Materials In Motion

A while back I posted the first phase of some time-lapse work that myself and a colleague had concocted and developed. This work was well received and lead my co-collaborator (Lianne Christie) and I to experiment, develop and explore further a more in-depth project on how material behaviour could be captured, studied and, potentially, influence digital interactions and character.



As you can see we expanded our scope to tackle another well known subject: magnetism. As often over-looked as salt, we focused not on the magnets themselves, but the fields they create and how they interact and affect each other and their surroundings. We started with capturing fields with "traditional" iron filings as most people are familiar with from school science classes.

Then, we blew some petty cash on a high school science supply site, and moved up to Ferro-fluid. Ferro-fluid take the iron-filings concept further; a suspension of iron particles in an emulsion, it works in exactly the same way as the traditional iron filings, but in beautiful and temptingly touchable 3D space (don't touch it though, it's just brown and oily)



All video and stills were captured with a 5D mkII. The resolution of the 21mp images captures some beautiful detail and tension of the filings trapped in the magnetic field.

(mouseover for 100% zoom)...

A selection of works from salt and magnetism projects are currently on private show in London along with stills from previous exploratory projects on dilution and colour depth.



The full set of images is available to view here: