Core77

David Markus is one of the five lucky design students that we featured in our "Design for (Your) Product Lifetime" series with Autodesk Sustainability Workshop. The young designer is set to complete his in June and he's got several interesting projects to show for his time at the Savannah College of Art and Design, including "Ferrite," an interactive liquid sculpture.

Ferrofluid is an extraordinary material with unique ferromagnetic properties. Although dozens of applications for it have been found—from hard drives to loudspeakers—its most impressive is arguably as an interactive display.

Ferrofluid displays capture the best qualities of ferrofluid, both as a liquid and as a ferromagnetic substance. By applying magnetic fields of different strengths, different shapes and formations begin to appear in this otherworldly black liquid. By suspending it in a clear liquid, even more interactive qualities are exposed.

Lest the renderings and stills fail to convey its elegance, see "Ferrite" in action after the jump:

The project is successfully funded on Kickstarter: the smaller, 4.25”-tall "Ferro" sculpture starts at $100, while the full-size, 8.5”-tall "Ferrite" comes in at $150. Each consists of a "crystal-clear" glass tube in a machined aluminum enclosure—the former features cage-like bars, while the latter looks something like a graduated cylinder—and both come with accessory magnets to manipulate the ferrofluid. Check it out on Kickstarter.