatically (and possibly a bit more dangerously), a long "sausage" of poster tube material (which can be ordered by the half-mile, is extremely thin, and is airtight) could be filled with propane and then lit. This would be very easy to do and could result in a very interesting (and quite rapid) burst of flame in the shape of your choosing.
Update: Apparently I'm not the first person to think of white gas trenches and propane balloons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mzvezhaw9g
I haven't seen anyone put propane in long skinny balloons but I'm guessing its just as likely to work.
The area of floating art has not been extensively explored, creatively speaking. Here are some quick thoughts -- let me know if you might be interested in collaborating:
These all do tend toward "phenomena art", basically art that leverages some physical phenomenon for aesthetic purposes, as opposed to say, a floating mermaid.
1. Finding artistic ways to highlight the rippling of waves:
Waves are beautiful and their intersecting rippling motions can be hypnotic, as this post shows. It would be interesting to find ways of highlighting the water's motion at night.
Some ways of doing this:
- Deploy a grid of lights. The lights could be embedded on small buoys that rock as ripples pass through them. They could be connected together into a grid via plastic rods on hooks and swivels) These lights could change color based on the angle of the buoy. How to do that? One option would be to use accelerometers and a microcontroller to control the lights. The downside of this is that it would likely be somewhat time-consuming to build in large quantities. One alternative would be to use a backlit lenticular screen. These screens change their color based on the angle you look at them, so it wouldn't be hard at all to create one that does an interesting pattern as the buoy tilts. For this you'd just need a lamp, a cylindrical lens, and a photographic slide. Or perhaps there's already some LED-powered light that is encased in a plastic case that provides a diamond sparkle sort of effect. Then you could waterproof them and string them into a grid. It's the super lazy version. Also, the visual effect of the tilt could be increased by putting a long thin (but light!) vertical rod above the buoy. Thus, even a movement of a couple of degrees translates into a big jump at the top of the rod. Then instead of these fancy mechanisms you could put a simple light at the top, perhaps with a simple physical mechanism to cause the light to swing back and forth as the rod swings.
- Put one lamp either close to the surface or underwater and shine light along the surface onto a flat vertical screen a few feet away. The light would nicely ray-trace off the water onto the screen, creating a variety of interesting shapes. It's water theater.
2. Sea creatures that play with current
Because water has relatively high drag, lots of interesting things could be done with how water affects the motion of flexible objects.
Long glowing tentacles could be created using electroluminescent wire, ropelights, optic fibers, or UV-sensitive string with a UV light shining on it.
These tentacles could be attached in lots of ways. If there's enough current, they could be interesting to look at even while moored to a static platform. Otherwise, it will likely be necessary to create movement. A spinning platform would be fairly easy... then the tentacles could be attached to this platform. If the platform reverses directions randomly, it could be interesting to watch as the effects ripple out to through the tentacles. Another, probably more fun, possibility would be to attach the tentacles to a remote-control toy boat. The boat could be re-skinned to look like some psychedelic squid, with tentacle attachments in the back. As the squid drove around, its tentacles would follow in interesting ways. It might be possible to put an attachment along or at the end of each tentacle to increase the randomness of its motion. For example, an uneven attachment could provide lift, causing that section of the tentacle to move around.
Update: In case there's any doubt an R/C toy boat would be strong enough to pull a few dozen feet of EL wire... here's one pulling in a fish its size:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q_a0B6xl2Y
3. Aquatic erector set.
This falls more into the "interactive art" category. Basically, if you find poles of various lengths and construct receptacles for those poles out of foam or other materials, you could have a truly flexible building system. If the receptacles are made out of foam or hollow plastic, they would likely float. This would allow people to easily build a variety of interesting structures on the playa surface. Custom foam parts can be mass produced with expanding 2-part foam mix. Thus stuff is fairly brittle though... it would likely have to be reinforced with something.
4. Fire dancing on water
So this does go against the "no fire" rule, but perhaps if it was at a safe distance from everything else it would be fine. A line or network of flame could be created along the water using a variety of techniques. For example, a long U-shaped trench mounted along a series of buoys could be filled with liquid fuel (perhaps with Saran Wrap over the top of the trench to minimize spillage until it's time to burn) The fuel could also potentially be held in the trench using absorbent fire poi material. When one end of the trench is lit, the flame rapidly shoots along the lines of the trench until it gets to the other end, perhaps lighting off other (intended) fires along the way.
More dramatically (and possibly a bit more dangerously), a long "sausage" of poster tube material (which can be ordered by the half-mile, is extremely thin, and is airtight) could be filled with propane and then lit. This would be very easy to do and could result in a very interesting (and quite rapid) burst of flame in the shape of your choosing.
Update: Apparently I'm not the first person to think of white gas trenches and propane balloons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mzvezhaw9g
I haven't seen anyone put propane in long skinny balloons but I'm guessing its just as likely to work.
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Date: 2009-08-28 10:08 pm (UTC)