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Artist uses trash to make absurdist sculptures that become lifelike animals from one angle

This is absolutely mind-blowing—and perspective-shifting.

Courtesy of Tom Deininger/Instagram

This is the exact same sculpture, just viewed from different angles.

They say one man's trash is another man's treasure, but happens when whole lot of people's trash becomes one man's art? In the case of Tom Deininger's sculptures, you not only get a miraculous viewing experience but also an opportunity to reflect on the natural world and the impact of human overconsumption.

If you look at one of Deininger's sculptures head on, you might see a beautiful cardinal, a lifelike trout, or an unblinking owl staring straight at you. But as you move to one side or another, the illusion quickly disappears, morphing into an increasingly random-looking 3-D conglomeration of toys, action figures, straws, plastic mesh and other discarded human waste that can't possibly be what's forming that realistic animal. Keep walking around it, and you'll eventually come back to your original perspective, but with a whole new appreciation for the stunning creature before you—and the artist who created it.

Check it out:

@theartrevival

Trash Art by Thomas Deininger #thomasdeininger #contemporaryart #textileart

What an artist expresses in their art isn't always what an observer takes away from it—that's part of the fun of art—but sometimes a medium and a message mesh so well that the effect is profound and palpable. Deininger's creations are part beauty and part statement, as the best art tends to be, and the statement in these sculptures is clear: We're throwing away a whole lot of plastic junk that can't break down and it's impacting the natural world.

The Rhode Island-based artist told Yahoo! News that he got the idea for creating sculptures out of trash when he saw plastic waste washing ashore on a trip to the South Pacific. He said the act of making his art helps quell some of the "gut sickness" he feels when he observes the destruction of the environment.

“I don’t think we’re alarmed enough," he said. "Everyone's not alarmed enough, enough of the time, is my fear. We should all be petrified and willing to do whatever it takes,”

- YouTubeyoutu.be

But there's even more behind Deininger's sculptures. After all, he could just make a realistic animal from all angles and call it a day. There's a purpose to making them abstract from all angles but one.

"The goal is to make an interesting, completely abstract sculpture that also contains provocative, subversive, or humorous elements (by manipulation of the various action figures) that from one very particular vantage point resolves into a convincing image of a creature," he told Jejune magazine. "The whole thing is really a meditation on perspective and illusion and the fragility of our world view in any given emotional state. The practice is also about order in chaos."

"Ideally the viewer falls for the 'trick' then as the illusion falls apart and they become disoriented for a few seconds that inspires curiosity, wonder or harmless vulnerability," he added. "This would then give way to a kind of repulsion or soft despair when one considers the implications of the materials… this could then be broken by a little comic relief, social narrative or nostalgia smashing. So in short, a range of emotions. Some good some not so good, but perhaps necessary."

“There is a confidence that we understand our world,” he told the Provincetown Independent, but he wants that confidence to turn to unease as viewers experience the full perspective of the sculpture. “What we thought we knew comes apart.”

People often ask Deininger if his sculptures are for sale. According to Yahoo! News, they are, if you have $12,000 to $50,000 to spend. Honestly, with the amount of time it must take to create one of these pieces and seeing how much other art pieces go for, that doesn't seem outrageous.

Oh, and it's not just animals that Deininger creates out of trash. Check out this masterpiece of another masterpiece:

@tomdeininger

I faithfully analyzed every stroke of paint and found a plastic equivalent. The honor was all mine. #vincentvangogh #tiktokart #abstractart #fyp

Absolutely unbelievable. You can follow Tom Deininger on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

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This young inventor's brilliant device could remove tons of garbage from our oceans.

When Boyan Slat was 16 years old, he decided to try to save the ocean.

"I've always been making stuff," Slat said. Now he's 21, a young man with full hair, and he says he's been an inventor since he was young. He built tree houses and ziplines in his native Netherlands as a child. And once, when he was 12, he decided to see what would happen if he launched 250 model rockets at the same time.

"I liked problem-solving, but what I didn't really have was a real problem to work on."

He found that problem while scuba diving in Greece.

"I was expecting to see beautiful stuff underwater, but I saw more plastic bags than fish."

After his dive, Slat did more research, and he learned that plastic is a serious problem. A very serious problem. In fact, the ocean is currently full of an estimated 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic.

A volunteer collects rubbish in Manila Bay in the Philippines. Photo from Jay Director/AFP/Getty Images.

This plastic tends to accumulate in large patches such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific and kills birds, fish, and all manner of sea life.

"And I thought, well, why don't we just clean this up?" said Slat.

A lot of people were doubtful the garbage problem could ever be solved, but Slat started to look for solutions anyway.

"Everyone on the internet was saying it was impossible to clean up, and I thought, well, that’s quite a big statement," Slat said.

After a span of time, 16-year-old Slat hit on an idea: Instead of chasing individual patches of trash across the ocean, he figured he could flip the scenario and use the ocean's currents to move the trash to a stationary device instead.

Slat founded his foundation, The Ocean Cleanup, in 2013.

The Ocean Cleanup's main work is developing the system Slat thought up when he was 16. It's a system designed to remove plastic debris from the ocean by placing floating barriers in strategic points along ocean currents, funneling the trash toward central removers.

Artist's impression of the system. Image from Erwin Zwart/The Ocean Cleanup, used with permission.

In order to focus wholly on The Ocean Cleanup, Slat also dropped out of college, where he had been studying aerospace engineering. As for how his family took the news, he said, "I think at first they were a bit anxious about me quitting college, but I am quite glad they gave me that."

The same year, Slat presented his ocean cleanup idea in a TEDx event, where it caught the internet's attention and went viral.

"I wasn't really prepared [for the viral moment]," said Slat. "Suddenly I received about 1,500 emails per day in my personal mailbox."

That first week after the TEDx video went viral, Slat says there were so many emails that he had to invite friends to come over and help him answer the messages from his bedroom. "I was there with like five friends, with our laptops, just plowing our way through all those emails," he remembers.

From there, Slat was able to pull together a team of experts and engineers and find funding for the project.

Today, The Ocean Cleanup is on track to put Slat's device in the ocean soon.

In fact, on June 22, 2016, The Ocean Cleanup launched a prototype device in the North Sea.

Artist's impression of the prototype. Image from Erwin Zwart/The Ocean Cleanup, used with permission.

The prototype is a small-scale test of the floating-barrier system. Slat said it'll prove out whether the system can survive the tough conditions found on the open ocean (the North Sea is one of the toughest patches of water in the world). The thinking is that if the barrier can survive stresses there, the system can survive anywhere.

"To finally have something physical that you can actually see on the ocean, that you're putting through testing, and see that it works I think that's ... it's really sort of indescribable," Slat said.

"But of course it's just the beginning," added Slat. "It's just one of many tests. But it is an important milestone, that's for sure."

There's been some skepticism about whether the project will work in the end, but Slat seems both pragmatic and determined.

One of the boats that launched the prototype. Photo from The Ocean Cleanup, used with permission.

Some have questioned whether the project will be able to collect enough trash to be feasible or wonder whether sea life will be safe, as The Ocean Cleanup says it will, but Slat seems to take the skepticism in stride.

"I really think the only way to know whether it will work is the things we are doing right now — by testing, testing, testing again," Slat said. He says a little skepticism is always expected around new technology, plus it can often end up helping researchers and engineers focus on the right questions to answer.

"I think working with the right people, having the right pragmatic attitude and iterative design philosophy ... if there is a way that we can do it, we will find it."

If the North Sea prototype does well, The Ocean Cleanup will move forward on their plans to deploy a full-size system.

If everything goes according to plan, they'll be able to launch a pilot system late next year, and they may be able to start cleaning up the North Pacific by 2020.

"I'm quite optimistic about the future," Slat said. "We've shown that for many problems we've faced over the last few centuries, we've been able to make dramatic advancements in them. Think about violence, education, poverty, etc."

Of course, we have a lot of work to do to solve current environmental problems. But technology has proven itself to be incredibly powerful, and by focusing on using it for good, we can conquer this problem too.

"As long as we develop technologies that actually help solve problems, I think eventually we will get to a pretty bright future," he said.

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