Normally, oxidation is boring: You leave a wet steel wool scrubbing pad on your sink and a few days later you wind up with a rusty pad and a stain on your counter. But speed the oxidation up a bit—say, with a blowtorch—and you get a light show to rival the best fireworks display.
In this video, the folks at Macro Room turn their highly focused attention on the burning tendrils of clumps of steel wool—as well as a few choice props. Iconic Pokémon Pikachu sits in the midst of a cloud of electric spark, while a wooden figure holds a cloud of orange-hot traces of incandescent steel. A wicker man miniature in hi-def. There are moments where the burning metal seems almost alive, the sparkling lights the synapses of some strange brain.
In the final scene, a clump of steel wool is attached to a small motor, ignited, and spun to creating a burning ring of fire spitting orange sparks in every direction. Some (rather brave) people attempt a similar trick with large clumps of burning steel wool spun like fire poir at the end of a rope, making for some incredible still photography. This video shows these fiery metal filaments might well be their most beautiful seen through the aperture of a macro lens.
