Category Archives: Art

Tomb Raiding

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Tomb Raiders exist and treasure hunters are still being prosecuted for beating archaeologists to the find. Why? Because buried treasure is a non-renewable resource which tells us about our history, especially when the finds are taken in context, and thus a crime to humanity.

In Italy a huge trial was held over 10 years, where Marion True and Robert E. Hecht were exposed at the top of a huge network of dealers, middlemen and art curators. Over 200 people were called in testimony and Italy wants their riches back. This was called the Medici conspiracy

Peruvian history is being dug up and sold to museums and private collectors at a huge rate. The writer of Stealing History thinks the problem is more due to curators than the raiders themselves.

In Egypt archaeologists were pointed to a particularly rich burial site of three dentists by captured tombraiders.

In China four people were severly punished for looting tombs in the Shaanxi province.

Cambodians are selling antiquities to any tourist on the street – 20% of which admit to buying them there.

In Iraq the looting continues in museums and palaces.

This article has quite a bit of history based on a Cyprus case and states that the pieces are placed on e-bay as well as valuing the trade at $5 – $6 billion per year.

There are three basic levels of operatives in the black market trade in art and antiquities: tombaroli, middle men and customers. Tomb robbers and customers are many but the middle men – wholesalers and primary dealers – are few and form closely connected mafias with regional specialities. Key figures at each level are known to the authorities as well as to scholars. Istanbul, Munich, Zurich, London and New York are hubs of the trade. Artefacts flow along routes used by drug dealers and arms merchants.

Since penalties for possession of loot are light, they buy art to launder profits from their other enterprises.

Time fountain and other creations

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This time fountain uses strobe lighting to show water droplets falling. You can interact with the drops and because you can alter the strobing frequency, you can seem to slow down time and even make time go backwards.
The video makes things clearer 🙂 you can find that here

Instructions on how to make the time fountain yourself here

There are plenty of other creations on the site. Another one that got my attention was the walluminate – a wallet with LEDs that come on when you open the wallet.

The plant reaction is a wonderful contraption as well.

One of the other things I found was the Make My Day DVD which apparently is a DVD set up like a Steve Jackson book – ie. you get to choose what the hero does periodically, allowing up to 13 different endings to the film. At $16,- it’s a great deal!

Cool site to browse around on.

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X’Tal Vision

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This offshoot of the University of Tokyo, Chrystal Vision, uses projectors and camera’s to good use in order to create some startling illusions.

One is invisible / see through clothing, which uses a camera / projector setup to make it look as though the cape is transparent (I’ve seen many blogs referring to this as the real thing ie. bending light around the cape or the back being made up of camera’s and the front of display, but they obviously failed to go to the source and check up to see that it’s really clever trickery).

They also dive into telepresence or telexistence, where they project people onto robots to make it seem like they’re there.

They have a space age futuristic head mounted projector, which just looks far out.

There are plenty of movies on the site to illustrate better what they’re doing – it’s very convincing indeed.

Posted in Art