neon

Portland artist Eric Franklin spent over 1,000 hours sweating over hot glass and noble gasses to produce Embodiment, a glass skeleton filled with glowing krypton. Speaking about the process, Eric says: Every glass seal has to be perfect, and this piece contains hundreds. Everywhere one tube joins another, or a tube terminates, glass tubes were sealed together. They have to be perfect in order to preserve the luminosity of the krypton. If one rogue molecule gets inside the void of the glass tubing it can eventually contaminate the gas and it will no longer glow. There are times when the…
Portland artist Eric Franklin spent over 1,000 hours sweating over hot glass and noble gasses to produce Embodiment, a glass skeleton filled with glowing krypton. Speaking about the process, Eric says: Every glass seal has to be perfect, and this piece contains hundreds. Everywhere one tube joins another, or a tube terminates, glass tubes were sealed together. They have to be perfect in order to preserve the luminosity of the krypton. If one rogue molecule gets inside the void of the glass tubing it can eventually contaminate the gas and it will no longer glow. There are times when the…
A cross posting from my Posterous space - a short imagining some implications of lab-grown meat. He was a huge man, thick forearms dotted with burns and pale scars. He spoke in a dull monotone about the unique difficulties in preparing synthetic meat. Roscoe wondered how much he weighed, and tried to calculate how much that would be worth when sold in Longpig wrappers. As he spoke, Roscoe noticed the chef was absent-mindedly palpating his own arm, as if feeling for the texture of the meat under his skin. Read Transubstantiation
Last week I had a visit from a friend of mine, who was on something of a farewell tour. After several years of planning, he'd packed in his dependable but much-begrudged corporate job, and was setting sail for Asia, to see more of the world. He's already seen much more of the world than most people. Not because he was well connected or rich, but because he made it his life's mission to tour the forgotten, the hidden and the forbidden places of the world. I mention this because if there ever was a man to take life advice from, it is this one, and he put into words something I've been…