Frizion

Frizion is a unique new art form from the mind of GoNorth! Cool Scientist and artist Dr. Peter Wasilewski. Each frizion (or Frozen Vision)  begins as a frozen vessel of water and is transmuted into a startling vista of shape and color that stretches the bounds of the natural and the supernatural! 
Water ice is one of the most widespread, intriguing, and familiar compounds on the planet, in the solar system, and beyond. 

On the planet it falls as snow, forms lacy deposits on winter windows, creates skating surfaces on lakes, gracefully drapes rock cliffs, packs thickly on the polar oceans, and lays even thicker on the ice caps blanketing Greenland and Antarctica.

Beyond the planet Earth, ice is present in the frozen oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa, in the particles of Saturn's rings, and in the spectacular tails of passing comets.  Beyond the Solar System, many light years beyond the Earth, ice is present in the dense molecular clouds in regions where new stars form. Of the 11 forms of water ice so far identified, only the form found on Earth can provide a 'Frizion.' This is because it is hexagonal (a crystal property that explains the needle and stellar snowflakes) and is responsive to the interaction with polarized light.
What's Frizion?

Frizion is where thin layers of water are frozen, manipulated, and viewed through polarized light. Or as Dr. Peter Wasilewski puts it "Frizion is painiting with lighton canvas of ice!"

Light has wave-like properties, one of which is vibration. Ordinary white light vibrates in many directions, but a polarizing filter blocks all light except that which is vibrating in a single direction.  A polarizing filter is placed on a light table to polarize the light passing through. A petri dish with a thin layer of water in the process of freezing is placed over the filter. As the polarized light passes through the forming ice crystals, it is bent in two slightly different directions and forms two different rays of light. The color palette in the images is created by rotating a second polarizing filter placed over the ice to intercept and resolve these emerging light rays.

  Watch the making of Frizion posted by the artist Dr. Peter Wasilewski at YouTube.com 

Meet the Frizion Man in our Cool Scientist section. Learn more

Visit the Frizon website and the amazing gallery. Go there