Video courtesy of TED.com

New York–based artist Brian Dettmer carves intricate sculptures from outdated materials like encyclopedias, textbooks, maps and cassette tapes. To create his works Dettmer seals the object with varnish, then swiftly and deftly moves through it with an X-Acto knife until he comes out the other side, cutting away material to form something new. His beautiful carvings reflect how, in a digital information landscape, even the oldest forms of knowledge can be repurposed.