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kottke.org posts about Martin Klimas

The “Disturbing Beauty” of Shattering Porcelain Statues

a pair of shattering porcelain statues caught a fraction of a second after hitting the floor

I posted a link to these the other day from the broken plates post (and first posted about them more than 15 years ago), but I love these photographic sculptures by Martin Klimas so much that I wanted feature them in a proper post.

From a height of three meters, porcelain figurines are dropped on the ground, and the sound they make when they hit trips the shutter release. The result: razor-sharp images of disturbing beauty, more than the sum of its parts. Temporary sculptures made visible to the human eye by high-speed photography. The porcelain statuette bursting into pieces isn’t what really captures the attention; the fascination lies in the genesis of a dynamic figure that seems to stop/pause the time and make time visible itself.

See also Klimas’ Flowervases (“Flawlessly arranged flower vases are shot by steel bullets and captured at the moment of their destruction”) and Sonic Sculptures (“Klimas begins with splatters of paint in fuchsia, teal and lime green, positioned on a scrim over the diaphragm of a speaker โ€” then, the volume is turned up”).


Painting with sound: a 3-D take on Jackson Pollock

You may remember Martin Klimas from his photos of shattering figurines (which I love).

Martin Klimas

His latest project involves arranging paint just above massive speakers, turning the sound up, and photographing the results. This is Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians”:

Martin Klimas

I wonder what dubstep looks like? (via @pomeranian99)