DIGITAL FLOWERS

 

There is an annual event at the St. Louis Art Museum called Art In Bloom. The most talented floral arrangers in the region are invited to sculpt petals and stems to resonate with one of the works in the galleries. There was a members-only preview Saturday evening. It gets so crowded during general opening hours that, for a photographer, it's not worth the effort. However, one room had an assortment of artificial flowers. a scanner and a projector that blew fractals of the plants' fractals onto the wall.

If the gods of the air permit, we'll be in Miami tonight and on to Costa Rica tomorrow. First stop is Monteverde in the cloud forest of the central highlands. The flowers are more gorgeous, intense and even livid than what we could imagine here. And then there are the birds.            

Dr. Mandelbrot, I Presume?

This is a bit of fun with the huge video sign outside of Lumiere Place casino. It doesn't look like this to your eye. What you see on the street resembles a television screen. But have you ever tried to photograph a TV screen? I did not not get a response to my request for technical comments yesterday about what causes this effect but my guess is that it's the fast scrolling video refresh of the image. (Expert advice still solicited.)

So what we get in camera is a crazy sci-fi effect, a molten color skin that resembles (or may actually consist of) fractals, as defined by Benoît Mandelbrot. Alien meets The Matrix meets 2001 meets "there's a sucker born every minute." The casinos are glad of the last part.

TOMORROW: Still a lot of water.