A massive weather-balloon-typed-looking object suspended over Federation Square in Melbourne manages to raise some questions and interested faces in the crowd, as it hasn't even shown the tip of it's preverbal iceberg.
Using five projects, producing some 110.000 ANSI Lumens each, a replication of our sun's surface is projected onto the giant sphere, measuring a respectable 14 meters in diameter. The images are not merely composed of looping video footages, instead the surface is rendered in real-time using the magic of fluid dynamics.
It is the work of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, entitled: "Solar Equation". While the message behind it is a good one (I'll leave it up to your imagination and/or Google skills, for now) I was more impressed by the technical aspect of it. Rendering the surface in real-time is a complicated task and the addition of human interaction, allowing someone to manipulate the flow of the surface using an external touch device, which is instantly reflected on the sphere in Federation Square, is quite and impressive piece of engineering.
There will be a more extensive Just Like Ed Adventures entry tomorrow (June 5, 2010). I just so happened to stumble upon this piece of work tonight and thought I'd be pretty spiffy to share. Tomorrow's entry will contain 100% more cows and some crazy dance moves.