If you could shrink yourself down like cartoon schoolteacher Ms. Frizzle and take a journey through your own microbiota, it might look a bit like scuba-diving through a coral reef. Each individual strain of bacteria, fungi or archaea (single-celled organisms with no cell nucleus) is surprisingly beautiful in its own way, often manifesting as an intricate geometric shape or fractal pattern. Artist Rogan Brown shows us just how scenic the ‘foreign’ bodies within our own bodies can be with a new series of paper cut sculptures called Magic Circle Variations.

This is far from Brown’s first foray into rendering bacteria in paper; we’ve marveled for years over his ‘infectiously intricate’ works, which have mostly appeared in solid white thus far. In 2015, he brought his individual bacterial sculptures together for the first iteration of ‘Magic Circle’ with a 40-inch-wide circular display. The soft pastel colors of Magic Circle Variations 2018 set it apart from the rest.

Each piece can take months to cut. If you take a close look, you’ll see that the individual strains depicted in the reef collage consist of many pieces of paper cut and layered to create three-dimensional shapes. Like a surgeon or a scientist, Brown slices larger pieces with a scalpel while others are hand-drawn and laser-cut.

Magic Circle Variations 2018 will be exhibited with C Fine Art at the Art Market Hamptons July 5-8th 2018.

If you could build an origami-like paper object that can visualize information at your voice command, what would you ask it to tell you? Google’s new ‘Paper Signals’ project is a fun way to play with information, technology and DIY crafts, offering templates for paper sculptures containing simple parts like a micro servo, an Adafruit Feather Huzzah (a thin, light WiFi board with built-in USB and battery charging) and some things you likely have laying around the house or office.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iJXYSfnxuQ

Google’s examples are an arrow that points up and down to track Bitcoin, a wheel that counts down to Halloween, an umbrella that tracks the rain in Seattle, a pair of pants that grows shorter or longer according to the temperature in New York City, a box with arms that tells you when it’s time to take a break and a rocket that tracks NASA launches.

You can choose from one of these examples and print the paper template to put it together using your own parts, or buy the Paper Signals bundle from Adafruit for $24.95. Or, if you have some experience, grab the code from GitHub and make something new.

Hand most people some paper and an X-acto knife and ask them to make art, and at best, they’ll produce some cartoonish shapes spattered with blood. But these twelve artists are producing some of the world’s most impressive papercut art, whether by laboring over astonishingly intricate tapestries for months at a time or making use of clever minimalism for a surprisingly big impact.

Sea Creatures by Kiri Ken

Sea creatures and other natural subjects become the slightest wisps of paper in these extraordinarily delicate and detailed paper cuts by artist Kiri Ken, who shares her work on Twitter. The creatures often become something slightly unnatural in the textures and lines Kiri applies to their various parts, sprouting mechanical objects or patterns that look computerized.

Nature Scenes by Pippa Dyrlaga

Each teeny-tiny feather on a kingfisher’s wing, each scale on the body of a goldfish, is cut out with seemingly endless patience and unfailing accuracy in works by Yorkshire-based artist and printmaker Pippa Dyrlaga.

Anatomy by Ali Harrison

Ali Harrison’s versions of human organs are quite a bit prettier than the real thing, each one given surprising depth and heft despite being cut out of ordinary sheets of paper. The artist designs each one and then laser-cuts them so they can be reproduced. She sells them in her Light and Paper shop.

Endangered Species Cut-Outs by Patrick Cabral

Wolves, elephants, pangolins, tigers, pandas and more are rendered starkly in black and white cut paper against a black surface, each layer of their lace-like faces and bodies cut by hand. Manila-based artist Patrick Cabral donated half the proceeds from the sales of each of these endangered species to WWF Philippines.

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Nice Slice 30 Sculptures Illustrations Created With Cut Paper

The language of letters themselves is revealed when we look at their shapes as artistic forms and experiment with the materials we use to create them, whether using them as the basis of furniture design, climbing walls or intricately cut works of paper art. These typography-based experiments encourage us to look at the written word in a whole new way.

Typographic Climbing Wall by Gordon Young

4,000 recycled plastic climbing holds join up with 1,000 sea-themed novelty climbing holds to form a typographic wall spelling the name Barry Island in the UK. Gordon Young transformed a sea wall into an interactive landmark for a previously neglected corner of the shore.

Typographic Paper Cuts by Annie Vought

Sometimes consisting of sentences and sometimes just a jumble of letters, these typographic works are painstakingly hand-cut from paper by artist Annie Vought. A piece called ‘Gosh I’ve Been Here Before’ measures 53” wide and consists of sentences strung together in circles like the rings of a tree.

Playing with 3D-Printed Letter For by Thomas Wirtz

Designer Thomas Wirtz created his own typeface, 3D-printed a series of acronyms like ‘BTW,’ ‘FYI’ and POV’ and used them as forms for experimentation with physical media like ink, dye, fire and colored gases.

Letter-Shaped Desks by Benoit Challand

Individual works stations are designed in the shapes of letters to spell out messages in an open-plan office environment, where you tend to either find zero privacy or a maze of cubicles. Designer Benoit Challand aims to celebrate the beauty of large-scale typography while bringing some fun into these spaces, demonstrating the concept with tiny models.

Legible Graffiti by Mathieu Tremblin

Ugly spray-painted tags are a dime a dozen, and almost always illegible. Artist Mathieu Tremblin basically took any artistry out of the tags by converting them into basic typeface, showing us how nonsensical it all is when simply spelled out.

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Art Of Typography 13 Text Based Designs Spell It All Out

Abstract geometric paper-based sculpture may seem like an unlikely medium for the expression of scientific principles, but when the artist is also an engineer, there’s an underlying layer of meaning lost on the casual observer. It’s okay if you don’t get what these pieces represent: Matthew Shlian’s tessellations are beautiful to look at, impressive for both their intricate forms and their precision.

Shlian has a new show called Telemetry currently up at Florida Gulf Coast University as part of the FGCU Art Galleries’ third year of Crossroads: Art and Science Residency and Exhibition. Founder of the Initiative Artist Studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the artist creates large-scale installations as well as drawings, and frequently collaborates with scientists at the University of Michigan.

“As a paper engineer, my work is rooted in print media, book arts and commercial design,” says Shlian. “Beginning with an initial fold, a single action causes a transfer of energy to subsequent folds, which ultimately manifest in drawing and three dimensional forms. I use my engineering skills to create kinetic sculpture which have led to collaborations with scientists at University of Michigan.”

“We work on the nanoscale, translating paper structures to micro folds. Our investigations extend to visualizing cellular division and solar cell development. Researchers see paper engineering as a metaphor for scientific principles; I see their inquiry as a basis for artistic inspiration. In my studio I am a collaborator, explorer and inventor. I begin with a system of folding and at a particular moment the material takes over. Guided by wonder, my work is made because I cannot visualize its final realization; in this way I come to understanding through curiosity.”