There are many ways to view the wonder of planet Earth: jaw-dropping videos from outer space, scenic “Earth Porn,” gritty “ruin porn” (we love porn). But this video by Rhode Island School of Design student Conner Griffith is something new.
A three-minute sensory onslaught,“Ripple” will suck you in with rapid-fire images of microchips, housing developments, vast landscapes, and seemingly everything in between. Griffith’s video makes no distinction between what’s human-made and what’s nature-made, and all the pictures he uses are either extreme closeups or broad overhead views, so sometimes it’s hard to tell what you’re even looking at — is that marble? Are those rivers? How big is that sandbank? Wait, is that a sandbank? Meanwhile, he sets the whole manic slideshow to a soundtrack of apparently random noises, making for an all-around mesmerizing experience.
So grab your good headphones and give it a watch. Then watch it again. And then maybe one more time. I still can’t figure out what that is at the 22-second mark.
