We’re always impressed when a bureaucratic office does something edgy and out of the ordinary, so we were delighted by the emergency preparedness video that the Metropolitan Borough of Kirkless in the United Kingdom produced. Created by Argentinian animator and videographer Joaquin Ferronato, the video advises Kirkless citizens on procedures to follow in emergency weather situations, from not sheltering under trees to not wading in dirty water. To watch the video, click here.
From early childhood, London artist Marc Hagan-Guirey has been a huge fan of horror movies. He began working with kirigami (the Japanese art of cutting an image from a single piece of paper) by designing a model of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House in Los Angeles, but then gravitated to more spooky edifices with a design for the house that served as the set in the Adams Family television show. From there he’s moved on to create a Horrorgami Overlook Hotel (The Shining), The Amityville House, and the MacNeil house from The Exorcist. He has plans to do more, and has a show coming up in November at Gallery One-and-a-Half in London. A video of the artist and his work is at this link. Thanks to Betsy Rubinstein for bringing these horrors to our attention.
For all of you paper lovers out there, The Paper Forest blog is a treasure trove of projects to make, paper art exhibitions, and related links. Fed by five artists, Jaime Zollars, Shelley Noble, Matt Hawkins, Dan McPharlin, and Falk Keuten, it reflects their wide range of interests and artistic views. Here’s the link to the site: http://paperforest.blogspot.com/
Hillwood Museum and Gardens, the former home of the General Foods Corporation heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, is currently showing an exhibition of paperworks by Isabelle de Borchgrave inspired by historic costumes and dresses. Trims, ribbons, buttons and even the lace on each outfit are all fashioned from various papers, painted in a trompe-l’oeil fashion to imitate the textiles of the period. Several of the dresses are displayed within the furnished rooms of the Hillwood Mansion, while others are shown in a more contemporary gallery setting within the Adirondack Building on the grounds. Definitely worth a visit when in the Washington, DC, area, the exhibition continues through December 30, 2012.
We thought this pop-up book by Swedish artist Andreas Johansson was quite striking. Titled From Where the Sun Now Stands it features imaginary landscapes collaged together from photographs the artist took in his neighborhood. Says the artist, “I create imaginary places that are both recognizable and completely alien. These new sites are constructions and have no history, while the places where the photographs once were taken have a very important past. For me, deserted places have a great symbolic value. They represent society’s backside, but also freedom beyond control and regulations.” To view a video of the book, visit
With the Republican and Democratic conventions now on the horizon, it’s time for everyone to make a pop-up choice. Pop your candidate into the White House by downloading the images and instructions for constructing your own campaign 2012 pop-up card. Visit http://www.campaignpopup.com And don’t forget to vote at the polls in November.
We thought this pop-up book by young designer Daisy Lew was worth noting for its unusual structure, combining a host of little pop-up blocks to create larger images of New York City icons: the Big Apple, a yellow taxi, the Chrysler Building and the Statue of Liberty. From one angle the pop-ups look like a city of multi-level skyscrapers, and from above you get the whole view. Check out the book on her web site at www.daisylew.com/popup.html
To celebrate the National Cherry Blossom Festival and the 100th anniversary of Japan’s gift of cherry trees to our nation’s capital, the National Building Museum commissioned artist and paper engineer Carol Barton to design do-it-yourself pop-ups that kids (and adults) could make at the event this past weekend. A pop-up Japanese Tea House and a pop-up of the Miajima Torii Gate were among the projects. Both were given out free to the crowd, along with instructions on how to cut out and assemble them. Volunteers helped with the assembly process, and everyone seemed pleased with their take-home pop-up souvenirs.
To make your own Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival pop-ups, download the designs and directions from www.cherryblossompopup.com, print them onto card stock paper and glue them together. The trees have already lost their blossom due to this year’s early spring, but you’ll have the pop-ups to remember them by.
Pratheev Sreetharan and his team of engineers at Harvard’s Microbiotics Lab had a problem. They were trying to produce very small flying micro robots (about the size of a bee). However, building such miniscule pieces of technology was fraught with difficulties. ”You’d take a very fine tungsten wire and dip it in a little bit of superglue,” explains Sreetharan. “Then, with that tiny ball of glue, you’d go in under a microscope like an arthroscopic surgeon and try to stick it in the right place.”
The solution to their dilemma was inspired by a study of origami and pop-up books. They constructed a flat sandwich of 18 layers of different materials (plastic film, carbon fiber, titanium, etc.). Then, utilizing a series of movable hinges, they folded the tiny circuit board to “pop” the robot into three-dimensional form. To watch a film of the process, go to news.harvard.edu
The robots might be used in the future for weather observations, traffic monitoring, emergency rescue, and more disturbingly, surveillance. Let’s hope this interesting pop-up application “does no evil.”
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