Paul Merton in China Mr Woo Robots

running people

a little experiment with scale model railway figures and istopmotion

Van Gogh and Turbulence

Vincent van Gogh is known for his chaotic paintings and similarly tumultuous state of mind. Now a mathematical analysis of his works reveals that the stormy patterns in many of his paintings are uncannily like real turbulence, as seen in swirling water or the air from a jet engine.

visualisation of turbulent flow

Turbulence can be found everywhere: in the sun and in a cup of coffee, in a turbine engine and in biology. How turbulence works is one of the long-standing unsolved problems for scientists and engineers.

turbolenza

The world first flow visualization representation above is a sketch of a free water jet issuing from a square hole into a pool, drawn by the hands of Leonardo da Vinci; circa 1500. In the view of John L. Lumley, Da Vinci might have prefigured the now famous Reynolds turbulence decomposition nearly 400 years prior to Osborne Reynolds’ own pipe-flow visualization! In one of his notebooks, da Vinci wrote (translated by Ugo Piomelli): “Observe the motion of the surface of the water, which resembles that of hair, which has two motions, of which one is caused by the weight of the hair, the other by the direction of the curls; thus the water has eddying motions, one part of which is due to the principal current, the other to the random and reverse motion.”

Turbulence article from the guardian

Extracts from Turbulence, Giles Foden’s novel about the D-Day weather forecast

In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story A Descent into the Maelstrom, the unnamed narrator, watching from a cliff on the Norwegian coast, describes the appearance of a giant whirlpool: “The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling voice, half shriek, half roar . . .”

Creative Laboratory

 Sources set up a week of experimentation in IOU’s studio space, working with Anne Caldwell, Poet, Jack Lockhart, Visual artist, Andy Plant Visual Artist and mechanical maker and Matt Wand, sound

The week had no performance or exhibition outcome, but was an opportunity to explore collaboration between words, image, visual arts and sound. We looked at how we could combine strands of all of our work to create an installation.
The aim of the week would be to examine our working practices together and do a showcase of this work later in June 2007. This project extends the range of what Sources can offer, and has given us a chance for the company to work with a larger creative team

edgar allan poe The Maelstrom

The Maelstrom
Edgar Allan Poe

The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways; nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, which have a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus.
Joseph Glanville.
WE had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.
“Not long ago,” said he at length, “and I could have guided you on this route as well as the youngest of my sons; but, about three years past, there happened to me an event such as never happened before to mortal man –or at least such as no man ever survived to tell of –and the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken me up body and soul. You suppose me a very old man –but I am not. It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so that I tremble at the least exertion, and am frightened at a shadow. Do you know I can scarcely look over this little cliff without getting giddy?”

IOU Waylaid

Jack and I saw the IOU show ‘Waylaid’ tonight. It took place in a dome-like space; (yet another igloo-shaped structure – this must be a visual metaphor for us at the moment!). There was a sense of being in the far north, somewhere up near the arctic circle in my mind. The show involved each member of the audience wearing head phones to listen to a live music and spoken word sound track. I loved the emotional layering of words and sounds that this produced. It did create an audience who all seemed to be in their individual bubbles. I felt a little out of my depth responding to visual theatre as it is a new language for me. The piece explored a limbo land, a space between life and death, between being conscious and unconscious. There were strands of fairy tale elements, such as being kissed awake or trying on a glass slipper that doesn’t fit, but also surreal, almost science fiction stuff as well.

The ORBIS PICTUS

-or The Gate to the Wold of Man’s Creative Imagination
interactive exhibition in the Czech Republic
designed by visual artist Petr Nikl

The Czech Music Museum’s monumental vestibule and transepts have been filled with numerous musical instruments that stimulate creative abilities and imagination in visitors. “The interactive exhibition prompts the visitors to play and create with the help of artistic objects and instruments that produce various sounds and light effects,” says Jiří Wald, the initiator of the project.