Amazing City Scape Art Made From 100,000 Staples

Artist Peter Root has been busy collecting staples and turning the boring metal office supplies used for bundling paperwork into mesmerizing city scapes. Using 100,000 staples to cover an approximate area of 600cm x 300cm (118 inches x 236 inches), Root’s work of art entitled Ephemicropolis was born. Root broke down the stacks of staples into varying sizes, the tallest of which measures 12cm high (5 inches) and the smallest which consists of a single staple. The arrangement of the staple city-scape took 40 hours, but it was worth the effort – Root’s work was featured in National Geographic Magazine. It’s amazing how this work of art was created by such a simplistic medium, and yet, it’s very easy to visualize the staple stacks as if they were skyscrapers. We love when abstract concepts translate so clearly. The staple stacks are merely suggesting four-walled structures, but viewers’ brains perceive the stacks to be solid, and from afar (and when photographed from the correct perspective) the staple stacks look remarkably similar to a densely populated city centre. Pretty cool.