Oddity Central |
- World’s Largest Chocolate Sculpture Is a Tribute to the Mayan Civilization
- Carlos Zuniga Creates Art on Phone Book Pages
- Swiss Website Lets You Hike through the Alps without Breaking a Sweat
| World’s Largest Chocolate Sculpture Is a Tribute to the Mayan Civilization Posted: 15 May 2012 02:59 AM PDT
To celebrate its 30th anniversary, Qzina Specialty Foods has set a new Guinness Record for the World’s Largest Chocolate Sculpture, by creating a sweet replica of a Mayan temple weighing 18,239 pounds. Qzina chose a Mayan theme for their impressive project, because the ancient civilization played a crucial role in the discovery of chocolate. They were among the first to cultivate Cacao trees and acknowledge the true potential of the cocoa bean. They practically worshiped cocoa and praised it as the food of the Gods. So, as a tribute to Mayan contribution in the evolution of chocolate, Qzina’s corporate pastry chef, Francois Mellet and pastry artist Stephane Treand decided to create a scale model of the Temple of Kukulkan, at Chichen Itza. Built proportionally to the ancient temple's true size, the chocolate pyramid created by Qzina also features all the details of the original landmark, down to the number of steps and panels. With an impressive base measuring 10 feet by 10 feet, and a height of six feet, this delicious masterpiece is exactly one-thirtieth the size of the original building. Itweighs a whopping 18,239 pounds, with the sculpture’s base alone weighing over 3,000 pounds. Considering the previous record, a chocolate model of the Dome of Milan, weighed “just” 7,500 pounds, it’s safe to say this new attempt blew it right out of the water. "Breaking a Guinness World Record for building the largest chocolate sculpture will be Qzina's greatest masterpiece yet. We studied Mayan pyramids at great lengths to create an exact replica of the Temple Kukulkan at Chichen Itza to honor the original chocolatiers.It was important for us to create something memorable in celebration of our 30th anniversary and the grand opening of the Qzina Institute of Chocolate & Pastry”, said Richard Foley, founder and CEO of Qzina. The giant chocolate sculpture will be on display at the Qzina Institute of Chocolate & Pastry, in Irvine, California, starting June 4 and until December 21, 2012, when the Mayan calendar comes to an end. If the world doesn’t end, the pyramid’s method of destruction is yet to be determined.
World’s Largest Chocolate Sculpture Is a Tribute to the Mayan Civilization was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Carlos Zuniga Creates Art on Phone Book Pages Posted: 15 May 2012 02:05 AM PDT
Chilean artist Carlos Zuniga creates detailed portraits and images by simply striking out names from phone book pages, with black ink. Sounds simple enough, but the results are awe-inspiring. Carlos Zuniga isn’t the first artist to use phone books as the main medium for his works. Alex Queral has also been using them to carve his amazing celebrity portraits, but Zuniga developed his own artistic technique, which allowed him to differentiate himself from everyone in the art world. Asked how he came up with this unique way of creating detailed images, the South American artist says it all started with a project he did back in 2006, called The Origin of Species. Inspired by the Ludovico technique used in the 1971 film the A Clockwork Orange, he began striking out every line of text from Charles Darwin’s book, The Origin of Species. Throughout the whole process, he couldn’t stop thinking about how to depict his ideas in a figurative way. Figurative representation had always been a great interest to him, but his drawing skills were lousy, and after eight years of taking classes, he felt frustrated. But Zuniga wasn’t going to abandon his passion just because he didn’t have a talent for drawing. After 10 years of working as a designer in an editorial business, the idea of “making strokes” had become a part of him, so when he made The Origins of Species, he realized striking out was going to be the foundation of his figurative representations. It took a lot of trial and error before he perfected his technique, but he is now fully aware of his evolution, and constantly working on improving his skill. In his series, Imperial Poem, Carlos Zuniga used Chinese ink to strike out names from Argentinian phone books to create detailed portraits and images from the Falkland Islands. “The result is a monochrome pattern that, from a certain distance, and also by optical effect, gives form to the images of the Falklands. For me, showing this work makes me responsible for the images and their content. The system I have developed allows me to get in touch with society in order to communicate matters that interest me”, the artist says about his works.
Carlos Zuniga Creates Art on Phone Book Pages was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Swiss Website Lets You Hike through the Alps without Breaking a Sweat Posted: 15 May 2012 01:14 AM PDT
If you’re a couch potato who dreams of seeing the beautiful Alps without actually doing any hiking, you can thank technology for the unbelievable experience offered by WebWandern.ch. Translated as Web Hike, this revolutionary website allows visitors to see the most beautiful sights the Alps have to offer, from the perspective of a hiker. To achieve the desired effect, the project initiators used real hikers to film HD footage of their mountain treks and uploaded the material to their website. All in all there are 10 stages that cover 130 kilometers of hiking, from Thusis (Switzerland) to Tirano (Italy). It all unfolds at normal speed, so it would take you days to go through the whole thing, but the best part is anyone can just jump through the footage however they like and see the most popular sights of the mountain range in a matter of hours. To understand just how incredible this web hike really is, you have to check it out for yourself. The cameramen are absolutely silent throughout the whole experience, so you can only hear their footsteps and the nature sounds in the background. The camera is very steady, the quality of the footage is very good, and the perspective almost makes you feel like you’re actually there, only you’re in your underwear and munching on potato chips, not worrying about muscle aches. If you though Google Street View and those panorama-style pages were cool, this is going to blow your mind. Although this virtual hike through the Alps allows anyone to see their beauty from the comfort of their own home, tourist chiefs in Switzerland hope this project will actually attract more visitors to the area. “We don’t think it will stop people coming to enjoy the real thing. You can’t experience the clean air and the pure countryside by being a couch potato” said spokesman Gieri Spescha. Swiss Website Lets You Hike through the Alps without Breaking a Sweat was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
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