Looking Outwards at Ice

by Karl DD @ 7:21 am 25 January 2010

Below is a ‘reprint’ of part of my Project 1 post.


Marco Evaristti, Ice Cube Project, 2004. From Wikipedia:

With two icebreakers and a twenty-man crew, Evaristti used three fire hoses and 3,000 litres (790 US gallons) of paint to color the iceberg blood-red. The artist commented that, “We all have a need to decorate Mother Nature because it belongs to all us.”

Although a very simple idea, it immediately communicates a powerful ‘open’ message. This could be commentary on whaling, general environmentalism, or even protesting a war. The juxtaposition of blood red, with pure white is strongly out of place.

icicledrops, tEnt, 2006

We have developed the device which “invites/induces” natural icicles. Our device is composed of two parts- a pot and a string. A pot can preserve snows, control ices, and make a drop of water. A drop of water freezes again by an electronic-controlled cold string during trickling down. The accumulation of iced strings grows up to a big icicle.

8 LEDs which is attached to a string light up an icicle from inside. Light flickers like virtual drops, and generates new optical phenomena. Real water drops generate poly-rhythmic percussive sounds.

Using the above technique they can create icicles artificially regardless of the environment. What is really beautiful, especially in the top image below, is the way the icicles have been illuminated. They don’t look at this work as a ‘fabrication’ experiment, but rather an exploration of the aesthetics of icicles.

1 Comment

  1. OK, I think the icicle stuff is lovely, and a good territory to explore.

    I have to say, I think the paint piece is kindof criminal. The arrogance and expense of taking a huge crew out to a pristine landscape, just to spoil it with thousands of liters of (presumably toxic) paint, totally offends me. Just because “mother nature belongs to all of us” doesn’t mean that it’s moral to poison it! I might feel differently if I knew the coloring was non-toxic. I see elsewhere that the artist has some environmental leanings.

    Comment by golan — 27 January 2010 @ 6:50 am

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