Trial two: Long distortion

In my second trial, I looked into the long distortion technique, where a photograph is shot line by line. It is quite impossible with the equipment that I've got as it will have to scan the object 15,000 times to create a similar distortion picture. Therefore I opted for digital tools instead.
First, I've picked an image from the Victorian era that links it with my subject. I then created a canvas which is twice the width. To follow that, I cut the original image line by line, some are more stretched than others, and placed them into the canvas.
Here you can see the original image and an image that I have manipulated through photoshop. I really like the final outcome of this experiment, as it creates a strange aura, a feeling which I would like to include in the final piece. The distortion also reflects to a change, a transition through time or even space. This transition effect is key into communicating the change form the real world to the underworld.

Trial one: Composition

Here is a work developed by the first technique mentioned in the previous post. I've shot nine images of myself turning my head from left to right consistently and then layered these shots over each other on photoshop, with a opacity of 20% each. I have to say is quite an interesting take on normal photography, and is also something which I can try out if the subject is walking or in action. However, overall the outcome is not as dramatic as other techniques.

The science behind scanner photography

Here are some diagrams and samples into how slit scan works. In the first example looks into a composite of images which are taken one after another in fast speed. When all the images are put together, it creates a blur. Which seems interesting to explore.
On the other hand, the second example shows a different way into recording the image, which is reading it line by line. When the photos are put together, it creates a long distortion.
At the last example, it shows the different time frames needed to create the different versions of the distortion.

Thoughts: It is interesting to see the different ways which I can distort an image or a moving image piece. As the subject I'm working on carries a mysterious and strange aura, therefore this technique can surely emphasize what I'm trying to deliver.

Slit Scan Technique

Through a general research into this technique, I've found that it is actually quite a complicated process, which needs a modified camera to take the shot. Here are some information regarding this technique.

Slit-scan is an animation created image by image. Its principle is based upon the camera’s relative movement in relation to a light source, combined with a long exposure time. The process is as follows:

1. An abstract colored design is painted on a transparent support

2. This support is set down on the glass of a backlighting table and covered with an opaque masking into which one or more slits have been carved.

3. The camera (placed high on top of a vertical ramp and decentered in relation to the light slits) takes a single photograph while moving down the ramp. The result: at the top of the ramp, when it is far away, the camera takes a rather precise picture of the light slit. This image gets progressively bigger and eventually shifts itself out of the frame. This produces a light trail, which meets up with the edge of the screen.

4. These steps are repeated for each image, lightly peeling back the masking, which at the same time produces variation in colors as well as variation of the position of the light stream, thus creating the animation.

Naturally, this effect is very time-consuming, and thus expensive, to create. A 10-second sequence requires a minimum of 240 adjustments.

Thoughts: Due to the equipments and time to master the skill needed, I need to find a different way to approach this technique. And the answer is probably photoshop, but before I go into that route, I would look into this technique a little bit more. So, I'll understand the science behind it.

Slit Scan Photography

As you can see, although the photographs are using the same technique, but there are many different ways to approach it which produces many different effects. However, is it controllable? and most importantly, how?

Ansen Seale: Temporal Form

Came across these images while browsing through 'today and tomorrow'. At first, I thought these were manipulated by photoshop, but it is actually a form of photography called 'Slit Scan'. I think the ways the image is changed, causes a sense of mystery and a notion of change. It is the latter emotion which I'm interested in. As the transition from the real world to the underworld, is what I want to investigate and communicate to the audience. Therefore, I'll look into more examples of Slit Scan photography and find ways on how to use it.

Lord of the Flies

Got talking about this project to a few friends today, and we all remembered the days when we did 'Lord of the Flies' for our GCSE days. Although not so much of a disappearing world, but its subject and morals mentioned are in the region of the theme.

Lord of the Flies:
It discusses how culture created by man fails, using as an example a group of British schoolboys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves, but with disastrous results. Its stances on the already controversial subjects of human nature and individual welfare versus the common good earned it position 68 on the American Library Association’s list of the one hundred most frequently challenged books of 1990–1999.

Thoughts: I think in many ways, the story plays with the idea of 'disappearing'. For example, it portrays a world when everything of the modern world is taken away, there are no rules and no class systems. But, the boys still find a way to differenciate themselves from one another. The main purpose of this, is that the author is commenting our failing society of the world. Where people are judged by their appearances and the polictics which comes in-between that causes chaos amongst us. The themes of this novel also reflects on the Victorian times, where morals and class systems were hugely important into determining a person's fate.

Cities of the Underworld: Katrina Underground

While flicking through the channels today, I came across the programme I mentioned before called 'Cities of the Underworld'. In this episode, it looked into the underworld of New Orleans and how it saved and affected the Katrina incident.

Cities of the Underworld:
Katrina Underground - When Hurricane Katrina hit, parts of New Orleans were devastated. Do the answers to protecting the city from global warning lie in its historical underworld?

Thoughts: The episode concentrated on not the so call 'secrets' of the underworld, but more of the defenses and structure of New Orlean's foundation that failed to divert the disaster of Katrina. In one case, it investigated the 'disappearing' marshlands near New Orleans which was a huge factor of why Katrina had such a dramatic effect on New Orleans. Due to global warming, the facts indicated waters are swallowing marshlands at a staggering rate of a football field every 45 minutes. The solution was to dig up earth from deep inside the region and pump it up back to the surface, causing new layers of marshlands. This is an intriguing story, as it kinda reflects on my project on a 'disappearing city'. If these measures are not to be put into place, then New Orleans would have disappeared from the face of the Earth. But by reusing natural resources, the marshlands have 'appeared' again and therefore saving the region.

Victorian crime and punishment

The Victorian world and its secret underworld was full of crimes. And many of them to this day, remained unsolved. Much like the case of Jack the Ripper. I've found this website containing vast information on crime and punishment in those times. Also, they have a section under the name of 'Prisoner of the Day', which gives me a great insight into the fugitive and the types of crimes that were happening at the time.

More info here.

The Victorian World and Underworld in Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'

Here are some key quotes I've revisited from a text I found in the early stages of this research:

From very early on in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Victorian sense of living a double life is readily apparent. Also riddled throughout the book are Alice’s very proper Victorian ideas of how things should and should not be, most of them having to do with respectability and order.

Victorian society consisted of many, many rules. Children were usually given these rules, or warnings, in cautionary tales where some child does something they should not and ends up hurt, dead, or in hell. Alice obviously had been exposed to these tales. At only seven, they are a forefront in her mind when she ends up in a situation where the rules are not explicitly set out.

Alice has not been raised to live in an ambiguous world. Her world, England’s Victorian world, is highly structured. Partially because of this over structuring of Victorian society, the feeling of living a double life or of being two people was not abnormal. This idea of an underworld or separate underground society is not uncommon in Victorian literature.

Not only has Alice fallen, but she longs to be released into a garden. The religious imagery between the fall from innocence into sin and the wish to return to paradise is not perfect, of course. For even in the garden, Alice finds life less than perfect. “Neither the elusive garden in Wonderland… however, offers more than a temporary oasis in a mutable, biological, and mortal wasteland”

Alice’s descent into Wonderland and subsequent adventures can be seen in the religious light of the overly-morality obsessed Victorians. Carroll even pokes fun at the Victorian obsession with morality in Alice’s garden conversation with the Duchess. “`How fond she is of finding morals in things!' Alice thought to herself”

The Victorians were fond of finding morals in things. And their morals often included the view that what you saw was what you got. “…Maybe it's always pepper that makes people hot-tempered,' she went on, very much pleased at having found out a new kind of rule, `and vinegar that makes them sour--and camomile that makes them bitter--and--and barley-sugar and such things that make children sweet-tempered”

Victorians believed that a book really could be judged by its cover. Short, ugly, or malformed people were cruel and corrupt and violent while tall, beautiful, and perfectly formed people were smart and kind and good. However, the overly restricted society, as stated above, led to an interesting phenomenon. Like many societies where all things considered immoral are publicly scorned and being involved in an immoral act could ruin your reputation, an underworld evolved in which so-called respectable people could lose themselves in non-respectable activities and yet keep their reputation intact, so long as they were not too open about their activities. In the underworld of the Victorians gambling, drug use, prostitution, and other immoral activities were rampant. And many of those are shown in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

While it would seem that insanity is not something that can be held to merely one time period, there are other factors that link the insanity of Wonderland to the Victorian period. For instance, the Mad Hatter. It was in the Victorian period that the Industrial Revolution hit England so hard. One aspect of this was in the factories and haberdashers used mercury on pelts and felt that they used to make their hats. Overexposure to mercury caused serious mental problems in long term haberdashers.

There are a few takes on how to look at Alice’s character. Does she represent Imperialism? This was the time of the British Empire after all. Alice falls into Wonderland, uses its resources and is highly judgmental of the natives. She, at only seven, sets herself far above them and considers them insane and disreputable. And the prejudice Alice is exhibiting was not just Britain’s distain and racism towards countries that they conquered and colonized. “…Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland relates directly to Herbert Spencer's argument that "the intellectual traits of the uncivilized. . . are the traits recurring in the children of the civilized."

Alice is an example of the Victorian child lost in the underbelly of Victorian society. She is confused, often frustrated, and while she is still interested in what is going on around her, the longer she is in Wonderland the less she understands or wishes to be there. Because of the lack of structure and sense, Alice is drifting through Wonderland in confusion. She tries to bring order to a disordered world, tries to make sense of the nonsensical.

Yet another Victorian lesson, all things and all people have their roles and status and it is up to the upper class, the superior people, to keep these roles clear. Once Alice realizes that she is in control she has her way out of Wonderland. By realizing that the guards and soldiers that are set upon her are merely a deck of cards, Alice topples the structure of Wonderland, adds common sense, and awakens to find it has been merely a dream.

Alice is alive, well, and able to grow into a young woman. Wonderland is merely a dream. And the Victorian ways of life are once again hidden safely in the sane boredom of a summer’s day.

Poverty and Families in the Victorian Era

One of the things we remember the Victorian era by is the vast poverty levels it possesses. Although the problem has improved immensely in the last 100 years, but it is something still exists today. Maybe not so much in the Western world, but it's a major problem in the third world. In a way, poverty is 'disappearing' in our modern society, but I want to look back at the conditions that was present at the time in relation to the Victorian times.

Child labour:
Children were expected to help towards the family budget. They often worked long hours in dangerous jobs and in difficult situations for a very little wage.
For example, there were the climbing boys employed by the chimney sweeps; the little children who could scramble under machinery to retrieve cotton bobbins; boys and girls working down the coal mines, crawling through tunnels too narrow and low to take an adult. Some children worked as errand boys, crossing sweepers, shoe blacks, and they sold matches, flowers and other cheap goods.

Slum housing:
All these problems were magnified in London where the population grew at a record rate. Large houses were turned into flats and tenements and the landlords who owned them, were not concerned about the upkeep or the condition of these dwellings. In his book The Victorian underworld, Kellow Chesney gives a graphic description of the conditions in which many were living:‘Hideous slums, some of them acres wide, some no more than crannies of obscure misery, make up a substantial part of the, metropolis … In big, once handsome houses, thirty or more people of all ages may inhabit a single room,’

Overcrowding:
Many people could not afford the rents that were being charged and so they rented out space in their room to one or two lodgers who paid between twopence and fourpence a day. Great wealth and extreme poverty lived side by side because the tenements, slums, rookeries were only a stones throw from the large elegant houses of the rich.

Destitution:
Many cases of death caused by starvation and destitution were reported. One example of such a report will suffice. In 1850 an inquest was held on a 38 year old man whose body was reported as being little more than a skeleton, his wife was described as being ‘the very personification of want’ and her child as a ‘skeleton infant’.

Homeless children:
Obviously these conditions affected children as well as adults. There were children living with their families in these desperate situations but there were also numerous, homeless, destitute children living on the streets of London. Many children were turned out of home and left to fend for themselves at an early age and many more ran away because of ill treatment.

Children and crime:

Many destitute children lived by stealing, and to the respectable Victorians they must have seemed a very real threat to society. Something had to be done about them to preserve law and order. Many people thought that education was the answer and Ragged schools were started to meet the need. However there were dissenting voices against this. Henry Mayhew argued that: ‘since crime was not caused by illiteracy, it could not be cured by education … the only certain effects being the emergence of a more skilful and sophisticated race of criminals’.

Society's attituide towards the poor:

It does appear that many people and various agencies were becoming aware of the problem, but the sheer scale of it must have seemed overwhelming.
One of the difficulties in dealing with it were contemporary attitudes:

‘the poor were improvident, they wasted any money they had on drink and gambling’;

And in a hymn published in 1848 by Cecil Frances Alexander sums the whole situation up:

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high and lowly,
And order’d their estate.

More info here.

Thoughts: Poverty has the power to make a certain class of people to disappear. As the poor makes the majority in Victorian London, could this be the reason of its fall?

Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth

Looking into the idea of 'hole' in general, I remembered I've visited this work by Doris Salcedo two years ago in Tate Modern. Here is a short description of the work:

Shibboleth asks questions about the interaction of sculpture and space, about architecture and the values it enshrines, and about the shaky ideological foundations on which Western notions of modernity are built.
In particular, Salcedo is addressing a long legacy of racism and colonialism that underlies the modern world. A ‘shibboleth’ is a custom, phrase or use of language that acts as a test of belonging to a particular social group or class. By definition, it is used to exclude those deemed unsuitable to join this group.

Thoughts: Although this work doesn't relate much to the Victorian world or the underworld I've been investigating it. But, interestingly it questions the foundation of the modernity of the Western world. This relates to the idea of a class system and how we are divided. Therefore, it might not seem relevant from the start, but the meaning of the piece bears strong similarities to the establishments of the modern world and if we are accepted or not. Referring back to an Underworld society.

The Underworld in Gotham City

While watching 'Batman Begins' last night, I came across a scene which resembles perfectly to a Victorian underworld. Rachel brought Bruce to see this underground world to make him take note the power of the mafias and co. As this is the world which controls and run Gotham City. The area is like a run down version of what is on the surface, with shop, restaurants and people roaming around. Later, Bruce visited Carmine Falcone, who is the leader and was told by him that he has the power to influence all the higher officials of the city, judges, police etc.
This scene shows us this world might co-exist with ours in every cities of the world. And also probably referenced from the Victorian Underworlds, where people from the higher class could leave their true identity on the surface, and do what ever they want in the underground, a double life.

Thoughts: This is a theme that I've been fascinated about since starting this project, as it seems people are leaving their normal lives and leading a second persona in this underworld. Therefore the city is disappearing, as rules are too restricting for these people to do what ever they want, so they go to a different world where they are free to do what they can't do above.

Archive: the Victorian World

Came across a website which seems to be like an archive to the Victorian world period. This is a great source for me, as it includes a great amount of text and images, a perfect place for referencing.

More info here.

Underworld of Edinburgh videos

CITIES OF THE UNDERWORLD: Edinburgh - Scotland's Sin City

Apart from the underworld city in Bristol, one of the more famous and widely known underworld is under Edinburgh. This upcoming show will explore the phenomenon in detail:

Edinburgh, Scotland is a thriving metropolis in the heart of the United Kingdom. But take a look into its past, and you'll find it has led a double life - the sophisticated and educated surface city blossomed above while a darker, seedy world expanded below. From plague victims getting buried alive under the streets to body snatchers, illegal distilleries and castle dungeons, Edinburgh's underground has many stories to tell. Host Eric Geller investigates these stories, deciphering fact from fiction, while uncovering the engineering marvel of Edinburgh's underground - created when the city actually changed its street level. We're peeling back the layers of time on Cities of the Underworld: Scotland's Sin City.

More info here.

Underground Victorian Street in Bristol

The underworld of the Victorian times have always been in interest to me since I started this project. So I want to visit it again in more detail since although it seems to be a disappeared world, but this concept of a separate society still exists today, as I'll explain in later posts.

Taken from a Bristol Newspaper - July 2007:
Hidden away beneath Lawrence Hill lies a secret world - an underground Victorian street stretching from Ducie Road to the Packhouse pub. Local historian Dave Stephenson finds out more.
For many years I had heard tales of a Victorian street abandoned beneath busy Lawrence Hill. To add substance to the legend there were people who claimed to have seen it when they were young.
They told me that this underground street stretched from Ducie Road, near the now closed Earl Russel pub, to the Packhorse pub, in tunnels under the road.
All had Victorian shop fronts, some still with their glass intact, and several street lamps still hung on the walls.
Two hundred years ago the well-known Herapath family owned the brewery connected to the Packhorse. It stretched down to Duck Road (then called Pack Horse Lane) and as far back as Lincoln Street.
In 1832, a horse-drawn railway went through Lawrence Hill, next to the pub, with a wooden bridge over the top.
When the Bristol and Gloucester Railway arrived on the scene William Herapath sold most of his estate to them for £3,000.
By 1879 this wooden bridge needed replacing, so the authorities decided they would heighten the road.
In the process the Packhorse Inn - and the neighbouring shops - disappeared as the new road was supported on a series of arched tunnels.

More info here.

Thoughts: The imagery of these places must be amazing to see, however I don't know if I would have a chance to visit one of these places before this project ends. This is surely a disappeared city phenomenon.

Round up: Woman's Fashion in the Turn of the 20th Century

To round up woman's fashion in the turn of the 20th Century, here's a small summary of the short and extravagant period:

Some people now look back on the Victorian era with wistful nostalgia. Historians would say that this is as much a distortion of the real history as the stereotypes emphasizing Victorian repression and prudery.

Also notable is a contemporary counter-cultural trend called steampunk. Those who dress steampunk often wear Victorian-style clothing that has been "tweaked" in edgy ways: tattered, distorted, melded with Goth fashion, Punk and Rivethead styles. Another example of Victorian fashion being incorporated into a contemporary style is the Goth Lolita culture.

More info here and here.

Paul Poiret Harem Pants

I also mentioned Paul Poiret's Harem Pants earlier on, in reflection to the Bloomers suit, both fashion trends are revolutionary at that time. Although they are designed for the better, but both designs took a period to lift off. The silhouette of the Harem pants is also beginning to be a popular choice in fashion today.

'Poiret's major contribution to fashion was his development of an approach to dressmaking
centered on draping, a radical departure from the tailoring and pattern-making of the past. Poiret was influenced by antique and regional dress, and favored clothing cut along straight lines and constructed of rectangles. The structural simplicity of his clothing represented a "pivotal moment in the emergence of modernism" generally, and "effectively established the paradigm of modern fashion, irrevocably changing the direction of costume history.'

More info can be found here and here.

Thoughts: Again, the harem pants follows the footsteps of the bloomer suit to be relevant to the fashion now, as both have inspired designers of our time to redesign and reshape these iconic looks.

The Bloomer Suit

As I've mentioned the Bloomer suit earlier on, I was intrigued to look at this fashion trend in a bit more detail:

'In 1851, a New England temperance activist named Elizabeth Smith Miller (Libby Miller) adopted what she considered a more rational costume: loose trousers gathered at the ankles, like the trousers worn by Middle Eastern and Central Asian women, topped by a short dress or skirt and vest. She displayed her new clothing to temperance activist and suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who found it sensible and becoming, and adopted it immediately. In this garb she visited yet another activist, Amelia Bloomer, the editor of the temperance magazine The Lily. Bloomer not only wore the costume, she promoted it enthusiastically in her magazine. More women wore the fashion and were promptly dubbed " Bloomers". The Bloomers put up a valiant fight for a few years, but were subjected to ridicule in the press and harassment on the street.'

More images here.

Thoughts: Both Libby Miller and Amelia Bloomer was one of the first people in history that have made a such a dramatic change into woman's fashion. And the fashion is still one of the most influential trend of all time. This fits into the disppearing and re-appearing theme that I discussed earlier on.

Fashions of the Victorian Underground

To follow up with the Victorian Underworld I was investigating before, here I looked at the fashion that existed at that time. Came across a short essay on this subject, 'The secret world of Victorian underground fashion', and found some interesting facts and reasons of why certain things happened and became 'the trend'. The following are a few extracts I picked out from this short essay:

History records several Union/Confederate 'soldiers', as well as cowgirls, pit lasses (female coal workers), sailors, and many another working girl for whom a long skirt was more a hazard than a fashion statement. So that it is, that people keep on finding a) women passing themselves off as men to be able to have sex with other women, b) women passing themselves off as men, for various political/religious/practical reasons, and c) women wearing various versions of semi-male attire, just because it happened to work out that way.

Aesthetic men tended to base their garb on the 17th-18th century, wearing breeches, big floppy hats, ruffly shirts, capes, and cavalier touches, although this, again, was considered more clothing to wear to an art gallery or a concert than to wear to work, although, as always, people in publishing or advertising were a bit more lenient in office attire! Eventually, this died down (among men) to 'the dandy look', which replaced Beau Brummell's breeches with modern trousers, with perhaps just a frock coat, a bunch of flowers (in place of a tie), a brocade vest or an unusual set of studs or cufflinks as trademark pieces. Again, not strictly women's wear, but nice to know...you might think of yourself as an eccentric maiden aunt....

The other big subject of Victorian costume legend concerns corsetry. Yes, little girls wore corsets, as did some men. Yes, you can find stories of women with waists no larger than a saucer. Yes, it did cause a lot of health problems, and potentially still can: do not, for instance, tight-lace if you smoke -- your lung capacity goes to almost nothing -- or have any reason at all to suspect you're pregnant -- for reasons I don't have to mention.

The Prince Albert ring has the elements of just such an urban legend: originally, it seems to have been a practice of dandies following Beau Brummell's lead wearing "ultra tight trousers" in 1825 and then got tagged onto the Royal Consort somewhen in the late 1980's.

The "bosom ring", was supposed to have been a pair of pierced nipples, held together with "a delicate chain, ornamented with little bows". The actual piercing was to be done by a special patent nipple-piercer, just stick in your chest, and they'd both be done at once, while the jewelry thereon was "to be found at high-class Parisian jewelers".

"I used to know who I am, but I've changed five or six times today."
--Alice's Adventures Under Ground

Read more here.

Thoughts: To getting to know the fashion of the Victorians is hugely important if I was to follow into this path. There are some interesting facts, and will help my development into the 'costume' area in this project. To add to this, is also amazing to see some of the trends are still relevant today. Although the period has disappeared but the fashion lives on.

Sinkhole Videos

Compact your community

Started reading Monocle last month, I have to say it's a great source on global affairs, business, culture & design. There is an article in this issue, where it talks about a Ghost Town Effect, which in some ways relates to the theme of 'Disappearing City'.

Compact your community:
What to do if you're the mayor of a city that's plagued by the ghost-town effect? All over the world cities, towns and villages are suffering from the blight of boarded up shops and the problems that go with them. Much has already been wasted at many a town hall calling in consultants to solve the problem when most could simply apply the 75m rule. Rather than spending vast sums on unnecessary beautification programmes, lord mayors and landowners should scale back and consolidate their best assets. This means shrinking withering high streets so they can spring back to life. You simply create a new cluster by placing all the strong, existing tenantes side by side and create a zone of density where retailers and consumers find strength in numbers and also comfort. Try it - it really works.

Thoughts: Living near towns like Deptford and New Cross, I strongly aggree with this solution. There are many shops on the highstreet which is closed and it does not provide a good atmosphere to the residents around the area. The problem could also cause the 'Broken Window' effect coined by Malcom Gladwell. Therefore this solution will be great for the disappearing neighborhood.

10 places to visit before they vanish

As the theme I'm working on is 'The Disappearing City', I found this article on 10 places to visit before they vanish. Due to rising sea levels, melting glaciers, climate change and other man-induced factors, the world's most significant places are disappearing before we know it. The Mother Nature Network have produced a guide into the 10 places you must visit before they vanish from the face of the earth:

Glacier National Park:
Just slightly more than 100 years ago, there were as many as 150 glaciers strewn throughout Glacier National Park. By 2005, only 27 remained, and those are expected to disappear completely by 2030, if not earlier. Many of the plant and animal species that call the park home require cold water, meaning the ecosystem of the park stands to change dramatically when the glaciers are gone.

Venice, Italy:
A man shows off a sea bass that he caught with his bare hands while standing in St. Mark's Square in Venice during a severe flood in November 2009, when water levels reached 131 centimeters. Venice has long been sinking, but rising sea levels have made the situation more dire. The frequency of floods increases each year, leaving many to wonder how much longer Venice can stay above water.

Great Barrier Reef:
It's so large that it can be seen from space, but the Great Barrier Reef is disappearing at an increased rate because of climate change. Rising ocean temperatures, water pollution, ocean acidification and cyclones continually pummel the reef and have caused mass coral bleaching. What took 8,000 years for nature to build could disappear within our lifetimes.

Saharan Africa:
By some estimates, the Sahara desert in Africa is growing at a rate of 0.5 miles per month. The desert, already the largest desert in the world, could consume all of Northern Africa, altering the environment of a continent.

Maldives:
Maldives is the lowest-lying country in the world, with a maximum natural ground level of 2.3 meters (7 feet, 7 inches), and an average of only 1.5 meters (4 feet, 11 inches) above sea level. If sea levels rise too much, the country would earn an unwanted superlative: the first nation to be engulfed by the ocean because of global warming.

Patagonia:
A land of untouched beauty, South America's Patagonia stands to be dramatically altered by climate change. Many of its glaciers are steadfastly retreating due to rising temperatures and declining precipitation. While this land doesn't stand to disappear entirely, its landscape may soon be altered beyond recognition if global warming persists.

Bangladesh:
Set in the low-lying Ganges–Brahmaputra River Delta, Bangladesh sits in a perfect storm of climactic conditions. About 50 percent of the area would be flooded if the sea level were to rise by 1 meter. Bangladesh also lies at the heart of the monsoon belt. Natural calamities, such as floods, tropical cyclones, tornadoes and tidal bores occur here almost every year — with tragic results.

Alaskan tundra:
Global warming heats up the Arctic twice as fast as the rest of the world, meaning Alaska's beautiful northern tundra stands to vanish completely if temperatures continue to rise. As the tundra's permafrost melts, it not only drastically alters the ecosystem but also releases additional carbon, ironically hastening global warming.

South Australia:
Much like the Sahara in Africa, desertification also threatens South Australia. Across the region, fresh water supplies are rapidly drying up. Meanwhile, the parched landscape increases the occurrence of wildfires, threatening agriculture, wildlife and hundreds of Australian homes.

Thoughts: It is sad that many of these iconic and beautiful places are slowly disappearing due to our faults and our yearn for technologies. This guide links strongly to our involvement in cities and the nature that rather improving it, we are letting it vanish in front of our own eyes.

Sinkholes and rabbit holes

To my astonishment, I failed to notice a link from Alice Wonderland and the sinkholes I've been researching. The rabbit hole Alice fell through could be compared to a sinkhole. And also the sudden drop Alice experienced reflects perfectly to the sudden appearing of sinkholes.
This is in a way a perfect match to push forward my research in this project and is something I could work towards into creating a moving image piece.

Sinkhole repair

Continuing with my research on sinkholes, I looked into the repair process, to see if its actaually possible at all. And I found out a company who is an expert in the field of sinkholes repair. They described the process here:

Shallow, isolated sinkholes are often repaired by excavating to rock and building a “plug”. But when a sinkhole is too deep or too close to a structure, Rembco’s remediation process is ideal. We use specialized drilling equipment and innovative grouting techniques to treat the sinkhole without major disruption at the ground surface. Injection pipes are advanced to bedrock in a grid pattern, and a thick, mortar-like grout is injected to build a continuous concrete “cap” over the problematic rock features. This technique, known as cap grouting, prevents further soil loss into the sinkhole but, by itself, does not return the site to a useable condition. Rembco completes the sinkhole repair procedure by following the capping operation with compaction grouting as the injection pipes are withdrawn, to fill voids and restore adequate bearing capacity in the affected soils.

There are also two very interesting video clips showing the steps of a repair. The videos can be seen at their website: http://www.rembco.com/sinkholes.html

Thoughts: Although I am more fascinated about how it is formed and also the consequences of sinkholes. But, it is also important to look at the aftermath and how it could be repaired to save lives and preserve the overall look of our habitats. The repairing process can also reflects on a metaphor that, it is a closing down and covering an 'underground society', which I looked into before in the Victorian Times.

Swallowing cities Part 2

This is a case of a sinkhole which is caused by man intrusion into nature. The City is home to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, a network of some of the largest natural caverns in North America. This hole and surrounding areas was affected by the oil industry. It was formed over three decades ago as oil field service companies pumped fresh water into a salt layer more than 400 feet below the surface and extracted several million barrels of brine to help with drilling.
It is reported that if the sinkhole will get any larger, it'll take away with it church, a highway, several businesses and a trailer park.

Thoughts: It is a fact that more and more sinkholes are formed because of man's intrusion into mother earth. And it creates a reverse effect as we are the people who will suffer from our deeds. Theses sinkholes have the power to swallow up a city, so is it a high risk around the world? Are we disappearing, simply by ourselves?

Swallowing cities Part 1

After researching on sinkholes, I wanted to look into the effects of them, ie. have they swallowed up parts or whole of a city? And through a few clicks, I've found a few articles that does reflect to that exactly. This is a picture of a sinkhole that happened in 2007 in the Guatemala City neighborhood. The depth of the hole was measured as 220-foot-deep (around 100 metres), which is more than twice the height of the Statue of Liberty. This disaster caused deaths of three people, and reports have suggested it was cause by rainstorms and a ruptured sewer main.
After this event, around a thousand people were forced to evacuate and the zone is now hazardous fearing of more sinkholes around it.

Thoughts: Sinkholes does have the power of swallowing parts, if not a whole neighborhood and its after effects could cause evauation of a town/city. Therefore its power is undeniable.

Anatomy of a Sinkhole

To follow up from the post below, I went a step further to discover more about these mysterious holes that are found around the world. Through a short research stint, I've found these holes are called sinkhole, also known as a sink, shake hole, swallow hole, swallet, doline or cenote, these are a natural depression or hole in the surface topography caused by the removal of soil or bedrock, often both, by water. Sinkholes may vary in size from less than a meter to several hundred meters both in diameter and depth, and vary in form from soil-lined bowls to bedrock-edged chasms. They may be formed gradually or suddenly, and are found worldwide. These terms are often used interchangeably though many will distinguish between those features into which a surface stream flows and those which have no such input. Only the former would be described as sinks, swallow holes or swallets.

Sinkholes have also been used for centuries as disposal sites for various forms of waste. A consequence of this is the pollution of groundwater resources, with serious health implications in such areas. In contrast, the Maya civilization sometimes used sinkholes in the Yucatán Peninsula (known as cenotes) as places to deposit precious items and sacrifices.

Thoughts: Through examining the forming of sinkholes, I now have a better understanding of why and how it is former. It is also amazing to know that these holes have put into use by as disposal sites or even act as kind of a 'safe' in the Maya civilization. However, with more human-induced into the environment, we are actually creating these to endanger ourselves. Cities could well be disappearing because of the dangers of sinkholes.

Holes in the Earth

Is always interesting to see what you can find on the internet, found this series of images of random holes around the globe. It gives a sense of mystery and in a way, it makes the image more powerful. The images also is in the theme of 'disappearing' but why? what makes these holes?

The Prestige: Top hats

A scene that always captivates me everytime I watch the film again.

'The image of the top hats at the beginning and end of the film, it is representative of the Borden’s and Angier’s development and how they continued to grow into people who are too big for their own good. The Borden brothers cannot co-exist with their lovers. Neither can Angier co-exist with Cutter and the others. Neither can Tesla and Thomas Edison, for that matter. The bigger the people get in technological power and narcissism, the more difficult it is to co-exist with them, visually concluded with the image of the numerous hats appropriately transitioned into the numerous dead Angiers and the destruction he created. Only the characters that avoid ambitions further than families and friends – indeed, their humanities – survive. The large box then lies in the background as a sign of that future, in which great technological possibilities will be an event to wonder but create descruction, and Cutter (Michael Caine) narrates about the self-destruction of knowledge and ambition. THE PRESTIGE makes us aware of something terrifying through this: how the discoveries, growth and future of men will be as tragic as it will be victorious.'