Images: The inner life of gadgets
Artist Satre Stuelke uses a CT scan machine to offer a penetrating take on objects from the iPhone and iPod to a vacuum tube and a wind-up rabbit.
DeLonghi toaster
Artists try to see beyond the obvious, to look into the deeper aspects of everyday objects. It was only a matter of time, then, until someone decided to use a CT scan to reveal the inner life of commonplace items from the iPod to the Barbie doll and from a toaster to the Big Mac.
The artist in this case is Satre Stuelke, who's also a medical student in New York. A wider selection of his CT scans (and QuickTime movies giving a 360-degree view) can be seen at the Web site for his Radiology Art project. This slideshow focuses on some of the technological and mechanical objects of "unique cultural importance in modern society" for which Stuelke aims to provide "deeper visualization."
Seen here is a DeLonghi toaster. Writes Stuelke slyly: "Despite scrutiny under this high-resolution CT scan, we were unable to pinpoint the cause of toast only getting crisp on one side of the bread."
Apple iBook
The images come from an older four-slice CT scanner used for research and are processed in Osirix software on an iMac. Additional image processing takes place in Adobe Photoshop.
For a very different experience of examining the innards of an iBook, see "Photos: Cracking open the iBook G3."
Apple iPhone
Stuelke told The New York Times that this iPhone "still works fine after that hefty dose of radiation."
See also: "Photos: Cracking open Apple's iPhone 3G."
Apple iPod
Palm PDA
Motorola Razr
Norelco electric razor
vacuum tube
wind-up car
You can also make out the wind-up key to the left of the driver. From this perspective, the key looks like it's the steering column.