Jonathan Adler—meet eco-sculptor Shari Mendelson.  Mendelson is a Brooklyn-based artist and self-proclaimed recycling goddess who constructs translucent vessel forms out of used water bottles and a bit of hot glue.  The forms are beautiful, many are bubbly and bear some resemblance to the aforementioned designer’s curvy vases.  Several of these pieces are copies of specific glass bottles from the Greek and Roman galleries at the Metropolitan Museum.  Sometimes, the shape and hue of the found water bottles influence the outcome of the sculpture.

Mendelson’s work is being featured this month of June in an two person show titled: “TRANSLATIONS FROM THE UBIQUITOUS LARGESSE” at the Sideshow Gallery in New York.  Click here to read the NYT review from today.

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Chris Jordan viagra online, a Seattle-based photographer, has a new series of images out in the world called “Running the Numbers II.”  It’s a fascinating visual adventure to see how he is able to make viewers comprehend the magnitude of our ecological plight through some ingenious still life shoots he constructs in his studio.

“Running the Numbers II” is similar to Jordan’s first Running the Numbers series, each image portrays a specific quantity of something: the number of tuna fished from the world’s oceans every fifteen minutes, for example. Viagra online: but, according to the artist, this time the statistics are global in scale, rather than specifically American.  The works are dated 2009 but I ran across these images for the first time on the Chronicle for Higher Education’s website this weekend.

One of my favorite pieces is Gyre, a 8×11 foot image that depicts 2.4 million pieces of plastic, equal to the estimated number of pounds of plastic pollution that enter the world’s oceans every HOUR.  All of the plastic viewed in this image was evidently collected from the Pacific Ocean.

There are more great examples and detail shots from this series here, bookmark to keep tabs on Chris Jordan and his complex photographs that tell us an important story in a non-didactic way.

Buy viagra online: yesterday, I attended the 13th annual Microwave New Media Festival’s Keynote Conference in Kowloon Park in Hong Kong.There were a number of interesting talks please see the exhibition website for more information.

I was really impressed with several of Natalie Jeremijenko’s recent projects, specifically a piece called Fwish; buy viagra online. Buy viagra online: the Fwish Interface is a grid of robotics buoys that monitor the dissolved oxygen levels in the water and sense fish presence. Buy viagra online: colored LED lights blink when fish swim beneath the buoys.

The goal of Fwish is to collect and communicate real time data to the public about the water quality and fish activity.  Fwish recently launched in NYC, though the project has been in development for several years.  Jerimijenko and her collaborators needed to complete a great deal of negotiation and paperwork with the public authorities to gain permission to launch the buoys in the river.

Video available herE: http://vimeo.com/408474

darkSky (2009) is an interactive installation by Tiffany Holmes which presents a series of salvaged lamps that visitors are encouraged to turn on and off, and the resulting energy consumption is presented in real-time as an animation on a single plasma screen; order viagra.This exhibit was recently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) order viagra, Chicago, from April 4-26, 2009 and will be shown across from the Jean Albano Gallery (Booth 549) during the Art Chicago event this weekend at the Merchandise Mart.

The interactive installation consists of three rows of lamps, which the artist invites viewers to turn on or off to create the look and feel of the work.A data logger dynamically monitors the flow of electricity through the circuits in the gallery. Order viagra: when all of the lamps are on, the light from the illuminated bulbs overwhelms the space and freezes the animated fireflies on the plasma monitors.Turning all of the lights off produces an increase in the velocity and number of fireflies.Through visitor choice, the artwork consumes large or small quantities of electricity and immediately visualizes this consumption; order viagra.dark Order viagra: sky aims to make tangible the often difficult-to-grasp issues of the aesthetic, economic, and environmental impact of an individual’s energy choices.

In my own studio practice while on sabbatical cialis on line, I’m exploring the myriad possibilities of hacking solar toys.I’m starting to create a miniature city that needs only the sun to run.  Check out some recent neighborhood experiments.  The dogs are really frightened by the spinning antennas.

As an extension of this exploration, I’m running some public workshops next month.  The DIY Solar Sculptures workshop will run March 7, 2009 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and on March 17, 2009 at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.

The Ecomedia exhibition opens this week in Valencia, Spain.  Part-exhibition, part-educational forum, this event brings together an impressive list of practicing artists most of whom are totally focused on promoting environmental stewardship through their art.

Below is the official exhibition announcement:

The exhibition Ecomedia presents projects founded on progressive ecological models and conceive utopian horizons in the process – cialis online pharmacy.It peruses fundamental considerations concerning ecosystems, sustainability, renewable energy sources, as well as visions of the future.In addition cialis online pharmacy, it examines the role of art and new media over and above science, technology, and ecoactivism.The artistic approaches rooted in the link between media technologies and so-called “natural” systems such as climate cialis online pharmacy, water, and earthquakes are innovative.These projects revolve around the charting of data and their audio visualization – cialis online pharmacy.For the most part cialis online pharmacy, they circumvent common scientific technological recording methods and open up new worlds of perception (Franz John, Andrea Polli, Sabrina Raaf, Iniigo Manglano-Ovalle).

Several works deal with renewable sources of energy and put alternative models forward for discussion (Christina Hemauer/Roman Keller, Andrea Polli).Others point to the contamination of the earth from the largest scale (aeronautics by Christoph Keller) down to the smallest (genetic engineering by the Critical Art Ensemble and Beatriz da Costa).A significant section is devoted to the observation of the current state of foodstuff transportation (Ieva Auzina/Esther Polak cialis online pharmacy, Free Soil, Insa Winkler): This is always global, energy-intensive, and wasteful, like our misdirection of resources (Tue Greenfort, infossil). Cialis online pharmacy: the critical documentation of the current status is juxtaposed with visions of the future and practical solutions ( MVRDV, Yonic).

Along with interdisciplinary, public, and net-based projects that actively integrate the public in their realization (Natalie Jeremijenko, Franco and Eva Mattes, Transnational Temps), the exhibition will be accompanied by a media (art) educational programme.The questions addressed in the exhibition are dealt with here with children and adolescents in various fashions and contribute to introducing young people to cultural practice cialis online pharmacy, particularly to the new media, as well to ecologically responsible behaviour.

Curators
Sabine Himmelsbach, Karin Ohlenschläger , Yvonne Volkart

Today’s front page article “Utilities Turning Customers Green, With Envy” in the New York Times profiles a unique strategy that utility companies have developed to get people to conserve energy: pit neighbors against one another.  The Sacramento Municipal Energy District attempted to use traditional means to get citizens to cut back such as offering rebates for energy-efficient appliances.  But the energy goals were not being met.  Thus, the district tried something new.  In April of 2008, utility bills were mailed to 35,000 customers that compared how their energy profile compared to that of 100 neighbors in homes of similar size.  The visuals were quite simple.  More energy efficient customers received a smiley face or two; and the energy pigs got frowny ones.  Understandably, the frowny faces caused a lot of controversy (?!?) so the utility company had to remove them and only go with positive feedback for our delicate American sensibilities.  Despite the demise of the frowny face, the Sacramento utility company noted that after only six months, the customers who received the personalized report reduced energy use by 2% more compared to customers who were given standard statements.

The Sacramento Municipal Energy District project reminds me of another tremendously successful project that enjoyed massive success in California in 2006.

Ambient Devices, a Cambridge, Massachusetts start-up firm staffed mainly with MIT graduates, introduced the “Orb” as a saleable object in 2004.  The Orb proved popular out of the box; Ambient sold 20,000 in 2004.   The web-connected glass balls were programmed to glow different colors based on the performance of the US stock market; viagra on line.If the Dow average was up for the day, the Orb glowed green.On a down day, the Orb reddens; viagra on line.The colors’ intensity reflects the extent of the swing; yellow means the market is stable.  (God knows there must be a lot of red Orbs out there today…in 2009.)

Not surprisingly, a number of Orb users wanted to track data other than the stock market via classy glass balls on their desks.

In 2006, one particular hacked Orb was released for free to a limited audience: companies that used tremendous amounts of electricity; viagra on line.The goal was to get previously identified “energy hog” customers to conserve power during high demand cycles.  Southern California Edison power station manager Mark Martinez was looking for an innovative way to get these customers to use less energy, and prior attempts using automated text messages, emails and phone calls had no effect whatsoever.  So Martinez bought an Ambient Orb and the Energy Orb was born – viagra on line.Martinez realized he could use the Orbs to signal changes in electrical rates, programming them to glow green when the grid was underused — and, thus, electricity cheaper — and red during peak hours when customers were paying more for power – viagra on line.He bought 120 Orbs, retrofitted them to glow based on the dynamic California electrical grid, handed them out gratis to his biggest energy consumers, and sat back to see what happened.

In about a month, the Orb users reduced their peak-period energy use by 40 percent.  Why? Because, Martinez explains, the glowing sphere was less annoying and more persistent than a text alert – viagra on line.”It’s nonintrusive viagra on line,” he says.”It has a relatively benign effect – viagra on line. Viagra on line: but when you suddenly see your ball flashing red, you notice.”   Martinez hit on an excellent way to broadcast key environmental information: eco-visualization, or dynamic feedback coupled with a reward, cash rebates.  The Energy Orb has an easy to read interface that is abstract enough not to require more than a millisecond to comprehend.  The PG&E consumers responded well because dynamic feedback, or “eco-visualization” aids conservation efforts generally because of the ease of receiving the data.”Cognitive psychologists call this pre-attentive processing viagra on line,” said Ambient Devices President David Rose, “because it uses a part of your brain that happens before your conscious mind attends.Think of it as pure peripheral vision; you receive the information without perceiving it as being taxing.”

More info on the Energy Orb:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4758931/ 

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-08/st_thompson – viagra on line

Ars Scientia is a series of events focused on collaborations between artists and scientists sponsored by the Chicago Cultural Center – accessrx.com.Last night, I participated in a salon called “Exploring Environmentalism with Art and Science”—the session started at 6pm and the discussion lasted in the auditorium until 8:30pm and at the bar next door until about 10pm.

Environmental scientist Liam Heneghan, co director of the Institute for Nature and Culture at DePaul University moderated the discussion and introduced the issues.He began with a thought provoking quotation from Gary Paul Nabhan: “If I had to choose five ambassadors for biodiversity, I would not select scientists; I would choose a singer, a herbalist, a photographer/gardener, and a craft’s promoter “(1997).  This set the stage for the panelists to–ahem–prove themselves “worthy” of this statement.

All of the artists had about five minutes to introduce their work, and their interest in combining art with environmental stewardship.My co-panelist, artist Frances Whitehead discussed her recent project, “The Phenologic Forest” (see picture above) – accessrx.com.This project is pretty complex but displays the untapped abilities of everyday people to contribute to scientific research.  The forest project is focused on what Whitehead calls “citizen science” or harnassing the power of the public to act as grunt data collectors to increase our knowledge of how global warming is altering the times that certain plants, like lilacs, bloom.

Choreographer Carrie Hanson discussed a recent project called “Monument” that her dance company, The Seldoms, recently premiered (picture at top of post).  “Monument” is an entire performance based on trash and landfills.  Carrie had everyone in the audience stand up and develop a brief “dance” that involved inventing gestures to depict one’s throwing out the most recent three pieces of garbage.  What a sight to see about 100 persons doing interpretative dance with imaginary Kleenex and Coke bottles.

The next Ars Scientia event deals directly with visualization issues and thus should interest readers of this blog.  The conversation will feature two fabulous Chicago-based artists and one scientist; accessrx.com.It’s happening in at the Cultural Center on February 9, 2009.  More info below:

Conversation: Structuring Change on February 9, 2009
Artist Inigo Manglano-Ovalle’s technically sophisticated and formally elegant investigations employ forms and systems found in nature — like clouds, icebergs and DNA — to address issues ranging from immigration to cloning to gun violence and climate change He will converse with computational scientist Mark Hereld, Senior Fellow in the Computation Institute (Argonne National Laboratory and University of Chicago) and artist Siebren Versteeg; accessrx.com.