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Closed (Eco) Systems

Mathieu Lehanneur - Local River

Saw these two installations, made me wonder about the potentials for filtering water hydroponically, in place of using something like a Brita filter. The first project is Local Riverby Mathieu Lehanneur. The installation consists of a refrigerated aquarium that include live fish and vegetables working together to clean the water and provide nutrients for one another. 

DrinkPeeDrinkPeeDrinkPee by Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray

The second installation, DrinkPeeDrinkPeeDrinkPee, by Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray creates a demonstration of a closed-loop system where viewers are encouraged to sit on the toilet facing the water fountain, thereby closing the loop of tubes that form the installation. The tubes carry urine from the toilet, filtering it through two aquariums and a “biomechanical  reaction mechanism” and a plant that is fertilized by the reaction’s byproduct. There is also a DIY kit to carry out the process at home that was available at the Eyebeam Feedback show back in March.

I think these two projects are interesting in that they tackle a roughly similar idea with two very different types of execution. Lehanneur’s design is very clean and less science-diagram-ish than Riley and Bray’s installation, but I wonder if something like DrinkPeeDrinkPeeDrinkPee is more along the lines of what we might like to show (the aesthetic of naturally filtering water as a science-type project), rather than a demonstration of our collective design skills.

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LED Light Systems for Bikes

I totally had a nerdgasm when I saw this. It’s an LED Light System for your bike. Developed by co-founder of the lovely and informative Instructables.com, Dan Goldwater. Here’s the site to get one. It’s not that bad actually, it’s 64.99USD. Not a bad investment, considering that you will always be seen riding around at night. Oh man, I’m definately considering it.

Once more, I found this beauty on Boing Boing Gadgets.

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Wonderfully Canadian: Anti-DMCA Protest Stapled to Posts

You’re probably wondering what’s going on in this picture. The band The Craft Economy has hit the streets with their own protest agaisnt bill C-61. From Boing Boing:

The disc, containing a demo of “Menergy,” a track off of the band’s upcoming record (due late August) isn’t simply Creative Commons licensed music like their previous hydro pole-only release, this time it’s a Bill C-61 protest too (see that little piece of paper sticking out of the back of the disc? Yeah, that’s the protest part). It reads, in part: This is far and beyond and more bizarre than the heavily criticized DMCA in the USA. Copyright should protect the rights of artists and producers of creative content, but it should not suppress creative and artistic expression. The Craft Economy has licensed our music, including this CD, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 license. This license gives you the freedom to share our music with your friends and enemies, and remix and use it in new and creative ways, provided you attribute the work back to us, and you don’t make money off our work. It’s fair for you and us. This is the way art should work.)

Totally intense. For more information on what Bill C- 61 click here. No seriously, C-61 is super ridiculous and way harder than the American version. Another reason to silence corporate lobbyists FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY WTF.

Actually, I was talking to a friend who was reading the article in depth and said that the majority government was looking at it with shifty eyes. I hope they see what we see.

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Tree Drawing

Tim Knowles Tree Drawing

Attaching pens to branches of trees, Tim Knowler produces tree drawings, or rather, sets up the situation in which a tree can produce drawings. I was pleasantly reminded of his work, having come across it sometime last summer, through an email and Inhabitant.

From his artist statement,

“The exploration of Chance and Process is core to my artistic practice. Akin to scientific experimentation and investigation, the results of my projects [although operating within carefully developed controls and parameters] are unpredictable and outside my control. It is the wind, postmen, the motion of a vehicle, or players of a game that unwittingly determine the outcome.” 

I will be forever interested in the idea of chance within artwork, especially when the elements of chance are coming from nature.

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Usman Haque's Primal Source

[NOTCOT at GLOW: Usman Haque’s Primal Source from Jean Aw on Vimeo.]

As part of GLOW in Santa Monica, Usman Haque’s Primal Source was a huge interactive light/projection installation on the beach. Rear-projecting onto a water-screen, the installation responded to sound from the crowd with microphones being placed along the crowd’s edge on the beach. The event went on for 12 hours throughout the night. The software was built withProcessing and PD (an open-source cousin of Max/MSP/Jitter). 

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Kate Moss Hologram

 

mcqueen

OK, last one from me tonight. In 2006 Alexander Mcqueen’s ready-to-wear show finished off with a damn near historic (pun, collection related) finale. Inside of the pyramid a ghostly figure materialized, only for it to be Kate Moss! The effect is created with plates of glass, which form the pyramid, and lighting techniques. The ghost was prerecorded and projected forth. Thanks toWikipedia, the effect is called Pepper’s Ghost.

To get the full effect, the video IS A MUST.

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3D Image Projection

3d

In 2006, AIST (Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) developed the first 3D image projector. “How does it work?” you say? From Pink Tentacle:

The newly developed device … creates “real” 3D images by using laser light, which is focused through a lens at points in space above the device, to create plasma emissions from the nitrogen and oxygen in the air at the point of focus. Because plasma emissions continue for a short time, the device is able to create 3D images by moving the point of focus.

Essentially, the laser IGNITES AIR to create a pixel. So, I wouldn’t suggest touching it. lawlz.

Here‘s one more article about the update of the projector.

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Energy

Design E2 Documentary Series

“Could it be that we are connected to all things in the universe and not the centre of it?”

Last night I saw two episodes of E2 Design on TVO. The shows are incredibly well-done, the cinematography style alone would have been enough to have me watch an hour worth of television on nearly any topic, but the fact that the show focuses on our current/historical energy crisis/solutions made it that much better. The website for the show offers downloads of each episode in podcast form, which is highly recommended. The introduction to the show, which you should immediately hear/see playing when you go to their website is inspiring and describes a mindset that I hope becomes more widespread—that we are continually making decisions that effect more people and more things than we could ever have imagined. 

Making Energy Consumption Visible via Pasta and Vinegar

A quick entry from the always good Pasta & Vinegar highlights an instance of “revealing the invisible” in France where this large sign shows the real-time energy production of roof-top solar panels and the saved greenhouse gases. We need to be able to see, to understand, what it is we are doing by following the same consumption patterns we have for the last 25 years.