Flottille - amazing water-powered origami

May 16, 2011 8:12 AM

Flottille by Etienne Cliquet. Exquisite moving origami powered by the capillary action of the paper.
posted by Plutor (17 comments total)

When I was a little, little kid, I remember Jack & Jill magazine had a page of little flowers to cut out, and to use the sharp edge of the scissor to curl the petals (mom, of course, did all those parts); then you put it in a bowl of water, and the petals would unroll like the one towards the end of the video. It was one of the coolest things ever, which is probably one of the few things I remember from my preschool years.
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:20 AM on May 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

Neat. Very soothing. I wish there was a latenight cable show of this sort of thing with some soft piano music I could fall asleep to.
posted by Gator at 8:34 AM on May 16, 2011

Nice find.... thanks.
posted by tomswift at 8:46 AM on May 16, 2011

And in the category of "art that destroys itself"...

This was so much fun to watch. I'm bookmarking this as a future midmorning meditation aid.
posted by gillyflower at 8:51 AM on May 16, 2011

That's great! Etienne must have great eyes to make those tiny things.
posted by Mister_A at 8:55 AM on May 16, 2011

I am delighted by this.
posted by you're a kitty! at 9:13 AM on May 16, 2011

Thank you for this.
posted by Room 641-A at 9:19 AM on May 16, 2011

I feel like I'm going to hyperventilate.
posted by aramaic at 9:21 AM on May 16, 2011

well technically since these all involve cut paper they are not correctly termed "Origami" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origami
posted by mary8nne at 9:23 AM on May 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

So true, it is exquisite. Love the pace of the opening, the delicacy. Really lovely.

Etienne Cliquet's other videos.

This Flotille one reminds me a little of those Japanese clam shell toys that I used to drop into water as a kid and watch the shells open with paper flowers inside that bloomed or those blooming tea things that seem to be popular these days.
posted by nickyskye at 9:56 AM on May 16, 2011

This rules.

(There's no sound...right? Or did my sound system conk out?)
posted by DU at 10:17 AM on May 16, 2011

Really cool diffraction effects on the last couple. And did anyone else notice the water level gets lower and lower?
posted by DU at 10:29 AM on May 16, 2011

I wonder if you could paint parts of the paper with some kind of hydrophobic substance to manipulate the degree of unfolding.
posted by rhizome at 10:56 AM on May 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

C'est génial! But not to be confused with Ile Flottante.
posted by rongorongo at 11:03 AM on May 16, 2011

Deeply, deeply cool. Thank you! (And DU: I don't think there's sound since I wasn't hearing anything either.)
posted by dendritejungle at 11:58 AM on May 16, 2011

Elegant and lovely. Thank you.
posted by k8oglyph at 12:25 PM on May 16, 2011

Lovely.
posted by Splunge at 1:24 PM on May 16, 2011