Morphovision

 

Ars2006 030 Toshio Iwai - Morphovision, originally uploaded by watz.

This project has been mentioned enough places already I guess, but it fits too well to my research theme for me to leave it out: Morphovision by Toshio Iwai, shown at Siggraph and Ars Electronica last year. It is almost disturbing how frequency and patterns of light combined with motion make a solid model house morph into very liquid shapes.
“Morphovision is a unique display system that interactively transforms and animates a 3D solid object before our eyes. In this system, a model house is rotated at high speed, and is illuminated with special lighting from a digital projector. This enables the model to be distorted into various shapes.” More info here.

Video from Ars Electronica:

I was reminded of Morphovision when reading about a low-tech project posted on the serendipity blog, the time fountain, molding time and form with strobelight.