Mondolithic Studios

A nice early Christmas gift was our hard cover version of Alan Weisman’s ‘A World Without Us’ published by BAZAR Books in Norway. A featured illustration is the NY Brooklyn Bridge as the opening inside cover.

In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman offers an utterly original approach to questions of humanity’s impact on the planet: he asks us to envision our Earth, without us.

In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; what of our everyday stuff may become immortalized as fossils; how copper pipes and wiring would be crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, radio waves, and some man-made molecules may be our most lasting gifts to the universe.

From time immemorial, societies have sought to establish a lasting presence on this planet that would remind latecomers of their glory long after they themselves have abondoned ship and turned to dust. It doesn’t always work out the way we plan, however. These sobering examples of post-apocalyptic art remind the living that what remains are more often ruins.

Architectural and Alternative Art Online Magazine ‘WebUrbanist’ features 25 Post-Apocalyptic images… including 2 pieces done by Chris and I for Alan Weismans bestselling book - ’A World Without Us’..

It sounds fantastic, but University of Florida mechanical and aerospace engineering associate professor Subrata Roy has submitted a patent application for a circular, spinning aircraft design.

The proposed prototype is small – the aircraft will measure less than six inches across – and will be efficient enough to be powered by on-board batteries.

Roy said the design can be scaled up and theoretically should work in a much larger form. Even in miniature, though, the design has many uses.

The most obvious functions would be surveillance and navigation. The aircraft could be designed to carry a camera and light and be controlled remotely at great distances.

The vehicle will be powered by a phenomenon called magnetohydrodynamics, or the force created when a current or a magnetic field is passed through a conducting fluid. In the case of Roy’s aircraft, the conducting fluid will be created by electrodes that cover each of the vehicle’s surfaces and ionize the surrounding air into plasma.

The force created by passing an electrical current through this plasma pushes around the surrounding air, and that swirling air creates lift and momentum and provides stability against wind gusts. In order to maximize the area of contact between air and vehicle, Roy’s design is partially hollow and continuously curved, like an electromagnetic flying bundt pan.

One of the most revolutionary aspects of Roy’s use of magnetohydrodynamics is that the vehicle will have no moving parts. The lack of traditional mechanical aircraft parts, such as propellers or jet engines, should provide tremendous reliability, Roy said. Such a design also will allow the WEAV to hover and take off vertically. Pretty amazing stuff.

This weeks illustrations were done for Focus Magazine in Italy and Greece and the accompanying text is credited to ScienceDaily - due to the fact my ability to translate from Italian to English really sucks.

His Masters Voice – I always liked this piece… I came across it in the archives. It was used by Virgin Music in London about a year and a half ago…. maybe 2….