Tuesday 31 May 2011

Health risks imbued by Climate change and Flying Pollen

"Climate change–related increased burden of disease, specifically from allergy and asthma, is anticipated because of changes in the distribution, quantity, and quality of pollen, and lengthening of the pollen season. Asthma and allergic disease will also likely be worsened because of interaction between heavier pollen loads and increasing air pollution from natural and man-made sources.  People with allergy and asthma may expect worsening disease, more days with symptoms, and reduced quality of life as a result of these environmental changes."

Quick, go grab your decongestant spray since the ensuing exquisite media art piece de resistance may either spontaneously trigger a tickling sneeze, or merely lightly entertain and educate our awareness of its delirious outcome in our global warming world.

Fabrice Mathieu filmed Flying Pollen in slow motion at 50 frames per second using his Canon 550D 18-55mm, 100-300mm with a shrilling zinging sound design.



While this charming slow motion video beautifully illustrates the dispersion of flying pollen we may need to reflect on Scott Browns climate progress analysis, of the health allergies associated with early and more pronounced flying pollen. This nevertheless appears likely to result in an unanticipated boom in decongestant pharmaceuticals.

Thursday 26 May 2011

Time: an enticing conceptual media art piece

Albert Einstein once famously remarked that "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."

Thus time is everywhere but no where all at once unless time is described as a duration; In that space, time travels a distance between two points.

Jeffrey Janusheske entertains us with his analogous metaphor for the meaning of time by prying his conceptual media art piece from Einstein's theory "that time is another dimension, woven together with space to form a malleable fabric that is distorted by matter."

While the piece holds us to a period of circumspection, I don't believe anyone will ever be able to enclose the concept of time as Jeffrey attempts to do here, except to say, without his creative sound design, the time spent watching it might offer no illusion to its materialism, however illusive it remains.

Friday 20 May 2011

Ginormous Gamma-Ray Bubbles now visible in the Milky-Way

Towards the end of 2010, a team of scientists at NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope announced the discovery of two bubbles of energy erupting from the center of our galaxy.

The never-before-seen structure extends 25,000 light years from each side of our galaxy and contains the energy equivalent of 100,000 supernovae. The bubbles span more than half of the visible sky, from the constellation Virgo to the constellation Grus, and the scientists speculate that it may be have been around for millions of years.

The video documentary below demonstrates how the scientists basically air brushed out the massive clouds of dust particles and fog of gamma rays that appears throughout the sky and offers a few possible explanations of its mysterious occurrence.



In case you want some earth based perspective of our sun's orbit around the center of the galaxy and our relationship to these ginormous bubbles and go here.

Tuesday 17 May 2011

Eerie, but cool "Janglyk" by Kambar & Kutman on Kyrgyz jaw harps


In Kyrgyzstan ethnic culture the Jaws or Jews Harp is known as the Temir komuz which literally means "Iron Jaw harp". Shaped in the form of a broken, stretched circle with two prongs, and attached to the center is a steel plate. The shape and size of the instrument provides the fundamental note that the reed produces.

In the video below we experience two master musicians from Kyrgyzstan, Kambar Kalendarov and Kutman Sultanbekov,  playing their Kyrgyz jaw harps, performing a piece entitled "Janglyk", or "Novelty", which is available on their debut album, JAW, from Cantaloupe Music.

Reminiscent of the mesmerizing entrancing Tuvan throat singing, Kambar & Kutman entertain us with their Kyrgyz Jaws Harps expelling ringing exotic tones of canorous harmonies creating an eerie psychedelic density that is undeniably spooky, but cool.

Wednesday 11 May 2011

The Plastic Paradise Promo Documentary


"Scientists and health experts reveal that chemicals in many of the plastic products we take for granted are toxic and potentially to blame for epidemics of cancer and other diseases."

Almost everyday of our consumerist lives we purchase something in plastic, albeit as an object of use, wrapping or a container. Some of us are likely concerned with how we discard the used plastic items, but perhaps too many of us don't give it much thought as to how we dispose of the used materials and clearly see nothing wrong with discarding it into waterways. As all water and what it carries drifts, down and out into the ocean currents it consequently travels to a place now known as the Great North Western Pacific Garbage Patch. Some commentators refer to this location as an island, and although there maybe some truth in that a great deal of the refuse also gets lodged on many sandy beach islands within the area.

Midway Atoll is one such island and here in the video below, TV host and Filmmaker Angela Sun shows how riddled with plastic waste the Atoll has become. Angela is  on a personal quest of discovery to uncover the mystery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and in so doing illustrates the growing toxic confetti that causes the depletion of many marine animals.

"She encounters environmental activists staging elaborate stunts to raise awareness and legislators struggling to address the problem. She investigates the hidden truth about recycling and attempts to contact the leaders of a powerful petrochemical industry in control of our limitless production and consumption of plastic, an industry that does not take kindly to questions about oceans filling up with its garbage."



The video above is a promo and Angela Sun believes that if she can complete her documentary film, she can greater  influence, empower and motivate others into further forms of positive action. Thus, she needs more funds to complete her project and is seeking donations via her website.

Thursday 5 May 2011

Time Lapse of the Seattle Space Needle


is a superbly cool time lapse cinematic video, by Filmmaker, Director and teacher Phillip Bloom, shot from a 17th floor room of the Warwick Hotel aerially taking in the Seattle Space Needle tower and surrounding panoramic airspace.

He created this remarkably clever piece of cinematic media art from 150, 000 photo stills and slickly achieved his finished entertaining piece with astonishing sensitivity to motion, story, light and drama selectively adding a musical work of James Newton Howard's from The Happening.



Among the array of equipment he used, was the Canon 5DmkII, T2i, T3i and Panasonic GH2 cameras, and in order to block out reflections from windows, he used the Delkin lensskirt suction camera mount, plus the whole work was color corrected with Magic Bullet software.

Should you be feeling inspired, Phillip succinctly guide's your appreciation of his work in a 21 minute Soundcloud commentary of it, here.

Next Page

 
Google+