This is simply amazing. Titled Project Indigo, it's a concept by artist Jesse van Dijk. In his own words:
Project Indigo (working title): Design of a vertical seaside metropolis
In december 2007 I sketched around a single theme for a while as a personal side project. I tried to envision what a huge -vertical- seaside city would look like in a world were dry land is very precious. This city would be situated on a huge pillar in a 'cavity' in the sea; possibly an inactive volcano crater of some sorts. I assumed a level of technology of western European countries around the seventeenth century. Naturally I had to take some huge liberties with the actual mechanical possibilities of these constraints to make a city in a hole in the sea work, not to mention a vertical city.
As far as technique was concerned, I was not interested in creating pretty pictures, but I wanted to present a more or less solid approach to the theme described above.
I'm completely enthralled by this work, particularly the last four images. My imagination immediately begins burrowing and building...
Monday, June 23, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
5 comments:
Yes, indeed. As a work of art (particularly, as you say, the last illustrations) it's impressive, but it goes deeper and prompts all sorts of speculation — how do these people live; what do they eat (I'm guessing fish figures prominently!); what's the air quality like at the bottom, with all those oil lamps being the main lighting? Those sorts of things. And, of course, a tsunami would make it a bad day.
Some of his other work suggests he's been watching too many Peter Jackson films ;^)
Hi, Pete! A tsunami makes it a bad day pretty much everywhere it goes, I reckon. And you say that last bit like it's a bad thing... :)
Actually, I'd intended to say it surely must have been inspired by Calvino's Invisible Cities. I've mislaid my copy of the book, but Octavia, the spider-web city, keeps springing to mind.
Some of the other work does seem to fit a very particular genre, and, like Peter Jackson's films, treads that fine line between outstanding accomplishment and excess. Both characteristics seem necessary.
;^)
Interesting idea, Emma, and visually stunning. But mostly it scared me. Talk about a visible hierarchy! You'd have no doubt about which sphere of society some one belonged to, would you?
You're right, Anne-Marie, economically this world leaves nothing to the imagination! I wasn't really thinking that far ahead, I got all dreamy-like over the romantic notion of living on cliffs in the middle of the ocean...
Post a Comment