Gobbledigook

Experimental short video in which guanine flakes in solution reflect light to allow the observational turbidity around a fictional elemental symbol. Flow visualisation is a fast-evolving field that often sees the merging of technology and scientific endeavour. For this work, a sans-serif logo was designed and 3D-printed, before being placed in rheoscopic fluid - a substance traditionally used to investigate liquid-flow in engineering research. Rheoscopic fluid was designed to exploit the optical properties of guanine flakes - as they move amongst vortices created by the flow of the liquid they are suspended in, they reflect light in a way that elucidates those patterns of fluidic flow. High-speed videography was used to document the dynamic nature of the fluidic movement around the typography, which illuminated unusual vortices and turbulent flow specific to the fictional chemical Gobbledigook symbol. Rheoscopic fluid is no longer made, disregarded in favour of digital modelling techniques, and this short film is a paean to this soon-to-be-lost interaction of light and liquid.

Gobbledigook celebrates an analogue technique of flow visualization which is being lost to computer modelling techniques. The film is also an interdisciplinary experiment in the enmeshing of typographic design and scientific visualization.