Animated Sculpture That Melts Into Itself

This past weekend, digital-art impresario Takeshi Murata premiered new work at gallery Ratio 3's space at the Frieze art fair. The artist is known for distorting and manipulating videos into chaotic-yet-stunning pieces of colorful geometry, and while his new work, Melter 3-D, is short on color, it is undoubtedly a work of incredible form—especially as it never maintains a consistent one, despite being physical. 

Melter 3-D is by definition a zoetrope, a device that produce the illusion of motion from a rapid succession of static pictures, but it's tangible. In other words, the installation is a sculptural animation. The 3D-object itself spins, creating a kinetic effect (with the help of some strobe lights) that makes it look as if it's melting into itself. 

Murata spent months configuring the object on a computer before making a physical incarnation with a master fabricator and mechanical engineers who typically work on high-profile Hollywood CGI projects. The result is truly extraordinary, as the part-animation part-sculpture looks like an alien egg, or something otherwordly. It's as if the orb has a pulse and life of its own that doesn't totally adhere to physics. 

We've seen kinetic sculptures before, but few that look this organic and natural. If we didn't know better, witnessing this sculpture for the first time might inspire a call to Sigourney Weaver. See some photos of the work below:

Impossible Geometry of Fanette Guilloud

This series of photos titled Géométrie de l’impossible (Impossible Geometry) from 21-year-old photographerFanette Guilloud was created earlier this year in locations around Toulouse, Bordeaux and in the French Alps near Lyon. Guilloud employed a method of anamorphic projection similar to the work of Felice Varini to create the illusion of a painting superimposed on an image, when in fact there is no digital trickery whatsoever. The image is actually painted on numerous surfaces at varying depths and only appears like what you see here from a particular vantage point. (via Metafilter)

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Leandro Erlich’s Reflective Optical Illusion House Now in London

Want to pretend you’re Spiderman but can’t afford the suit and the genetic mutation? Argentine artist Leandro Erlich was commissioned by the Barbican in London to install a version of his wildly popular optical illusion that creates the visual effect of instant weightlessness. Using a wall of giant mirrors propped against a huge horizontal print of a Victorian terraced house, visitors are free to climb and jump around as their reflections appear to move freely without the pesky effects of gravity. Titled Dalston House the piece was erected in Hackney just off Dalston Junction on a disused lot that has remained vacant since it was bombed during the Second World War.

The installation opens today and is free to all visitors and will remain up through August 4th. Erlich will also be giving a talk tomorrow starting at 7:30pm. All images courtesy the Barbican. (via visual news)

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Foundation ANAR Clever Advertisement

This is one of the cleverest print advertisements I’ve ever encountered. The ANAR Foundation, which manages a dedicated hotline for children at risk, put out an ad about child abuse.

Viewed normally, the ad shows a child and reads, roughly: ”Sometimes child abuse is visible only to the child suffering it.”

However, they also calculated the average height of a ten-year-old and, using lenticular printing, added a layer of imagery and text that’s only visible from a child’s-eye-view. 

To children, the poster shows the child wounded, the ANAR hotline and reads: "If someone’s hurting you, phone us and we’ll help you".

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