“The Dixon Land Imprinter is a very simple machine consisting of only two moving parts - the imprinting roller and the seedbox agitator.” imprinting
“The roller drops seeds onto the soil surface and imbeds them in the imprint surfaces. The imprinter forms interconnected water shedding and absorbing v-pockets, which function as rain fed micro-irrigation system.” via infranetlab, “strategies against desertification”
earth map resources
the following resources are heavily based on Robert Hodgin’s findings for his earthquake visualizations documented on flickr.
1 visible earth, blue marble, a catalogue of NASA images and animations of our planet. Image resources include land surface, clouds, city lights, raw bathymetry, raw topography. Image size ranges from thumbnails, 5400x2700, 21600x10800 up to 86400x43200 pixels.
2 Natural Earth, a collection of maps including clouds, elevation bump, masks (such as boundaries, cities, sea ice and water), textures of the earth, without cloud, no ice, at night. Maps do include rivers. Image size ranges from 8192x4096 to 16200x8100, directory listing with all the files.
3 earth texture maps include natural colors, atmospherical, coulds, elevation and bump map, water and land mask, night. in addition there are maps for moon, venus, mars and a stars map. Image size is 2500x1250 pixels.
4 how to texture a globe in processing.
“InfraNet Lab is a research collective probing the spatial byproducts of contemporary resource logistics. The laboratory posits the argument that a body of unique built works continues to arise out of the complex negotiation of, and competition for, biotic and abiotic resources. Operating in a manner similar to infrastructures, these works have evolved to merge landscape, urbanism, and architecture into a sophisticated mutant assemblage of surfaces, containers, and conduits.”
working with natural forces, ned kahn creates beautiful sculptures and facades that translate natural activity and movement into form.
think of one thing
singapore biennale 2008. think of one thing. mariele neudecker, germany. installation, glass, water, rasin, enamel paint, salt, gac 100. loved the fog effect and the landscape reflections at the top of the “glass box”.
“but what is the beauty of nature? surely nature is not trying to produce beauty, snf nor is it able to feel beauty. yet, when we look at nature, we perceive beauty. then what significance is there in a human recreating it?”
“The work of Mariele Neudecker (born 1965) deals with the concepts of “the romantic” and its reception and nationalistic abuse throughout German history. Drawing on the tradition of German romantic painting and its most prominent representative Caspar David Friedrich, the artist recreates and transforms the historical work into three-dimensional, contemporary versions.”
via artnews.org
theo jansen’s creations look like a mix of machine, skeleton and creatures from the past, maybe future. his modular systems, he calles forms of life, are handmade and start moving as soon as they are exposed to a fresh breeze of wind. Jansen has been creating and improving the self-sustainability of his creatures since 1990.
“Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. I make skeletons that are able to walk on the wind, so they don’t have to eat.
Over time, these skeletons have become increasingly better at surviving the elements such as storms and water and eventually I want to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.”
dont miss the idea, leg system, and the storing of wind behind the strandbeests.
via stranbeest
a prototype of an erosion control installation. the work of Daniel McCormick, a sculpture artist who uses native materials to construct watershed restoration installations.
diller + scofidio + renfro. The Blur Building was built for the Swiss Expo 2002 on Lake Neuchatel. It is an architecture of atmosphere. The lightweight tensegrity structure measures 300 feet wide by 200 feet deep by 75 feet high.
