3. “I use Art like a vessel to investigate Science.”
Fabian Oefner
4. “Timelines” is a collaboration
between Fabian Oefner and
Google Arts & Culture. Its a
series of photographs, that
visualise change in Alpine
glaciers.
https://fabianoefner.com/
5. The artist and his team
worked together with the
Glaciology Institute at ETH
Zurich to bring art and
science together in a unique
way.
6. Using LED drones and long-
exposure photography, the
artist painted the scientific
data collected by the
Institute directly into the
terrain.
7. Each glowing line was
created by flying the drone
along different positions of
the glacier front in the past.
The drone flights were
captured with long-exposure
photographs at night.
8. For the final images, Oefner blended several
dozens of these individual photographs
together.
9. The result are images, that not only show the beauty
of these landscapes but also visualise the significant
change of the glaciers during the last 100 years.
16. Oefner melted a chunk of it on a
hot plate and watched the liquid
oxidise as it cooled, creating a
striking spectrum of colour. He
scraped off a layer and saw the
colours changed.
17. He did that over and over,
photographing the bismuth as it
transformed, lighting it with a
flash from the side. Oefner
made 2,000 images in two
weeks.
26. It’s a circular
arrangement of eight
different experiments,
which create drawings
driven by chemical and
physical processes.
27. Electrical current shapes
into fractal patterns,
rusting iron under
magnetic influence
generates delicate
structures and gun
powder burns sound
waves into paper.
28. All experiments are
connected in a way that
one experiment triggers
the next one until the full
circle of works is
completed, creating eight
unique drawings in the
process.
39. For this experiment, Oefner
poured water into a black
reservoir. With the aid of a
syringe, he then added
small drops of oil onto the
water surface.
https://fabianoefner.com/
40. Upon contact with the
water, the oil started to
expand and form into
magnificent structures.
Some of them seem to look
like stars exploding, others
look like a photograph of
the iris.
41. The various colours result
from the reflection and
refraction of light, as it
passes through the oil film
and back into the camera
lens.
42. Depending on how thick the
oil film is, the colours
change from blue, green to
red, until finally they
disappear again.
