UV-Glow

Exhibition designers often ask for specific effects for their exhibitions. One day we were asked if we were able to make a crystal showing the molecular grid when pushing a bottom. They suggested that we embed LED strips inside - ”or something”. After having thought a while, I got the idea to make the grid from crystal clear acrylic rods, paint them with invisible UV reflecting paint and embed that into a cast of the crystal. When lit with UV light, you would see the grid structure that was invisible before.

The project never happened, but the idea survived, and we made a handful of small blocks of crystal clear resin. When lit with UV light, the embedded cockroach, spider, and rat skull glow like holograms inside the blocks. These blocks were way more detailed than the 3D subsurface laser crystal engraving you can buy in the local gift shop. Every tiny hair is on the legs of the cockroach, and shifting the light, it looks like a three-dimensional X-ray picture. 

Everyone that saw them was thrilled, but we never found a proper use for these tiny blocks until I got the idea to use them as two-step animations. First, we made a replica of the Ottoia fossil from Burgess Shale - a famous Cambrian “Lagerstätte” in the Canadian Rockies (a Lagerstätte is a sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossils with exceptional preservation). We embedded a crystal clear reconstruction of the worm over the embedded fossil. When lit with UV light, the reconstruction will show as a ghostly hologram above the fossil - an excellent analogue animation.