Sometimes art doesn't need to be complicated. Shawn Knol's simple videos of oil in water capture fascinating patterns reminiscent of dividing cells, budding spores or lava lamps, depending on your mood. His newest, Psycho Bubble (above), was just released a few days ago.
"A lot of people are asking how I did this. It's pretty simple. I just put the camera on its lowest jpeg setting, placed the camera into continuous mode, and locked the shutter down with my wired remote. The oil is being dumped into a tall cylindrical glass, with about a cup of water in it. The whole thing is lit from behind by a diffused clamp light. "(source)
Knol's flickrstream includes some beautiful black and white stills from his oil-and-water films, as well as photos of ferrofluids, soap bubbles, and explosions. Amazing work.
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That's fucking coolio!
"Sometimes art doesn't need to be complicated. Shawn Knol's simple videos of oil in water capture fascinating patterns reminiscent of dividing cells"
That might be more than a simple resemblance! It's entirely possible that the first proto-cells in fact were balls of lipids (i.e. oil).
This makes for a very nice background!