Cold Cutting Edge

Tristan Duke explores the unlikely intersection of high-tech imaging, neutrino astronomy, and glaciology, using a technology he invented in his art practice—a camera with a lens made of ice—with the project Cold Cutting Edge.

Tristan Duke is a Los Angeles-based artist known for his highly innovative, collaborative, interdisciplinary, research-based projects. Synthesizing methodologies from disparate fields such as art, science, and contemplative practice, his approach creates space for surprising connections, startling inventions, and sublime aesthetic experiences.  

Duke’s work often yields groundbreaking new technologies – such as his work on hand-drawn holography, which led to his invention of the first-ever 3D vinyl record hologram process. Duke has since created original vinyl hologram artwork for albums and soundtrack releases ranging from Jack White and Guns N’ Roses to Star Wars. 

He is a co-founder of the Optics Division of the Metabolic Studio, a collective devoted to recontextualizing photography as a land-based medium and social practice.  For the better part a decade Duke was a Fellow at the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles, conducting research in holography and Victorian photographic processes.  

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