Microscopic Art in a Drop of Water
"I think there is a profound meaning in art, which is created by human beings," says Austrian motion designer Clemens "clemento" Wirth, in reference to his experimental video Micro Empire. "But a lot of people have become so estranged from nature that they see nature as art."
Micro Empire is the fourth of Clemento's series, in which he tackles this visual divide by filming the forms and textures of everyday objects — to "call attention to the beauty and richness of details surrounding us that we wouldn't normally perceive," he says.
In the first three videos he created, the trippy Macro Kingdom I, II and III, he captured the mundane with a macro lens: toothbrush bristles grew into stalagmites, and cauliflower bloomed into fractals. But for Micro Empire, he grabbed a microscope and uncovered an almost grotesque loveliness in the organisms that inhabit a drop of water.
It took over five months to complete, after which long-time collaborators Radium Audio helped with the score. The results show that even if humans don't create nature, when armed with some basic technology and backed by industrial prog rock, they can make it look a hell of a lot like art.
--Benita Hussain / Image from Micro Empire
