Unusual Field Art: Crop Circles to Reproductions

The phrase “crop circles” brings to mind flying saucers, the American Deep South and Mulder & Scully. Whilst many instances of this unusual form of art have been blamed on our extraterrestrial neighbours, humans seem to have cottoned on to it as a pretty nifty idea. Field Art around the world has begun to attract thousands of visitors, enough to rival almost any art show worth its paint.

In the Aomori Prefecture, some 600km north of Tokyo, farmers annually create remarkable works of art in their rice paddies. They plant four different varieties of rice, each with a different coloured leaf. Through careful planning and hard work, they create beautiful works of art visible from a 22 metre-high mock castle tower that forms part of the village offices. The tradition started in 1993 and every year a theme is decided upon by city officials.

From simple designs to imitations of great artists’ works, the town sets itself increasingly difficult challenges each year. The artworks have attracted tourists from around the world, with thousands of visitors making their way to the area each year to witness the beautiful, temporary art works. Through the use of GPS and computers, farmers are now able to construct elaborate works as they can pinpoint exactly where to plant the differently coloured seeds.

Husband and wife team, Lenny & Meriel, are known for their odd and wacky photographic blog. One of their more interesting projects is their rake work. Using a series of different rakes, from children’s gardens rakes to professional landscaping rakes (who would have thought such things existed), they carefully create astounding works of art in both sand and snow. Once the artwork is completed, they use a camera attached to a kite to take a photograph. This form of photography is known as Kite Arial Photography (KAP). In KAP a camera is carefully attached and suspended from a kite line and pictures are then taken using a remote or trigger. You can find out more about KAP at Lenny’s Flickr group.

And of course, there are crop circles. Whilst there are still many who claim that the circles are made by extraterrestrial life forms, there are a few humans laying claim to specific creations. One such group of crop artists are British company the Circle Makers. What started out as fun amongst friends has become a commercial venture with major firms such as Shredded Wheat, Microsoft and BBC hiring the guys to create their astounding works for advertising campaigns. Again, it’s thanks to the advancement of computers and GPS systems that have allowed crop circle artists to perfect their work and come up with increasingly intricate designs.

When Firefox released the second version of their browser in 2006, they had a gigantic version of their logo carved into a field in Oregon by the Oregon State University Linux Users Group. The crop circle was so large that it was visible on Google Earth. Planning the venture took just two weeks and the logo was completed within 24 hours. If you didn’t get to see pictures of it back then, take a look below at exactly what you can achieve with careful planning, plenty of time and a couple dozen people to stomp the wheat flat.