The data that's analyzed by seismologists following a large
earthquake is usually the record of a catastrophe — it typically
means something really bad has just happened. But what if you
could take this data and turn it into something beautiful
instead? That's the thinking of designer James Boock who has
rigged together an elaborate paint-globbing mechanism that uses
seismic wave data to generate colorful abstract images. The end
result is one-half geology, one-half art. It's called the
Quakescape 3D Fabricator and its construction was inspired after
a major quake hit Christchurch, New Zealand last year. It works
by taking earthquake data from the site GeoNet and converts it
into a series of visual patterns. The canvas is a moulded,
topographical landscape that's shaped like a real section from
Christchurch. The colors, which are ejected from a series of
hanging cartridges, represent the magnitude of the seismic
waves. Boock put this together with the help of Josh Newsome-
White, Brooke Bowers, Hannah Warren,