scales of perception

Scale is a vital component to understanding our world, without it, we exist in the abstract. SoP is an investigation. Through disciplines of art, design, photography, science, technology, landscape and architecture, we hope to understand how scale can not only be emphasized to convey meaning, but be a departure point for creation.

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Monumental Parkour Andy Day

With a combined passion for the practice of parkour and photography, Andy Day has documented a dynamic series of images that bring together urban exploration, memories and monumental architecture. over the course of three months, the british photographer and parkour athlete traveled to Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia in search of ‘Spomenik’ — World War II monuments commissioned by the regime of Marshal Tito and scattered across former Yugoslavia. informed by the work of photographer Jan Kempenaers, who documented twenty-six of these otherworldly architectural objects, day tasked several parkour athletes from the region to engage, occupy and activate each of the structural relics. [via]

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Reiser + Umemoto | Atlas of Novel Tectonics | “Diagram Deployment” | Princeton Architectural Pres, 2006

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Minimal Fuerteventura | Paolo Pettigiani

SoP | Scale of Life

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Surplus Vehicle Boneyards | Via

When World War II drew to a close in 1945, the Allies had a massive surplus of military vehicles on their hands. The United States alone had manufactured approximately 294,000 aircraft for the war.

Many of the aircraft that survived the war were not worth the expense of transportation back to the States, and were dumped or destroyed in their theater of operation.

Of the planes that did return, many were stripped of valuable components and melted down for their aluminum.

At Kingman Air Force Base in Arizona, an estimated 5,500 aircraft were stored and scrapped in 1945 and 1946. While many vehicles were sold for metal and parts, others were re purposed for civilian use. Tanks and half-tracks were disarmed and reformatted as tractors and bulldozers.

Americans were so eager to get their hands on cheap surplus Jeeps that auto companies urged the government to leave them overseas, fearing they would cut into new car sales.

Unused Navy ships were held in reserve, disassembled for parts, scuttled to form artificial reefs, and even used as targets for nuclear tests in the Pacific Ocean.

And still they remain.  Thousands of World War II era vehicles are still mothballed today at “boneyards” throughout the southwestern United States.

SoP | Scale of War

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Expanding the Panama Canal | Via

In 2006, Panamanians approved a referendum to expand the Panama Canal, doubling its capacity and allowing far larger ships to transit the 100-year-old waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific. Work began in 2007 to raise the capacity of Gatun Lake and build two new sets of locks, which would accommodate ships carrying up to 14,000 containers of freight, tripling the size limit. Sixteen massive steel gates, weighing an average of 3,100 tons each, were built in Italy and shipped to Panama to be installed in the new locks. Eight years and $5.2 billion later, the expansion project is nearing completion. The initial stages of flooding the canals have begun and the projected opening date has been set for April of 2016.

SoP | Scale of Work

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Colosses | Fabrice Fouillet

Statues are often idealized works of art, ideological, political or religious representations, and turn their subjects into fascinating eternal figures.Once erected to keep alive the memory of a particular person or event, in a given culture, it lasts through many generations and establishes itself a symbol for the community.Statues are even more influential when they are outstanding. An edifice can be said to be monumental when it is unusual, extraordinary. It has to be abnormal, as exceptional as the political or religious power itself, also inseparable from its symbolic aspects.    

The series “Colosses” is a study of the landscapes embracing those monumental commemorative statues.Although hugeness is appealing, exhilarating or even fascinating, I was first intrigued by the human need to build gigantic declarations. Then, I asked myself how such « works » could be connected to their surroundings. How can they fit in the landscapes, despite their excessive dimensions and their fundamental symbolic and traditional functions?

- Fabrice Fouillet

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PROPOSAL FOR A SMALL CITY IN THE FORM OF A COLOSSAL BUTTON 

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Making Blade Runner | Via

Images from slides taken during the construction of the miniatures for the film “Bladerunner”

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Andrew B Myers | Tumblr | BDiF

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We | Zhang Bojun | Via

Using digital manipulation, Chinese photographer Zhang Bojun, transforms swarms of people, whom he has photographed on Beijing’s overcrowded streets, into repeating visual patterns inspired by the interlocking stripes of plaid fabrics. The images are a social commentary on modern life in China and explore migration and the dashed dreams of life in the big city, where workers, who represent the vast majority of the urban population, are unable to settle.

SoP | Scale of Life

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Reclaiming Il Muro, Urbino, Italy, 1961.

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A Thin Line | Serge Najjar | Via

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Automonuments

by Niv Rozenberg

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5,000 Indian Students do Yoga to Promote World Peace | Via

Indian students of Delhi Public School perform yoga in Hyderabad on October 20, 2014. Nearly 5000 students including teachers perform seven yogic postures, with religious prayers for world harmony and peace.

SoP | The Scale of Protest

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Aerial Photos of Africa’s Last Elephants | Via

Zakouma National Park in southern Chad is famous for its large, free roaming herds of elephants. This has made it a honeypot for poachers. From 2005 to 2010, demand for ivory has reduced the park’s elephant population from over 4,000 to about 450 individuals.

In a visit earlier this year, Kate Brooks took these beautiful aerial pictures of the park and its remaining elephants. Brooks is a war photographer who has spent most of her 17-year career documenting conflict in the Muslim world. She says it’s no stretch to compare the slaughter of African animals to the worst human conflicts. Her forthcoming documentary, The Last Animals, will describe the increasingly sophisticated war between conservationists and poachers over elephants, and many other African animals.

Nobody knows exactly how many elephants currently live in Africa, but that the number could soon be zero. According to a recent report, roughly 100,000 elephants have been poached for their ivory since 2011. Experts estimate that about 100 elephants are killed every day, a rate that outpaces their ability to reproduce.

SoP | Scale of Life

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A Drone’s View of Burning Man 2014 | Eric Cheng | Via

Burning man — the 70,000-person annual art event and temporary community in Nevada’s black rock desert — has come to an end, Concluding in a spectacular burst of flames. While the large-scale sculptural installations and dramatic and theatrical happenings have been documented by both professional and everyday picture-takers, this year’s edition included a new generation of photographers: drones. Cinematographer and pilot Eric Cheng flew his DJI phantom 2 quadcopter over the arid landscape, chronicling the life of ‘burners’ from above. From the device’s height, the masses seem to be tiny ants traveling across the vast built environment, riding bicycles through the dust and gathering for special and significant community art events. watch cheng’s video below and take an aerial tour of this year’s burning man.

SoP | Scale or Representation

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Miniature | Hengki Koentjoro

SoP | Scale of Representation