mechanism

Interference Photography: When Color Is No Longer a Dye, but a Structure

Gianni Sarcone

In 1891, French physicist Gabriel Lippmann invented interference photography, a process that could capture color without using dyes or pigments. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1908 for this work.

The principle is simple but remarkable. Light passes through an extremely fine-grained photosensitive emulsion and is reflected by a layer of mercury behind it. The incoming and reflected waves interfere, producing standing waves whose structure varies with the wavelengths of light. This microscopic interference pattern is recorded in the emulsion.

An interference photograph of a bouquet of flowers from the Lippmann Collection, preserved at Sorbonne University.

When the plate is later illuminated, its microscopic structure diffracts and reflects selected wavelengths, reproducing the colors of the original scene. Unlike conventional three-color photography, which reconstructs color from three components, Lippmann’s process stores the color information as a physical structure of interference.

The process, however, was technically demanding and never became practical for widespread photography. In 1907, the Lumière brothers introduced the Autochrome, which became the first widely successful commercial color photography process based on three-color principles.

Lippmann photography had one important advantage, though: because it used no dyes, its colors were not subject to fading caused by the deterioration of colorants over time.

And the old idea has found a new life. Researchers have adapted the principle of Lippmann’s standing waves for long-term archival data storage. In 2019, experimental storage plates were exposed to cosmic radiation aboard the International Space Station for nine months, with no detectable degradation of the stored data.

From recording color to preserving information in space, the same principle still has something to say: sometimes the most durable way to store information is to make it part of the structure itself.

☞ Further reading.

Art as an Open Circuit

Gianni Sarcone

Art is sharing—an offering from the artist to the audience. Every audience calls for its own officiant.

In technological terms, a work of art is an output searching for an input. Without that exchange, it remains only a possibility. It comes into existence through its encounter with another mind, where it can generate emotion, doubt, rejection, or wonder. A work is born once in the artist’s mind, and then again in the mind of the person who experiences it.

The artist is a translator between an inner vision and the outside world. They offer a fragment of themselves, without ever being able to control how that offering will be interpreted. Every audience recognizes the artists who resonate with its own sensibility, its questions, and its time. Every audience calls for its own officiant.

But does an art exist that cannot be shared?

If we define art not as the final object—the painting, the book, the symphony—but as the state of consciousness and the act of creation itself, then that art is fundamentally impossible to communicate. The finished work is only a trace, the imprint of an inner experience that no one else can truly access. What the audience receives is never the act of creation itself, but its remainder: its echo, its shadow, and sometimes even its misunderstanding.

share your art
(To illustrate this point, I’ve added an ironic image circulating on the net. I hope you appreciate the irony—and my sense of humor.)

How a Human Bone Inspired the Eiffel Tower

Gianni Sarcone

Few people know that the human femur—the body’s largest and strongest bone—played an indirect role in the thinking behind the design of the Eiffel Tower.

Part of the tower’s structural logic can be traced to Swiss engineer Maurice Koechlin, chief engineer in the firm of Gustave Eiffel. While determining how forces would travel through the iron frame, Koechlin applied a principle that places material along the natural paths of tension and compression.

A comparable pattern had been described earlier by Zurich anatomist Hermann von Meyer. His research revealed that the femur’s internal structure forms a network of delicate struts known as “trabeculae.” These tiny elements follow the directions of mechanical stress inside the bone, creating a highly efficient system of support—even though the femoral head sits off-center from the shaft.

The mathematician Karl Culmann later showed that these trabecular patterns correspond closely to the principal stress lines calculated in engineering. His method, called graphic statics, provided a visual way to map how forces move through structures.

This link between anatomy and engineering influenced nineteenth-century structural thinking. The same principle—placing material only where forces demand it—guided the development of lighter, more efficient frameworks in bridges, cranes, and reinforced-concrete designs.

Humble, Yet Indispensable

Gianni Sarcone

A reed—sometimes called a “lamella”—is a thin strip of material that vibrates to produce sound in a musical instrument. Most woodwind reeds are cut from Arundo donax, the so-called giant cane.
Take that small, stubborn sliver away and the clarinet or saxophone becomes what it truly is: a hollow tube. No tone, no music—just breath wasted in polished plumbing.

The reed looks trivial, almost laughably so. A scrap of cane shaved to a sliver. Yet it is the only part that dares to vibrate. Without that fragile defiance, the instrument stays mute.

Humanity functions in much the same way. Each of us is a reed in a colossal instrument that calls itself civilization. Frail, replaceable, easy to overlook—yet necessary.

History loves to celebrate the instrument: the grand structures, the shining mechanisms, the impressive machinery. But the sound—when it happens—always begins with a thin piece of cane trembling under pressure.

The Haunting Song of Inca Whistling Vessels

Gianni Sarcone

Ancient Inca “whistling vessels” (huaco silbadores in Spanish) could mimic animal calls—powered by nothing more than air and water. As water moves between connected chambers, it forces air through hidden whistles, releasing haunting, lifelike sounds.

These remarkable ceramics, found across several pre-Columbian cultures including the Inca, Chimu, and Moche, date back more than 2,000 years. Often uncovered in tombs and ceremonial sites, they likely played a role in rituals to honor nature, communicate with spirits, or accompany sacred ceremonies—though their exact purpose remains a mystery.

Layering Up: A Creative Look at AI

Gianni Sarcone

Ever wondered how Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) process images? Imagine putting a photo through a pasta machine… TWICE! This creative experiment, inspired by artist Kensuke Koike, demonstrates how CNNs break down data into smaller, layered features, just like the pasta machine creates four clear images from a single input.

© Kensuke Koike

THE FIRST GREATEST ILLUSION

Gianni Sarcone

The very first illusion is to believe that there is one, unique world of perception. The mind and the world we experience are inseparable, as it is the mind that makes the world meaningful. Our mind IS our world. Despite the fact that our mental construct of what is perceived is distinct from the objective reality, our mind accepts it as real.

Every organism, man as well as animal, lives in its own subjective spatiotemporal world that semiotic philosophers call ‘Umwelt’ (from the German Umwelt, ‘surrounding world’, or ‘life-world’). According to the biologist Jakob J. von Uexküll, organisms and their life-world shape each other in a functional loop (see fig. below): interactions between the subject and the outer world, mediated through the sense and effect organs, determine the world framework of the subject. Thus, a particular stimulus which has a perceptive cue or meaning to the subject induces always a purposeful reaction.

feedback loop of information

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Early Projector

Gianni Sarcone

This Roman artifact is considered a possible precursor to the magic lantern. According to the Italian engineer and author Flavio Russo, placing the flame of a candle or small lantern behind the elliptical lens could project the image or portrait painted on its surface onto a white wall, operating on the same basic principle as modern slide projectors. A comparable concept was later explored in the 17th century by Athanasius Kircher, who demonstrated the projection of images using light and lenses—an early step toward the development of the magic lantern.

elliptic lens with portrait
Portrait on an elliptic lens, artifact from Pompei – Naples National Archaeology Museum.