More pics please...this sounds very cool!

Very cool. I remember growing crystals with washing soda when I was a kid in an old canning jar next to the woodstove.

Here's a link to a site where a guy has all kinds of plans and tips for growing all kinds of crystals : Link (new window)

What about a tunnel full of crystals?



/hotlinked
//not-so-obscure

I'll see your crystal apartment and raise you a crystal cave.

read that as "bedsh*t"

That must have been written in English-English...

I had Sea Monkeys at the office, and so did a few others. Eventually, the little wee tank grew thick with algae, and only the strongest survived. I was a cruel God, but I had a Plan. I wanted only the toughest Sea Monkeys, those who survived, in my Sea Monkey Sardaukar. These would be my shock troops when I invaded my coworkers' desks.

lukelightning: I'll see your crystal apartment and raise you a crystal cave.

Wow, I can just picture the hippies flocking to that place "Feel the energy maan". But seriously farkin amazing.

/crazy like its hot

They jostle each other, grow into and over each other. They could fill this space so it became a solid block of mineral. You imagine what it might be like to be trapped in there, the doorway grown over. You might somehow be slowly pulped by the advancing crystalline needles, until you were no more than an impurity at the heart of some massive rock formation.

woah dude... calm down... they're only crystals...

20,000 gallons of copper sulfate solution?
Isn't this stuff pretty toxic?

Whatever. Back in the 80's we didn't just have crystal caves, or crystal apartments. We had crystal castles!



/Man, I really miss the 80's

lukelightning: I'll see your crystal apartment and raise you a crystal cave.

I remember reading about this. It should be a classed as a world wonder.

the 80s were good, the 90s were ok, and nowadays are a bit silly.

HKWolf: More pics please...this sounds very cool!

Here's a site with a couple more pics and an incoherent video:
Link (new window)
A set of 4 Flickr pics
Link (new window)

here's more of his stuff:
Link (new window)


^hotlinked

Pirate Satellite: Very cool. I remember growing crystals with washing soda when I was a kid in an old canning jar next to the woodstove.

Here's a link to a site where a guy has all kinds of plans and tips for growing all kinds of crystals : Link (new window)

So cool, indeed! Thanks for the great link.

msheda: You might somehow be slowly pulped by the advancing crystalline needles, until you were no more than an impurity at the heart of some massive rock formation.

That's a great metaphor for modern life.

fatimcgee

That must have been written in English-English...

It's written in "artspeak", which is just as indecipherable to average humans as academiaspeak or legalese.

/"The lure of imaginary totality is momentarily frozen before the dialectic of desire hastens on within symbolic chains."

LoonieCobber: fatimcgee

That must have been written in English-English...

It's written in "artspeak", which is just as indecipherable to average humans as academiaspeak or legalese.

/"The lure of imaginary totality is momentarily frozen before the dialectic of desire hastens on within symbolic chains."

After reading the article, and what you just wrote, I have a headache. Can someone please translate it into English for me?

They're really pretty, but wash up real good if you've been handling them.

Not like sulphuric acid, but pretty unpleasant if it gets on you--especially if you have cuts.

robbiex0r

Ditto. Bedsit, WTF?

Bedsit = very small apartment - usually so small that the bedroom and the living room are combined. The bathroom is often communal and shared with other bedsits. This is often student or immigrant worker accomodation.

No Merlin so far? For shame, all of you!

/hotlinked

WTF is a 'bedsit?'

Forget the crystals, who's the hot half naked redhead?

Thank you, Wombat 18

Forget the crystals, who's the hot half naked redhead?

Her name is Crystal.

Pirate Satellite: Here's a link to a site where a guy has all kinds of plans and tips for growing all kinds of crystals : Link (new window)

wow, thanks

benmecha: No Merlin so far? For shame, all of you!

Word.



/Magically hotlinked

Stupid artsy-speak translated to plain English by RoBByBoy for your convenience.



I am inside an apartment in London. The walls, ceiling, and fixtures are covered in beautiful, blue crystals.

This room is a project by artist Roger Hiorns entitled "Seizure." Every day, a large number of visitors arrive, put on waterproof boots and gloves (it's wet in there), and wait patiently in line to be allowed inside, two or three at a time. The run for visitors has been extended to the end of the month. I would bet that on the last day, the line will stretch around the block.

What do people make of it? Judging by the reactions of my fellow visitors, the Weeners is simple wonder at the way something so perfect and intensely colored can transform a room like this. It's dark inside, with just a couple of dim light bulbs. The crystal growths are surprisingly big and pyramid-shaped. They grow into and over each other. I can imagine what it would be like to sit inside the room until the crystals grew so large that they trapped me inside.

There was not much left inside this apartment before Hiorns began the project. What remains, including a hanging light fixture and a bathtub, has been covered by crystals.

How did he do it? Copper-sulphate crystals like these are made by dissolving smaller crystals in hot water to make a highly concentrated solution. As the solution cools, it forms new crystals on any object immersed in the solution. The crystals obtain their colors and form their beautiful shapes naturally from their chemical composition.

Hiorns decided to use a building as a test site. He likes transforming objects with crystals and other materials. He has crystallized models of cathedrals and car engines. The apartment is in a two-story building set to be demolished, so Hiorns was able to use it for his project. He sealed an apartment on the ground floor, turning it into a huge tank, and filled it with 20,000 gallons of solution poured in through holes in the floor of the apartment above. He waited for it to cool, pumped out the remaining liquid, and went inside to see what had happened. It had worked. The crystals had turned the apartment into a paradise.

As a visitor, you feel like an explorer. It's like going into an Egyptian pharaoh's tomb, a time-capsule home, or a forgotten candy store in a boarded-up building. In those, though, there is evidence of human life. Here, Hiorns points out, even the artist disappears. The substance takes over and follows its own logic. It makes itself.

That is the power of this project. We are observing something beautiful and powerful, a chemical and physical force that reminds us that we, too, are fragile.

OK I googled for what the fark a "bedsit" is. :)
( One easy way to tell the yanks from the limeys around here I guess )

Is there any particular reason why this display is called "Seizure"? Is that supposed to be a reference to something?

God damn, I hate it when Fark acts all retarded. First sentence of third paragraph should read, "Judging by the reaction of my fellow visitors, the [initial reaction (because damn Fark won't let me say the word 'first' followed by the word 'response')] is simple wonder..."

Good job finding a use for a building that's about to be torn down. Now, instead of mere construction waste, it can be HAZARDOUS waste.

Maybe it would be cooler with mercury pools on the floor.

huntercr: OK I googled for what the fark a "bedsit" is. :)
( One easy way to tell the yanks from the limeys around here I guess )

Is there any particular reason why this display is called "Seizure"? Is that supposed to be a reference to something?

I believe it is to mean seizure as in to re-claim or take away.

The crystal growths have seized the room from human design and habitation, or some such.

/just my thoughts on the name.

I want one. Just without the hassle, hazardous chemicals, or waterproofing my house.

/Can I get some crystal lite?

@ Biff Spiffy
I bet you could easily grow crystals on the front of tiles in shallow trays and cement them to a wall like normal. I would be worried about durability though.