The 3rd 01SJ Biennial will take place September 16-19 cialis online, 2010 in San Jose, CA.The theme of the Biennial is “Build Your Own World.” Prior to the Biennial, from September 4-15, ZER01: the Art and Technology Network, in collaboration with partners from around the world, is inviting independent artists, designers, architects, engineers, programmers, and corporate and academic research programs to publicly work in San Jose’s “South Hall” to create projects for exhibition, performance, provocation, and interaction. This innovative platform is titled Out of the Garage cialis online, Into the World and will build on the dynamic histories of garage hacking and citizen science. Cialis online: tied into this idea of public participation and new creations is the first iteration of the 01SJ Green Prix, an “eco-motion” parade, public workshop, family oriented green activities, and a music program. Cialis online: the Green Prix will be an innovative venue for artists to produce and showcase projects that not only celebrate but challenge sustainable locomotion to reach new limits.Sustainable transportation is not only about being “green”, but commenting on how we move about and travel. ZER01 is inviting an artist or artist team to participate in a public workshop for the Green Prix and imagine not just what is next, but work to ensure what’s next matters.
Copy available also at the 01SJ website: http://zero1.org/01sj/greenprix/workshop
Yesterday I led a second “DIY Solar Sculptures” workshop out at Northern Illinois University. We had about 10 folks attending perhaps due to the fact that it was 70 degrees in Chicago for the first time in several months. Everyone got the king crab kits together pretty quickly and then the hacking began! See this article in the Chronicle for more workshop details buy viagra, and also my website devoted to solar toy hacking, solarcircus.org.
Eclipse is an interactive artwork that alters and corrupts appropriated photographs of United States national and state parks based on real-time Air Quality Index readings from the web (AQI or particle pollution data is available from airnow.gov).Eclipse was commissioned by Turbulence.org and was created by Cary Peppermint and Christine Nadir, who produce ecoarttech.net.
I tried the application out a few times on various parks, then I focused in on looking at pollution as manifested in Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky. Have a look at the images. The lower photo seems to show more yellow and has one thick band as opposed to the multiple thin ones in the image above. What I’m a bit confused about is the way that the air quality is visualized in the photos. The Eclipse website states that the higher the AQI reading, then “the more the park image is corrupted though a set of algorithms that affect color, saturation, and contrast..” However in the Daniel Boone pics, the reading of 18 produces two rather different outcomes. Also, as the air quality is “good” the disruption is kind of severe. I tried a ton of locations and finally found one that registers as a “moderate” on the AQI scale: Eldorado National Park which is near Sacramento, CA. Note below that the screenshot shows slightly wider bands of color. I’m not clear on the difference between moderate and good AQI readings from an info-aesthetic perspective.
The concept of using the Flickr photographs as a baseline reading for pollutant levels from the city nearest the national treasure is quite poetic. I wish that the results of the image processing application were a bit more readable. Maybe carbon monoxide could be represented by one hue and nitric oxide by another? At any rate, go check out this fascinating website and see for yourself.
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/Â
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.
Transmediale is happening this week in Berlin.
I won’t be able to go this year but several projects look interesting so if readers see them please comment! The first is the World Climate Refugee Camp, a public art installation by Hermann Josef Hack. “With climate change we all become nomads”, claims the artist; buy cialis. Buy cialis: global warming, caused by wealthy regions, creates millions of refugees in the poorer regions of our world. Buy cialis: aridity, flooding and other extreme weather conditions force refugees to abandon their homelands.The Climate Refugee Camp, consisting of about 400 small tents, converts Brandenburger Tor and Alexanderplatz in Berlin into symbolic areas of crisis, drawing attention to the plight of refugees – buy cialis. Buy cialis: in addition to this intervention, Hermann Josef Hack also will present the first Climate Refugee Guide, a travel guide for climate refugees.
The other project I’d love to see is Corpora in Si(gh)te (although the title is trying too hard I think).doubleNegatives Architecture (dNA) sets up a number of sensors to form a mesh network throughout the target area—the building of Collegium Hungaricum Berlin—in order to collect and distribute real-time environmental information such as temperature, brightness, humidity, wind direction and sound; buy cialis.The data collected from these sources are processed by a software and in real-time translated into nodes reflecting the sensor network.The fluid character of this architecture occurs as a living form, its shifting structure relates to every environmental change.
This dNA ecoviz project sounds fantastic, and what an amazingly complex work to pull off for a short term festival; buy cialis. Buy cialis: please send word if anyone is able to experience this.
