Ferrofluid Photographs, Wow!


Photographer Philip Overbuary

Photographer Philip Overbuary.

Usually CGI is used to fake reality, but Copenhagen-based artist Philip Overbuary uses reality to fake digital images, using magnets and magnetic ferrofluid for an experimental photo series called Ferro. “I wanted to create something that didn’t look like photography,” Overbuary tells The Creators Project. “I wanted to do something people wouldn’t believe was actually real. Like a dream, or a psychedelic trip—but it actually happened and could be captured.”

Ferro stems from Overbuary’s work as commercial photographer where an overwhelming number of his commissions request heavily Photoshopped and 3D-rendered images. He enjoys using analog technology, like oscilloscopes and TVs with antennas, so it’s immensely satisfying for the artist to use mediums like ferrofluids to create images that look computer-generated but aren’t.

Photographer Philip Overbuary.

Photographer Philip Overbuary.

You can check out two photos from Ferro in The Censored Exhibition at this week’s Copenhagen Photo Festival, or see the full set at The Creators Project.

Comments

  1. says

    Wooooooooow!!! I love this stuff.
    Ferrofluid is super cool. And you can have all of it you want for not a lotta money. Go buy a gallon of silicone oil (siloxane*) and some powdered magnetite on ebay -- total cost for both is about $60. Mix it! Put it in a jar and expose it to magnets!

    Back in the mid 90s the exploratorium had a ferrofluid piano: it was a tray of ferrofluid with electromagnets under it and a keyboard and if you played the keyboard it activated the electromagnets at various strengths and in various locations. It was absolutely mesmerizing, especially when you put a beat down on the synth and it started pulsating in rythm.

    There’s an artist I stumbled across who does space art using things like coffee and creamer to make black holes and star fields.

    (* siloxane does not go in the septic, ok?)

  2. blf says

    I thought those were cherries and started salivating.

    Ferropavlovian conditioning, eh?

  3. blf says

    I thought someone had stained frog’s eggs.

    With a side-order of Rorschachfluid eggblot testing.

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