Reading deep time in the architecture of stone.

00 / Manifesto

Stone is a slow animation

IGMA is a speculative science and digital arts institute studying the architectures that rock builds for itself.

We scan, slice and simulate natural formations, beginning with the tafoni of the Sydney coast, and translate their deep-time processes into images, instruments and interactive fieldwork you can hold in real time.

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01 / Specimen

Tafoni

Honeycomb weathering on the Sydney coastal sandstone. Cavities nest inside cavities: an architecture carved by salt, wind and time rather than by hands.

02 / Process

Haloclasty

Sea spray soaks the rock. As it dries, salt crystals grow in the pores and pry the grains apart from within. Scroll to slice the specimen and read its interior.

03 / Section

Isolines

Each exposed ring records a surface the rock once had. The IGMA contour mark is drawn from these sections.

03 / Research programme

Formations under study

Nine field sites across the continent. Each is scanned, sectioned and simulated over one full season.

Specimen sheet · Nº 11068

Lithology
Hawkesbury sandstone
Mark geometry
7 nested isolines
Contour interval
40 mm
Palette
Thermal storm / 6 stops

The mark is a section through a single tafoni cavity. Every ring is a former surface of the rock, traced from photogrammetry and simplified into a signature that erodes with the institute.

0yrs

Of weathering read per specimen

0MPa

Peak salt crystallisation pressure

0scans

Photogrammetry captures, 2026 season

0sites

Active coastal and inland field stations

Wave Rock, the flared north face of Hyden Rock.03 Wave Rock
Weathered Hawkesbury Sandstone in situ, Sydney.01 Tafoni
The Pinnacles in the evening sun, September 2023.04 The Pinnacles
Remarkable Rocks, Flinders Chase National Park.05 Remarkable Rocks
Wedding Cake Rock, Royal National Park.02 Honeycomb Lace
Nature's Window, Kalbarri National Park.06 Nature's Window
Comparison · tafoni in monzonite near Corbara, Corsica.01 Tafoni

02 / Archive · Wave Rock, Hyden WA

2.63 billion
years of stone

Nine field sites. Every one sculpted by salt, water, wind or fire.

Explore the field sites

Live field · move to heat

03 / Rock Lab

Hold deep time

Nine Australian formations, modelled on their real shapes. Grab them with your hands to turn them, pinch to zoom, point to heat the stone and spread both hands to weather them through a quarter of a million years. Your camera feed never leaves your browser.

Enter lab