Lake Kaindy – Kazakhstan’s Sunken Forrest

Lake Kaindy is situated near the village of Saty in the Kungey Alatau Mountains (a range in the North Tien-Shan) in the central Asian country of Kazakhstan.

There wasn’t always a lake there: the trunks of pine trees jutting out of the water provide testimony to that.

So what happened here?

Image Credit Flickr User Nuggems

The lake is only 400 meters length but in some places it is over thirty meters deep.  It was formed as a result of the massive 1911 Kebin earthquake.  There was a huge landslide which blocked the gorge and a natural dam was formed – and endured.  As the waters rose and it submerged the Schrenk's Spruce (the place means lots of spruce) growing in the area.

Y Mynyddoedd Grewyd Gan Ddyn - Man Made Mountains

A word of advice before you watch this video – it has a rather slow burn effect (which may be a nice way of saying it takes a minute or two to get going and for things to become clear).  Yet bear with it – because your jaw may well be a little slack by the end.  Some background first – North Wales dominated the world slate market for over a century but that time is now over and only a tiny fraction of the slate industry is left.

Yet this bastion of the Welsh language is (literally) littered with the remnants of this immense and intensive engineering and manufacturing period of cymric history. For every tonne produced over thirty tonnes would be discarded as waste product. My family on my father’s side hail from North Wales and many of my visits there in my youth were slate associated. My father’s great Aunt Ginnie’s house perched precariously underneath one of these huge man made mountains. I used to wonder what would happen if it all fell at once.

The sight of these gargantuan piles of industrial detritus is, indeed, at once glorious and disheartening.

This piece, with information in both Welsh and English, is a collaboration between artist and photographer Bob Mitchell and the filmmaker Jonny Maxfield.  Huge – and I mean huge – photographic images were created and displayed at windswept installations around the old industrial sites and then simply left to merge with the environment. 

The artistic process as well as that of slate production as it is today is captured by Mitchell and Maxfield with some wonderful time-lapse and still photography. It fills me with hiraeth and, I must admit, with what can only be called anti-hiraeth at the same time. The slate industry was the economic power house of North Wales for a long time but it is for many, too, a symbol of Welsh oppression. Yet this film celebrates the people not the politics.

This project was supported by the Arts Council of Wales, Gwynedd Council, Snowdonia National Park, The National Slate Museum, Llechwedd Slate Caverns and Tudor Lodge – Porthmadog.

Bicycle: A Tale about a Crazy Old Biker

I need to explain, first of all, that I have no real explanation why I like this so much.  I just do. Perhaps I see a little of myself in this crazy old biker on his penny-farthing, suddenly shrunk to a tiny size and propelled forward to our own technology littered century. Perhaps because it’s a great, almost mesmerizing, way of spending a minute or two. Or perhaps it is because it is just a little crazy, like its protagonist.

Who can say. Yet I suspect you might enjoy this by Pask D'Amico, aka Klesha, who describes himself as an Italian cosmopolitan audiovisual artist and a multidimensional traveler.  A perfect fit for Kuriositas, in other words!

The Tortoise Beetle - Amazing Metallic Arthropods

Things that make you go mmm, number 976.  This little guy is for real.  It is a golden tortoise beetle and it is featured on Ark in Space today.  They don’t just come in gold either- there’s a silver variety as well other species which come in a number of hues all with an amazing metallic sheen.  Plus they have this amazing outer covering (known as a cuticle) which is often transparent. Altogether they look like insects from planet steampunk.  Read about them over at our sibling site, The Ark in Space.

Image Credit Wikimedia

Cadaver: A Bittersweet Love Story

I’ll cut the chat, remove the blather,
Here’s the story of an old cadaver
Awoken by a hapless pair
He knows he has to get to where
His wife of years still mourns his life’s cessation.
And to that point he’ll cross the nation.
There he discovers a truth quite toxic
And America reclaims the gothic

OK, so my rhyming is missing something (and don’t tell me what please, I know already: talent).

However, you should take a little time out to watch Jonah Ansell’s Cadaver which rhymes perfectly all the way through.  What’s more it features the vocal talents of Christopher Lloyd, Tavi Gevinson and Kathy Bates with music by Neil Young and The Pet Shop Boys. 

Don’t be put off by what sounds like somewhat macabre content.  That much is true but this cinematic poem has love at its heart.

The film was (unsurprisingly) shortlisted for an Academy Award and has now also been made in to a book which is released on February 1.

Motherland

In a totalitarian regime a young girl experiences the brutality of politics first hand.  Yet, through her memories and her fortitude perhaps the idea of personal freedom will persist.  Motherland harkens back all the way to Metropolis and features stereotypic characters and motifs that are plentiful in the propaganda art of the 1920s and 1930s as well as later – Orwell’s 1984 looms large here.

What is remarkable about Motherland is that it is a diploma project produced at The Institute of Animation Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg – in other words, it’s a student project.  It was directed by Hannes Appell with DOP Stevo Arendt and producers Libor Tesacek and Felix Vollmar.

Downton Abbey Goes to the Dogs (and Cats)

No, this isn’t Kuriositas’ first ever TV review – even though with the events at the end of the last series we might be forgiven for being a little sniffy about the show’s future.  Yet even though some feel that Downton has become Downturn, the show's general appeal seem to be enduring.

So much for my play on words. If you want to toy with the show’s name then you should really do it like Massachusetts based artist Toadbriar, aka Kim Parkhurst.  Her latest pieces are a very fond homage to the show’s characters entitled collectively Houndton Tabby.  I am not sure which came first, the idea for the collection or its name.  It doesn’t matter to be perfectly frank – these beautifully created prints are absolutely wonderful. And what a way to demonstrate a love for all things Downton and our furry friends by combining the pair!

Hyuro to Create The Longest Street Art in Denmark

You have to admit it - this wall is dull. Very, very dull. In fact it's crying out to be adorned by something wonderful before it gets covered in tag after mindless tag. How about something like this?

The Danish authorities agree. In May 2013 Spanish street artist Hyuro will transform a very long and dull wall in Copenhagen into the longest coherent piece of street art in Denmark. The artwork will be 271 meters long and located in Copenhagen.

The McBarge - Abandoned Relic of Expo 86

Sometimes something seems like a very good idea at the time.  When Expo ’86 landed in the Canadian city of Vancouver the McBarge as it became known was one of the centrepieces of the exhibition.  It was the first floating McDonalds in the world and offered visitors great discounts on food with the vicarious thrill of eating their meal while afloat.

Image Credit Flickr User Sporkist

Guests at the globally renowned exhibition would save money with voucher codes and enjoy the future technology and architecture around them.  The McBarge, which was originally called the Friendship 500 was a great hit. Yet when Expo ’86 ended no new home could be found for the barge and it has, over the years, become derelict, anchored forlornly in the creek’s Burrard Inlet.

Image Credit Flickr User John Biehler

All is not lost, however.  It is hoped that a new waterfront development in Mission, British Columbia, will ‘adopt’ the barge.  After a complete refurbishment it is hoped that the barge will become the home of not one but several restaurants.  You could even have a chance of finding vouchers for Domino’s Pizza there.  The proposed development would also include features such as a marina and a float plane service as well as offering paddlewheel excursions up and down the river.

Image Credit Flickr User Unk's Dunk Truck

So perhaps there is an opportunity for the Friendship 500 to be reborn. There aren’t many restaurants, after all, which have the capacity to up anchor and find a new home in the way that the Friendship 500 can.  Neglected and forgotten for so long the architecture, once considered so futuristic, has become almost retro and would certainly make a fun place to eat.  Perhaps every dog can have its day more than once in spite of everything?

First Image Credit Flickr User TylerIngram

The Smoke Seller

Life must be tough if you travel from village to village selling your one and only product, especially if that product is, simply, smoke.  Yet although our traveling salesman in The Smoke Seller (or in the Spanish El Vendedor de Humo) has a slow start in his latest pit stop, and has a moment of despondency, it isn’t long before he has the villagers eating out his hand…

This is a very handsome animated short which has the kind of moral twist in the tale that you might expect from a traditional fairy tale but I am afraid I have to admit I have no idea if this is an old story or not – perhaps you could let me know!  What I do know, however, is that it was created at the PrimerFrame School of Animation in Valencia, Spain and it has received a stack of awards. Bravo!

Stille Post

Stille Post is a German children’s game very similar to Chinese Whispers where a message or word is corrupted by being shared multiple times through a murmur. So, how do animators play the game? Simple!

The folks at BUILT., an office for visual communication and a creative partner for commercials, film, print and interaction, were given a simple brief. They would be given only the last frame of the previous participant’s contribution on the subject of pause. Then every participant would provide their own clip which could vary in length from 5 to a maximum of 30 seconds. Their offering could be stop motion, graphic animation, typo animation, 3D or even still images. Likewise they would then pass on their last frame to the next contributor – and so on....

And so on until you have a five minute animation from this group of accomplices in animation. It’s great fun to watch and must have been even more fun to create! My own particular favorite is the crab orchestra pictured above but I am sure you will find your own too!

Dark Day - Very Cool Pastiche of Nuit Blanche

A couple of years ago Spy Films came up with the remarkable and ground-breaking Nuit Blanche.  Well it may have taken a few years but a thing of beauty needs to be satirized just a little.  This, at least, was what a group of students at Utah Valley University felt (and rightly so, as it happens).  Standing directly opposite the White Night, here is the Dark Day. 

One gets the feeling that the students did not have quite the same budget as Spy Films but nevertheless they acquit themselves admirably.  Not only have they produced a pastiche which in many ways is remarkably faithful to the original they have led me back to it (below).  And it’s still awesome.

Namibian Nights – Stunning Deadvlei Time-Lapse

We have featured the amazing dead trees of the Namibian desert at Deadvlei before – and what an amazing place it truly is. Yet Marsel van Oosten has come up with something quite extraordinary here. He has already created the most extensive and most popular night photography portfolio of Namibia on this planet and here he takes it to the next level.  The footage has been edited by Daniella Sibbing and together they make Squiver.

This isn’t just time-lapse photography. Essentially it involves moving the camera while still shooting at a speed normally associated with timelapse. It’s a fairly new technique and one that has been evolving recently. As you can see when you watch the video above the results can be astonishing.

Behind Minnehaha’s Frozen Falls

Minnehaha Creek in Minnesota would be just another creek, really, if it was not for the beautiful fifty foot waterfall that just happened to form there when the last glacial period ended about 10,000 years ago. In the winter the falls can freeze up completely, creating a magical motionless image of once liquid water frustrated by the elements. Yet there is more to it than meets the eye...

Image Credit Flickr User akahadog

Lux Aeterna

You may remember Nature By Numbers which went viral a few years ago. It was created by Cristóbal Vila. The Zaragoza based graphic designer and 3D artisan has just released this online – Lux Aeterna, with wonderful accompanying music by Jóhann Jóhannsson.  If you have had a classical education (or have access to one of the many translation tools on the interweb) then you will know that means eternal light. Watch the animation (no, really, it is) above and you will get it.

I can’t even begin to express the admiration I have for Vila’s sporadic personal projects, but I will give it a go nevertheless.  There seems to be an almost seamless combination of the artist and the scientist in his work, a deep reverence for nature blended with an intimate knowledge of the science behind it which merges to produce some of the most visually stunning, technically arresting moving images you will see this side of REM sleep. Yet perhaps, after all, all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream (thanks Mr Poe).

If you did miss the sublime Nature By Numbers a few years ago, here it is.

H.U.D. Heads Up Display

So, what comes after Facebook? What does the world of social networking hold in store for us in the near future?  Perhaps unsurprisingly filmmakers are veering towards the dystopic (partly because if you make a movie where social networking has cured the world’s ills – full stop – then you don’t have a movie).   I wouldn’t mind a future where we all travel around on imaginary pink unicorns but I imagine it might get a little boring.

Yet the protagonist of Evan Jarvi’s HUD – Heads Up Display – has not found happiness, let alone pink unicorns.  In fact HudNet seems to have made his life about as bleak and meaningless as it could get.  He wakes up alone, travels alone, works alone – his only company is the all-pervasive presence of the automated iris recognition living nightmare that is the HudNet software.

Can he escape the awful monotony? With shades of Orwell and a dash of early Lynch, HUD will reward your patience with an answer, almost. Yet that still makes it a lot more satisfactory than a lot of science fiction shorts these days! Oh and I really, really liked the depiction of the futuristic biometric interface - very imaginable.

Light Emitting Dudes

Light Emitting Dudes takes a team of free-runners, geared up from head to toe with LED lights, and sets them loose on the streets of Bangkok at night. With acrobatic grace, they carved up the already buzzing nightlife spots while adding their own flair and color to the mix.

Jason Paul, Shaun Wood, and Anan Anwar are the team of free-runners whose homes are already quite far apart, coming from Frankfurt, Sydney, and Bangkok respectively. Director Frank Sauer and costume designer Christina Zahra are both from Germany so this is a truly international production!

Painted Pie

You never quite know how you are going to impact on the lives of others, their hopes, their dreams or their desires.  In this beautifully crafted animated short inspired by the post-Impressionist (notably Vincent)an old lady painter and a young homeless boy are destined to meet and it will, perhaps, bring both a type of peace.  Accompanied by Little Person by Jon Brion I do have to admit that this made me well up a little, but then as anyone will tell you I’m a great big softy.

Created by four students, Havish Thota, Kudzai Gumbo, Mehdi Farrokhtala, Abdulrahman Alansari (I cannot quite tell at which institution they studied but from their names I might perhaps guess somewhere in Iran?), Painted Pie is two meals within itself: a breakfast for the eye and suppertime for the heart.