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.

Inflatable Street Art

Joshua Allen Harris' Inflatable Sculptures

Using the bursts of exhaust air coming from subways in New York, artist Joshua Allen Harris combines plastic bags and tape to create these inflatable sculptures that rise and die with the constant passing of subway trains.

The use of existing conditions and materials to create something so great is incredible.

You can watch a number of videos of the works in motion at New York Magazine or Wooster Collective.

Image: [via]