Bubble Wrap Portraits: Pop Art, Literally.

Posted on 21/03/2013 by Hazel Chua

Some people relieve their stress by popping bubble wrap. Others exercise their creativity and showcase their talent by creating portraits using bubble wrap. And by ‘others’, we mean artist Bradley Hart.

He probably had to buy rolls and rolls of the stuff and he clearly spent a lot of time working on his project. But I think his efforts paid off, because just take a look at what he made. This here is a bubble wrap portrait of Steve Jobs.

Not that you needed me to tell you, because you were probably able to recognize him on your own.

What Bradley did was fill syringes with certain colors of acrylic paint. He then painstakingly injected different colored paint into various bubbles on the huge sheet of bubble wrap to create his unique portraits.

Pixels on computer screens store our memories with social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The process of injecting bubble wrap with paint in order to create one coherent picture, references pixilation as a combination of 1’s and 0’s that result in an image for us to consume.

Bradley’s What? Where? When? Why? How? series of bubble wrap portraits will be on display at New York’s gallery nine5 until March 26, 2013. Do drop by if you’re in the area.

[via My Modern Met via Dvice]

Facial Sculptures Made from Random DNA Samples

Posted on 06/02/2013 by Range

DNA is essential to carbon-based life as we know it, but this is one of the few times that I’ve seen it used to create art. An artist created portrait sculptures from the analyses of genetic material that was collected in public places.

dna faces sculpture 3d print

Heather Dewey-Hagborg created these portraits from random genetic material left behind in public spaces on everything from cigarette butts to chewing gum and strands of hair. She calls her work Stranger Visions, and it’s supposed to ‘call attention to the impulse toward genetic determinism and the potential for a culture of genetic surveillance’.

dna faces sculpture 3d print sample

She used facial modeling software and a 3D printer to make these samples into sculptures, which were reconstructed from ethnic profiles, eye color, and hair color. Since the samples were randomly collected, we have no idea how accurate the facsimiles faces are compared to their genetic materials’ providers.

dna faces sculpture 3d print modeling

What’s even more fascinating is that she perfected her software using open-source DNA profiles available for public download over on github. Yes, you can open source your DNA.

[via designboom]

The Ugly Truth: It Only Takes Glass to Make People Ugly

Posted on 03/02/2013 by Hazel Chua

Beauty isn’t only skin deep. Sometimes, the most beautiful people on the outside happen to be the nastiest, ugliest people on the inside. Similarly, plain Janes and boring Johns might not look like much physically, but they can have the purest, kindest hearts of gold.

Remember how Wes Naman used Scotch tape to show just how easy it is to uglify people on the outside? Another photographer took a page from Naman’s book to come up with a series of photographs of ugly people – this time, made ugly with nothing more than a pane of glass.

Ugly Truth Unlike tape, you can’t actually see the glass in the picture except for the drops of water on some parts of it. I’m sure you’ve tried pressing your face to the glass and making weird and funny faces when you were a kid; these models were tasked to do the same thing, and the effects aren’t pretty.

And of course, on the other side of the glass, photographer Rut Mackel was there to capture the results for the world to see.

[via PetaPixel]

While Baby Rests, A Creative Parent Comes out to Play

Posted on 26/11/2012 by Hazel Chua

Babies. What’s not to love? They coo, they cry, and while they might throw the occasional tantrum or pee all over you without warning, the smile that they’ll give you at the end of the day makes everything worth it.

Babies are a lot of work, and I’m not talking about the part where you make them. So when they’re resting, it’s understandable that this is when the parents come out to play – only not in the way you’d think they would.

Napping Baby You might have different ideas when I say play, but when it comes to photographer and artist Adele Enersen, ‘play’ means having fun with her kid Vincent by doodling all over his photos. Now it’s time for mom to have some fun at her son’s expense, and the results couldn’t be cuter.