LIQUIDS RESEARCH

Since Justine and I first thought about making a short film together, we have been putting our heads together to find a subject that is unassumingly mundane but can be transformed into a spectacle that arouses intrigue and beauty. These are a few of the films I have come across in the past few days after playing with a ferrofluid at the Science Museum last week.

Liquids, obviously are ubiquitous, but it is not the aesthetics of these experiments that really have us hooked; it's the unusual physical properties that they hold. For example salt water will not freeze until it makes contact with air and cornstarch paste possesses the appearance of a liquid but the impact of a solid.

Today, I bought cornstarch and began to play with the substance that is known as gloop, and Oobleck, which has been adopted by popular culture from a Dr. Seuss. It is scientifically known as a non-Newtonian fluid, which is an allusion to the ambiguous nature of the substance's viscosity. Oobleck and other 'shear thinckening fluids' are being tested on their effectiveness to stop bullets.