Sculptures from scrap iron (including military items)
Location: Golan heights - Mount Bental Weirdness factor: High.
Todesfee has collected in this set a whimsical sculptures made from not so funny material: scrap military metal, left from the Yom Kippur War (Mount Bental was the site of large-scale tank battles in 1973)
She writes: "The Golan Heights is a plateau on the border of Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. The Syrians attacked the Golan with 1,500 tanks and 1,000 artillery pieces. Israel countered with only 160 tanks and 60 artillery pieces. The long stretch of valley in between Mount Bental and Mount Hermon became known as the Valley of Tears. The 100 Israeli tanks were reduced to seven under extreme enemy fire. However, the Israelis managed to take down 600 Syrian tanks in the process. The Syrians eventually retreated, but not without inflicting heavy casualties on Israel."
T-Rex made from scrap military metal (do I discern parts of some plane there?) is pretty ferocious:
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Mutant Mechanisms
We already featured art by Vladimir Tsesler & Sergei Voichenko in our article, but the weird mechanical monsters keep coming from their weird kitchen. Here is a couple more:
(art by Vladimir Tsesler & Sergei Voichenko, Belorus)
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Kinetic Sculptures of Andrew Smith
Andrew Smith sculptures bubble, click, chime, make all kinds of highly sophisticated movements and endlessly entertain. And yes, they are made mostly out of metal - some found in military surpluss yard. Here is the "Bubbler":
The "Tornado" kinetic sculpture works even if the door is open:
We asked Andrew a few questions, and so he shares with us:
"People often ask me how I get the ideas for creating my Sculptures. The truth is, I usually don’t know what a sculpture will be until it is actually in the process of being built. I approach my work with a very wide expectation of what it may become, and I try to allow myself to let it go in the direction it wants to go.
Most of it is trial and error, a kind of "form follows function" construction process. If an element is not working or just doesn’t do what I had hoped, I will cut it off and try something else."
"I enjoy the raw creativity in this process. I am constantly observing the world around me seeing things that capture my attention. Sometimes I will try to incorporate these elements into my art somehow or it will spark an idea that leads to another idea and so on. My strongest pieces are usually the ones I had the most fun making. Art doesn’t always have to be serious, political or even emotional. Sometimes it can just be fun. "
"Sometimes when people look at my Kinetic or Rolling Ball Sculptures they will ask, “What does it do?” I usually answer, “It’s doing it.”
One of the best lamp designs I've ever seen:
His bigger kinetic sculptures remind me of the work of classic science fiction artist Richard M. Powers:
(cover art by Richard M. Powers)
"Grandfather Time" clock is an intricate "rolling ball" contraption. Every 15 minutes the ball is released into the track and as it reaches the bottom it strikes a single chime.
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Use your old iron for something better
Aaron Ristau is a true master of "found objects" and metal sculpture form:
Set loose a "sentinel droid" on your lawn, see how the neightbors would react:
Bizarre metal light fixtures:
He also makes beautiful kinetic sculptures, see his site for more.
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Joe Pogan's Nuts-n-Bolts Animals
"The stranger the piece of metal, the better!" - Made from scrap metal and found metallic objects, these fishes would make any fisherman proud (and art collector, too) -
Original artists for these works are largely unknown, so if you have this information, drop us a line.
Very ingenious sculptures from bended forks:
(original unknown)
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It's not what it seems
Chehalem Mountain Pottery's creations look like metal and plumbing fittings. It's actually all ceramic, imagine that.
Eat your food out of some sheet metal plate with fake nuts and bolts? You gotta be a steampunk-oriented individual.
Don't like fake metal? You can still have fun with your ceramics:
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Our metal art review would not be complete, if we don't mention this highly original set:
The Terminator's Kama Sutra
Or, this is how robots fulfil the command "be fruitful and multiply"... and fill the Earth. (God forbid)
Cszar (Matthias Weinberger) has been adding to his collection of robot's suspicious poses for quite some time - and now the set has 20 well-oiled positions! -
Also check out their orgasmic speech... 01000100 01100001 01110100 01100001 00100000 01000101 01111000 01100011 01101000 01100001 01101110 01100111 01100101
There's a similar (same?) Studebaker on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. The card there indicates this was to be a nuclear-powered vehicle that balanced gyroscopically on one centered wheel, and was also to have a energy force field--hence no need for windows. All courtesy our friend the atom.
The giant snail is definitely NOT a fake. They're not safe to handle though, because they can carry a disease (I forget which) that they can pass on to humans.
Sooo cute...although the one on the leash is a bit much. But then again, saying "a bit much" in the context of a wild animal in a denim jacked isn't exactly relevant.
I, in fact, am a bit fan of sheep. Even think they're the new penguins. (You know the penguin trend...Happy Feet...March of the Penguins...all the toys, etc.). Check out some cool sheep-related art from across the web:
I honestly don't know whether to laugh hysterically or cry - the idea of someone not only buying exotic wild animals that were either snatched from their native forest or worse, bred in captivity... but then dressing them up in dolls clothes and using them as fame fodder?!
This isn't cute at all, it's insane.
People like that should not be allowed to keep any sort of animals, let alone wild animals.
When will people ever learn that animals are not play things to be kept for our twisted amusement?
Oh yes, Rox, because animals are so intelligent, right? Get real - in the wild, they'd almost definitely have a much, much, much shorter life, a harder time and would be more at risk of disease or predators.
Animals are not intelligent enough to comprehend things like "natural habitats" or "freedom". Animals merely want 3 things - food, water and safety. In that home, that is provided for them. They aren't suffering, and its silly to the extreme to believe that they possess the same awareness or emotions as human beings, given that they are a different species than us.
Animals are happy as long as you provide them with basic needs - they don't have philosophies, or ideals or dreams. Their brains aren't complex enough for that. These animals are being well taken care of.
Part of the problem with you is that you assume that animals are like us. They are NOTHING like us. They do have a right to be kept free from pain and such, but they are in no emotion or physical pain in that household. They don't have the brains to even comprehend such things like "captivity" or "freedom".
If you re-read my comment, I didn't say anything about animals being on the same level as humans.
But the logic in thinking that wild animals are better off being put to work on movies, and being used for shows of 300 or more children and being dressed in dolls clothes and kept in cages and allowed to roam a house rather than being in their natural habitat is warped.
As for animals in captivity having longer healthier lives, that actually isn't always the case. Even with these anteaters, the female is sick and may soon be retired from 'show business'. Not getting the proper diet they would have in the wild and having supplements instead isn't always conducive to a long life.
And if it's silly to think that they deserve a natural existence, then fine, maybe I am silly. But the exotic pet trade still plays a big part in poaching and illegal animal trade, and when you stop to wonder how these animals are caught, it doesn't seem so silly.
Just because they don't have the same superior intelligence and reasoning we have, it doesn't give us the right to exploit them.
Brainpicker claims breeding them in captivity is worse than taking them from the wild. Well how are they going to miss something they never knew? How is it worse?
Captive private breeding has saved many species on the brink of extinction. American bison, springbok, both of which were reintroduced from captive private bred stock. And there are many others such as lemurs, fennec fox, some chameleons, and some breeds of cockatoos and numerous species I can't think of that are threatened or even extinct in the wild that are in large numbers in the pet trade. This is GOOD. The species survival is assured as long as people want them.
The clothes are so it stays warm and not really any different from the harness it wears to go out. If it doesn't mind, and it doesn't seem to, then there's no harm in the clothing also being cute.
Animals are almost always longer lived in captivity when well treated, there are rare exceptions. The female having got sick is old news and was some bacterial infection. She was said to be considering retirement because Pua didn't like doing it as much as the male. All the full info is in the blogs.
The legal pet trade plays no part in poaching. The vast majority of exotic pets are bred in captivity for many generations this only helps the wild populations through better awareness and no reason to take any from the wild with a captive supply, which could be relied on when reintroduction becomes needed. There are not enough zoos to handle all the animals that are threatened.
For the few taken from the wild trade is highly regulated and limited under C.I.T.E.S.
The illegal animal trade you speak of is over 90% animal parts for medicines, food, or trophies. The few pets produced from it are a by product of the other(killed mom for meat, hey lets try to sell the baby).
And again the captive animals especially the well loved pets help foster a love for the wild animals. Just look at the love for these cute animals many have never even heard of before.
I can see your logic, and what you are trying to say - but at the end of the day, buying exotic wild animals creates a demand. This in turn gives poachers and animal traders more incentive to capture wild animals as well as breed them and the more demand there is, the more likelihood of poorer breeding conditions and bigger 'farms'.
The irony is that it is people and their need to use animals for profit who are the biggest factor in the threat of species endangerment - capturing or breeding the species only perpetuates this problem, and is far from 'conservation' as circus animals are.
Breeding and selling wild animals to people who want a novelty pet is about profit and not about preservation of species.
No matter how I look at it, I just don't see the exotic pet trade as a good thing.
Anteater Coolness? Oh yeah. Just about as cool as wearing real fur and eating shark fin soup. Now, anteaters with a fancy price tag in doll's clothes, how insane can it get? No, it's not cool, it's just totally lame. And the justification for doing so is equally lame. Here again we have people with too much money and too much time on their hands. It's always like that.
I could SO sic these cute guys on the fire ant mounds here. Even if they couldn't wipe out the ants, it would be a delight to get them to off the little critters.
If you read the info page @ the tamandua owner's site, at least one of them was found in the wild VERY ILL and the owner rescued him and nursed him back to health. I don't see anything wrong with that.
How do you know these animals weren't saved or even just found and kept as a pet, they seem happy and cute, I didn't see any pictures of the ant eaters getting tortured so its all good. These animals look like there well taken care of.
The tracked vehicle with the motorcycle front is just a WW2 german 'Kleinen ketten kraftrad' or small tracked tractor, used for towing ammunition carts, small anti-aircraft guns and cable drums for the engineers. The motorcycle steering is not very effective, so it also features track brakes like a tank.
"QUANTUM SHOT" #421
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5 Comments:
Translation of the binary code: "Data Exchange"
Short grammar lesson. "Bended" is not a word.
"Very ingenious sculptures from bended forks:"
should instead be written
"Very ingenious sculptures from bent forks:"
@anonymous...
Actually, chief, 'bended' *is* a word.
See: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bended
It's fallen out of use but it's still very much a word.
@author...
Excellent, excellent finds!
I don't know who made the skull but I saw it last year in person...it is in Venice, Italy.
Does anybody know the name of the ceramic artist (teacup and saucer next to handgun)? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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