Vienna-based creative studio Atelier Olschinsky merges the worlds of digital illustration and architecture. Under the names 'Cities' and 'Plants', Peter Olschinsky and Verena Weiss created a series of stunningly detailed graphics. Providing a look into the fictional machine rooms of today's cities, the creators tend to represent the urban beauty as well as complexity and brutality. Check out Atelier Olschinsky's Behance profile for more pictures of the 'Cities' and 'Plants' series.
July 13-14, 2011 During a two week field trip organized by the AA (Liam Young and Kate Davies) in London, a group of 42 students and experts visited locations where the impact of technology on nature has produced extreme landscapes. The expedition combined nuclear power and space travel by checking Chernobyl's nuclear power plant in Ukraine, dried out lake Aral, the rocket launch site at Baikonur and the uranium mines of Astana, all in Kazakhstan. As Unknown Fields network partner Volume witnessed the nuclear part. Into the War Zone One of Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rules of suspense' prescribes that the audience has to be informed about a looming danger (the classic scene of a couple enjoying a drink and conversation with a ticking bomb under the table) in order to experience the intended emotion. Entering Chernobyl's 30 kilometer 'Exclusion Zone' this lesson of the old master popped up in my head. Passing the barrier (all had to get out of the bus and individually pass the gate on foot with ample checks of passports and outfit – obligatory long sleeves, long pants and closed shoes – plus signing a form that denied any liability of the Ukraine government for the visitor's health now and in the far future) made entering a serious thing, but the following 30 minutes ride through woods and fields was without any trace of disaster. It wasn't exactly leading up to a dramatic confrontation. Unless you knew. The only slightly discomforting sign was the absence of any activity. No human beings, no agriculture, hardly any sounds. Just nature as a pleasant postcard image. A couple of farms along the road had obviously been deserted long ago. That was it. But the 42 of us in the bus were well aware that we had entered a highly polluted area, that we were nearing this immensely dangerous nuclear power plant, a sleeping giant that even 25 years after it had erupted like a volcano and had been tamed at great cost, was still invisibly spreading death and decay and will do so for millenniums to come.