Creating Turbulence

I've started experiments for the Axle Contemporary installation. I got a buncha sorta inexpensive surplus blower fans that just don't poot enough to really matter in the long run. But I managed to retrofit some of them into a long-ago-abandoned project to make packing pellets fly around in a frame. Here's a little video clip:

It's nice to see that there are some self-organized avalanches along the sides, so hopefully I can get more of that happening with more-bigger wind.

While unearthing the abandoned-frame-project I realized that I've been thinking about this for a while now. In 2006 I tried to capture peanuts blowing in the wind -- I'm sure you've seen them playing with each other in an empty parking lot -- for Erika Wanenmacher's class, but the day of the demo there was no wind and the fittings on the outside air didn't match the available hose. So Nada Dicé. Erika did mention that lovely bag-blowing scene in American Beauty though:

Which brings us to Jen's suggestion of using leaves, or even better, seed pods. A couple years ago I saw these really well adapted spidery pods from a local grass -- very delicate miniature tumble-weeds -- running around on the road up on the Mesa. I'll try to find a photo (silly me threw out the two that I had been keeping). But it would be difficult to collect and preserve enough before September.

So virtual seed pods I guess it is...

I have also upgraded my fan compliment with two 5" muffins that put out 250 cfm (at 40 watts). Nearly cut off a pinkie when one sucked my finger in as I was bench testing it. Video forthcoming...