New Kinetic Plankton thingy

[chunkolini]

Another Radiolarian breaks cover.
For this one I wanted a nice delicate floaty movement, it turns slowly and wobbles all over the place.
I made the body a while back and had it on a temporary mount.
Today I made the mounting as I had visualised it.
First pic shows the whole thing

Second shows the stand in more detail

Hopefully youtube clip in a minute.

 

[711jrp]

Digging the stand looks kinda like DNA....

 

[chunkolini]

A bit of DNA, a bit of flatworm and I hate straight lines.
it only bends in one plane, I wasted an hour trying to make spirals, and realised everybody will see a spiral anyway.
I was kicking myself after making it for not putting the filler bars in in a spiral form.
But I can see a big triple helix thingy as a standalone sculpture.
I have a bunch of 20 and 13mm bars and have not made anything new for a while......

Youtube clip, Public Image blaring away (did not realise how loud it was) accompanied by song birds and roosters. Ah the country life.

 

[Robotstar5]

Did it take long to get it balanced?

 

[chunkolini]

A while, I juggle it around to get a feel for the balance point then tack in a couple of supports, I got this one right second attempt.
It is hard because I am after it being unbalanced to the point of instability.
The whole thing is weighted to one side which annoyed the hell out of me until somebody pointed out that it looked batter like that.
Surprisingly it seems to be impossible for it to fall off, though I did find it about 12 feet away from the stand after the recent gales.

 

[strada]

Chunko, your a genius,a slightly mad one

It looked great in the pics but im glad you posted the video, I see it in whole new light. its fantastic.
Can you imagine this on top of someones house instead of a weather vane,lol

How did you make the join where the 2 pieces meet, is it a ball and socket type of thing ?

 

[chunkolini]

It is just a 30mm ball on the base inside a 40mm half ball (or is it 50MM no idea, they came out of a box in the corner). really high tech stuff. And the 40mm one is stuffed inside a larger one to give more room to work and improve the appearance.
Anybody looking for inspiration should check out Radiolarians.
I have plans in my noggin for a larger flatter version based on Anthrocyrtium, I fancy a 2m dish floating around in the air.
see http://www.radiolaria.org/index.htm for a proper nerdy website.
Somebody spotted my stuff and they have got me on their arts page.

 

[Fintray]

Was wondering why I'd never seen any washed up on the beach till I saw the scale of them.......

 

[chunkolini]

Imagine finding these in a drop of water for the first time.
Even weirder imagine the people who get buckets of deep ocean sediments, wash and sieve them to extract millions of years old plankton and use them to date the mud samples. or dissolve them to measure O2 isotopes in them to work out atmospheric temperatures.
I find this stuff fascinating, almost like astronomy in reverse.

 

[lshigham]

Good money in studying plankton on a rig, gives valuable information when drilling for oil.

You've got me thinking about a sculpture inspired by lamprocyclas maritalis now, something with rings of steel gradually reducing in size towards the top

 

[chunkolini]

Like this?

Ishigam, you have worked with these people?
Are they as mad/happy as I imagine?
I figure both, to understand this stuff to that level you would have to be a bit obsessive, and to get paid to do it and be essential could make it very worthwhile.

I was going to use rings then realised the reality, how many? how many sizes an figured a general idea would do the job.
In action.

 

[lshigham]

I've worked with a handful of geologists, but not working in the field myself. You have to be slightly mad to spend weeks/months at a time on a rig in the middle of the sea, but the money is good, not something you'd want to do if you wanted to settle down. I've yet to come across a fully sane geologist, anybody who loves rocks has to be a little bonkers, myself included! Even though it's not my chosen career path (came second to engineering in the end due to the tuition fees) I still find the way the earth was formed and the amount you can learn from microscopic creatures fossilised in millions of year old rock fascinating.

Love the size of that one, I was thinking more like 3' tall but still a shed load of rings. Do you keep many of your sculptures?

 

[the snooper]

I think that picture in post 10 was a microscope view of the virus the recently invaded mr chunko's computer

 

[chunkolini]

Do I keep many? sadly my favourites get bought.
if I like them the price goes up. Cant complain but sometimes it does hurt.
Geology? being an amateur geologist is great. Richard Fortey's books are wonderful. he kept me up all night reading about subduction zones. To make geology exciting is damn good writing.
Size? bigger bigger bigger?
Then again small is nice. But bigger is easier.
Give it a go.
Another Hereford boy? have we met?

 

[chunkolini]

Mr Snooper?
Ha!

 

[lshigham]

Do I keep many? sadly my favourites get bought.
if I like them the price goes up. Cant complain but sometimes it does hurt.
Geology? being an amateur geologist is great. Richard Fortey's books are wonderful. he kept me up all night reading about subduction zones. To make geology exciting is damn good writing.
Size? bigger bigger bigger?
Then again small is nice. But bigger is easier.
Give it a go.
Another Hereford boy? have we met?

I suppose I'm a semi amateur geologist, do have an A level but it doesn't count for much. I'll have a look at Fortey, always on the lookout for book to read. Don't think we have crossed paths, you are Ross way aren't you? I'm a couple of miles the Ross side of Fownhope

 

[the snooper]

Do I keep many? sadly my favourites get bought.

damn awkward customers, its about time you found some that buy the stuff you don't like so much

 

[chunkolini]

Ishigham we must have crossed paths, I come that way to work most days, my workshop is at caplor Farm.
Drop by sometime, turn right into the main farm yard and right again at the bottom. Send me a PM and I will send you my number.
Mr Snooper it does hurt when my favourites get smuggled away, but they go to good homes.

 

[chunkolini]

Ishigham, you have a personal message, clikc on your profile and conversations.