flicker-fusion threshhold

A laboratory at the University of Tokyo is developing some amazing dynamic projection mapping technology that can beam any image onto any surface and adjust to seamlessly match and correspond to any movement at a rate of thousand frames per second. We’ve encountered this sort of presentation in a mostly virtual environment beforehand (or in a purely augmented reality) but never one that quite outstripped the limits of our perception so well. What sort of applications can you imagine? See video demonstrations courtesy of Laughing Squid.

flight-path or airportraits

I’ve been admiring these sleek composite images of planes taking off and landing from airports from photographer Mike Kelley.
Of course the artist had to camp at each location for a few days to amass the right shots, angles and approaches—though probably not all that long considering the volume of air-traffic, and I notice that one of his arrangements captures a milieu that’s very familiar as I drive past the Frankfurt Flughafen on the Autobahn twice a week. Sometimes, by ones and twos only though, a jet will pass overhead and seem incredibly close and looming but I never try to capture that moment, as I don’t need any further distractions while driving. One of these days, I’ll figure out how to safely perch myself in the field or on the overpass. Read more about Kelley’s technique and travels on Colossal.

indented writing

Much to everyone’s dismay, a blind novelist in Dorset who commits her to ink and paper to later have them transcribed had a creative spurt that ran for twenty-six pages before realising her pen had run dry.
I’m sure the moment after the experience of hitting “save” rather than “save as” does not begin to frame that feeling of love’s labour lost, but the solution was rather an elegant and befittingly creative one. Her friends and family had the wherewithal to turn to the local police office for help and the forensics team using a technique called electrostatic detection were able to recover the text from the impressions of the indented writing that her inkless pen left on the page.

pharmacopoea

As we face a medical crisis that threatens to return health care to pre-industrial levels, researchers have been scouring the natural world for novel compounds that have not yet been overcome by anti-microbial resistance (here, read about how that dragnet might be extended with citizen science)—as even the most potent in our limited quiver of antibiotics have been vanquished due to our abuse and overuse. Scientists and care-takers in Australia have discovered that the milk of Tasmanian devils have six-fold the immunity boosters of human milk and can combat some of the most dread pathogens that linger in what ought to be the cleanest of places. I wonder if these carnivorous marsupials might one day be our salvation and it really punctuates the fact that we diminish any part and parcel of Nature at our peril, since who knows what’s already been lost.

royal remembrancer

Every year in early October the city of London for the past eight centuries the city of London pays a symbolic, token rent to the monarch of six horseshoes, sixty-one nails, an axe and a knife plus eleven pounds sterling. The office of Remembrancer of the Crown was established in order to keep tabs on rents and assizes, although the whereabouts of these specific properties are time out of mind. Other estates around England are stipulated to annually or situationally render such things as a single white rose, a French flag, port wine, or a straw bed for visiting dignitaries.

artoo-deco

Author and artisan Kurt W Zimmerman has crafted an retro R2 unit in a style that evokes the Art Deco movement. Zimmerman uses his droids (this one also being radio-controlled and naturally makes all  the boops and blips that we expect and understand) and other custom props to inspire school children and visit the hospital-bound to and fund raise for raise charitable contributions.

tables and triage

Before the design duo created furnishings that defined the Mid-Century Modern era, Charles and Ray Eames developed splints, prosthetics and a body litter (a stretcher, a gurney) for the US Navy ahead of America’s entry into World War II.
More on the Eames’ other surprising projects here and here. The skills honed in mass-producing these medical devices conferred on them the talent and feel for working plywood that was expressed a few years later in their iconic, undulating lounges. Every item in this chain, from the form-fitting splint that could protect a wounded leg to the classic chairs, reflects real homage to the human body and how it carries itself. Take a peek at the splints as part of an exhibition in Leeds courtesy of Hyperallergic that explores the place of sculpture and design in prosthetic limbs and the process of healing and making whole.