bubble study /school

the introduction to the 293 studio brought us to the middle of the woods (aka. RARE, cambridge), where we were told to take pictures of a phenomenon and study it.

i sat by a stream and watched the bubbles float by.

the first image (above) documents the creation and death of a bubble. fragile in its life, but powerfully exuberant in it’s birth and demise.

cutting sections of a bubble – first two bubbles joining, then one bubble (summation!), and then the popping – reveals the nature of the bubble as anomalies in the surface film of the water. the bubble exists as nothing more than forces pulling a form from a flat membrane and acts to return to its source.

this drawing illustrates the effect that bubbles have on each other. the size of the bubble increases the ‘gravity’ of the object, as large bubbles tend to swallow smaller ones (due to low pressure..nothing savage).

drawing from studies of a bubble, this piece draws together the factors that create this phenomenon: tension; inward tension forms the shape, outward tensions from other bubbles pull the form apart.