I'm just popping out for a moment
September 16, 2018 7:46 AM   Subscribe

Berlin based artist Ben Roth has a slightly different blog which he calls Door of Perception inviting the viewer down a rabbit hole.
From Paul Wunderlich's Everything You Can Imagine Is Real and Mati Klarwein to Robert Steven Connett's Miracles Of Life On Display and Ernst Haeckel and oh so very many more.
(Caveat: This is an art post so there is bound to be NSFW in there.)
posted by adamvasco (8 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
A rabbit hole indeed. And worthwhile! Thank you for posting this!
posted by sundrop at 8:41 AM on September 16, 2018


Good stuff! Thanks, adamvasco.
posted by homunculus at 10:51 AM on September 16, 2018


I have an Ernst Haekel book - digital pictures just don't do justice to the illustrations, they're really beautiful and weird and wonderful.

That Miracles Of Life On Display looks right up my street, and slightly lovecraftian. I need some as bathroom posters (is there a book for that too?).

Weird art is my favourite kind of post.
posted by stillnocturnal at 1:14 PM on September 16, 2018


Ernst Haeckel was not just an illustrator, but an important biologist - he was the one who coined the term 'ecology'.

A few months ago I did some experiments with neural style transfer, where I took the style of Ernst Haeckel drawings and applied it to block diagrams that are often used in earth sciences to represent an ecosystem. The result was a weird mix between animal and landscape.
But look for yourself: https://rybakov.com/blog/visualizing_complexity/
posted by javanlight at 1:53 PM on September 16, 2018 [6 favorites]


javanlight: that is the first time I've seen anyone actually doing anything interesting with style transfer, beyond "Hey isn't this cool!" (which it really really is, but that isn't enough on its own). I really enjoyed your post and images, thank you. I liked the way the overall structure of the images was preserved and my visual brain recognised the forms immediately but then ran straight into the beautiful wrongness. A nice sensation.
posted by Gamecat at 3:19 AM on September 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


javanlight: wow, beautiful! I am a long time Haeckel fan. Thanks for sharing!
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 9:50 AM on September 17, 2018


Thanks, Gamecat, for the kind words! I had the same wariness regarding neural style transfer, and ignored the technique until I had a concept that made at least a tiny bit of sense.
What I like about the neural style transfer is that you can separate the 'what' from the 'how'. And the separated 'how' is just full of familiar - as you say - beautiful wrongness. Exhibit B (currently in the works).
posted by javanlight at 9:52 AM on September 17, 2018


Hey, thanks, adamvasco.
I love Mati Klarwein!
posted by Mesaverdian at 5:04 PM on September 17, 2018


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