Monitor your Plants
I recently decided to make a useful form out of one of the free computer monitors left in the hallway of the University of Windsor’s Lebel building. The process was very brief and effortless and I would suggest that anyone who has a computer monitor (broken or intended to be discarded) try this out. The [...]
6th Annual Fahrenheit Fest
Last night was the 6th Annual Fahrenheit Festival, presented by Artcite Inc. and the town of Lasalle. It was incredible to see such a huge crowd, likely around 1200 people or more, out to see fire sculpture. The location was amazing, with 12 sculptures sitting on a little patch of land cutting through the middle of [...]
LED lights + snow?
While browsing Instructables today I found this neat snow lantern. It would be interesting what we could do to this effect using LED lights!
Snow Graffiti
Depending on how much this hand-pump sprayer is, this looks like a cheap and environmentally-friendly alternative for graffiti in the winter. Watch the demo video on youtube!
Bamboo Bike GROWN
Have you guys looked into your back yard and thought: “OH BOY I wish I could grow a field full of bikes.” I know I haven’t – BUT THIS GUY DID! Based out of Santa Cruz, California, Graig Calfee is a bike maker. Sounds neat, so what? Check this quote from the Wired article: To [...]
Trees Prevent Forest Fires
The idea is to use bioenergy from trees to power temperature and humidity sensors from which information will be used to alert US Forest Service of potential forest fires and conditions. I loveMIT. [via]
Public Domain Halloween
Night of the Living Dead (1968) Broken City Lab is going to organize an outdoor screening of one or two public domain horror/sci-fi movies sometime in October. I’ve compiled a short list of possible movies to screen, including the above Night of the Living Dead, though we’re certainly up for suggestions… What’s your preference?… Let us know in [...]
Working Around Things
I don’t have a lot to add to this, but saw this on Pasta&Vinegar this morning. It made me think about ways in which we could execute projects like this—simple, fast, and reusing surfaces that are not permanent.
Mauritian Sunset by Sandy Smith
Sandy Smith uses a multitude of old computers and monitors to generate architectural structures that emanate light. I like the idea of using obsolete technology, for one iteration of this project in particular, Smith secured old computers from a University. [via]
Botanicalls at Conflux 2008
Botanicalls is this incredible project I came across sometime last year. Essentially, it uses a microcontroller and sensor along with PHP and an open-source telephone system to allows plants to make phone calls and ask for water when they’re getting dried out. The project, as part ofConflux 2008, has become a walking tour in New York [...]
![Last Monday night, a small group of us gathered around the table to talk about All Tomorrow’s Problems. This is an open event that invites anyone to attend and think of this as a very loosely organized group to discuss and exercise your ideas on a specific topic. We may not actually make anything, but [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/wpid20092-IMG_1471-150x150.jpg "Last Week & Tonight: All Tomorrow’s Problems")
![Another day at BCL HQ and some more progress on this ongoing magnetic planters project. Michelle and I finished putting in the remainder of our magnets into our plastic bag planters, but there are still some more planters left over. So, with more rare-earth magnets now on the way, we’ll finish up the rest when [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/IMG_4798-150x150.jpg "Magnets Installed!")
![Don’t mind the mess. A lot of the stuff on there is really just old ideas still scattered. These are early stages in using Max to try to figure out how to trigger some audio recording with some basic video tracking, and we’re not sure exactly how best to move forward. This is a new project [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Screen-Shot-2012-09-13-at-10.47.41-AM-150x150.png "Any Max Experts out there? Slow steps towards a new interactive project")
![The Eco-House was bumpin’ Friday night! Amongst a slew of other undergoing projects, Michelle, Rosina, Josh and I we’re all hard at work, trying to get everything organized for our upcoming event and final installment of Save The City that’s taking place this Friday at the Art Gallery of Windsor! Rosina and I tackled the Save The City [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/IMG_4835web-150x150.jpg "Getting things done!")
![Justin couldn’t stay too long today since he had to leave for a Media City engagement. So he set us up with the things we would need then left us alone. He was showing Josh how the new design I started last week held up better and works with the magnets better too. The previously-made [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/img_5245-150x150.jpg "Planters – Take 2")
![After our post a few weeks ago about a new interactive window installation, we had some interesting and helpful suggestions, but one email in particular stood out. Paul Anderson wrote to us briefly with an offer to help and after a quick introduction of his incredible depth of knowledge of all things electronic shortly thereafter, [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/wpid20203-IMG_1503-150x150.jpg "Interactive Window Installation, progressing beyond the Max/MSP solution")
![Friday was the last open house for SRSI. Norman Eberstein read some of his log entries written during his job, Emily made some amazing snacks for us, Kero busted out his Lemur, and Laura did another payphone intervention. Norman was feeling not quite himself on Friday morning when he came in. He got his nose [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/DSC_0873-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 29: It’s The Last Friday")
![Friday afternoon turned out to be more productive than I thought it would. We finished embedding all the magnets we have, which means we have 25 planters either done or drying and ended up with 3 installed on various surfaces to see if they survive the rain this weekend. If they turn out, I’ll order [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/img_9731-150x150.jpg "New Magnetic Planters Field Test")
![Michelle and I headed up to Hamilton to continue the research portion of Two Tales Of A City. The three and a half hour car ride gave us plenty of time to develop a working plan of exactly what we wanted to accomplish for the next two days in Hamilton, Ontario. To get a [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/IMG_5855-150x150.jpg "Two Tales Of A City: Hamilton History Hunters")
![I’m starting a new project in creating a series of iPhone applications for Surviving Windsor. Some of these applications will be absurd, some useful, but all will be focused primarily on the specific conditions and realities found here in South Detroit. This suite of applications takes the city as its conceptual backing, generating a set of small [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/IMG_3934-150x150.jpg "iPhone app development (on paper)")
![We’ve been lucky over the last week or so with some surprisingly agreeable weather. The had humidity lifted and with it, the temperature scaled back considerably. So, it’s been pretty much the best time all summer to do some exploring on foot (and sometimes on bicycle) at a pace that really allows for a different [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/IMG_0404-150x150.jpg "Drifting Around Downtown Windsor: Exploring the City Slowly")
![We recently decided to demarcate some of many accidental meadows across Windsor with these Naturalized Area signs. In hopes that these signs might momentarily allow residents of Windsor to look at these naturalized spaces for what they are—that is, wonderful additions to our urban landscape—instead of the result of a politically-charged issue, we spent the [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/IMG_3023-150x150.jpg "Making the Signs for Naturalized Areas")
![Yesterday was the second day of our Making Things Happen (For a Week Straight) show—where we worked in the gallery and travelled to Vincent Massey secondary school to start working with some physics students on another large-scale project we’re planning. We also worked a bit more on the hanging baskets and planned for Thursday’s event. Danielle [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/img_9449-150x150.jpg "Making Things Happen, Day 2")
![The details: Sunday, April 11th via email & Tuesday, April 27th at 7pm, at Artspeak Gallery. As part of the Broken City Lab: Save the City project, Broken City Lab is inviting Windsorites to venture out into the city and take five photographs that showcase what makes our city “worth saving.” These photographs will be turned into [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/BCL-STC-APR-5x7-outlines-sm-150x150.jpg "Things Worth Saving")
![Yesterday was just lovely! Andrea Carvalho did a parking garage performance as part of her study of Non-Places, Kero set up his interactive installation, and a lot of familiar local friends rolled through The People’s Museum to contribute to the giant map. Andrea has been trying to perform in this space for a few days [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/IMG_0449-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 8: Rethinking Parking Garages")