The Stopped Clock Illusion

Chronostasis (from Greek χρόνος, chrónos, “time” and στάσις “standing”) is the illusion in which the first impression following a saccade (quick eye movement) appears to be extended in time. The most well-known version of this illusion is the stopped-clock illusion, where the first movement of the second hand of an analog clock, following the viewer’s directing attention to the clock, appears to take longer than the next movement. When eyes execute a saccade, perception of time stretches slightly backward. The viewer’s brain registers that they have been looking at the clock for slightly longer than they really have, producing the illusion that the second-hand is frozen for more than a second. Although this happens every time the eyes move from one fixation point to the next, it is rarely noticed. One explanation is that the brain is filling in the gap while the eyes move from looking at one thing to the next.
Source, Via: Youtube

The V Motion Project

The V Motion Project from Assembly on Vimeo.

This project combines the collective talents of musicians, dancers, programmers, designers and animators to create an amazing visual instrument. Creating music through motion is at the heart of this creation and uses the power of the Kinect to capture movement and translate it into music which is performed live and projected on a huge wall.
LINK: Vimeo

Singing, Dancing Robot

(Video Link)
AIST’s new HRP-4C robot does a fairly good impersonation of human body movements. This 5′2″ fembot was unveiled at the Digital Contents Expo in Tokyo. The only thing that it needs is a steady energy supply.

Link, Via: Neatorama

Unbelieveable Kinetic Art Movement

arslion2 | January 31, 2010
Kinetic Art Movement...Constructed in the City of New York Mills, Minnesota in August of 2005 #1
My biggest and wildest kinetic-art video ever! It's over six minutes of non-stop action using many stunts never seen before. LINK: Youtube

Waves

'Waves' utilizes a basic construction of a long piece of elastic string and two motors to visualize the presence of people close to the installation. The string between the two motorized chambers reacts to the people presence and movements, it twirls to produce a sine-wave simulation that eloquently resembles both the digitization of real-time sound waves and patterns of flow and connectivity found in natural systems. LINK: Vimeo

White Blood Cell Hunting, Slaying Bacterium

(Video Link)

This video shows a neutrophil (a type of white blood cell) chasing a staphylococcus aureus bacterium. The video was recorded by biochemistry professor David Rogers of Vanderbilt University in the 1950s. Notes on the movement by med school professor Thomas P. Stossel:


Contraction waves are visible along the surface of the moving cell as it moves forward in a gliding fashion. As the neutrophil relentlessly pursues the microbe it ignores the red cells and platelets. However, its leading edge is sufficiently stiff (elastic) to deform and displace the red cells it bumps into. The internal contents of the neutrophil also move, and granule motion is particularly dynamic near the leading edge. These granules only approach the cell surface membrane when the cell changes direction and redistributes its peripheral “gel.” After the neutrophil has engulfed the bacterium, note that the cell’s movements become somewhat more jerky, and that it begins to extend more spherical surface projections.

Link, Via: Geekologie, Via: Neatorama

Howl's Moving Castle made out of Lego

Somebody has made the dreamy floating wonderworld from the Oscar-nominated Hayao Miyazaki film Howl's Moving Castle out of Lego. The details are quite impressive, and blogging about this is making me want to watch the movie again.

Imagine's Brickzone's Flickr, Via: Japanator, Via: Boingboing

Kinetic Light Installation

“Beacon is a kinetic light installation with a mind of its own. An array of emergency beacon lights interacts with visitors, tracking their movement through the space, creating an immersive and playful experience. The installation exploits a transfer of technologies from existing industrial products. The beacon lights have had their internal parts replaced with custom hardware, enabling the rotation of the reflector and lamp brightness to be individually controlled. Thermal imaging cameras have been adapted to track the participants’ movement through the space.” LINK, Via: Vimeo