Results 1 - 12 of 12
Project Persons Year Tags
Active Phytoremediation Wall System Skidmore,Owings, Merrill (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) 2012 hydroponics, plants, buildings, environment, energy saving, rhizome, materials, air refreshing
The Active Phytoremediation Wall System is a modular system of pods, housing hydroponic plants. Its main purpose is to encourage airflow and contribute to the quality of life through its air cleaning capacities. The project is a result of a collaborative research between Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. It is a bio-mechanical hybrid system that produces ‘fresh air’ from within buildings, thereby reducing the energy consumption. Because the plants’ roots are exposed, instead of being buried in soil, the plants’ air-cleaning capacity increases by 200 to 300 percent. The pods themselves are made from vacuum-formed plastic, and the form allows the maximum amount of air to reach the root rhizomes while using the minimum amount of material. It also creates a beautiful base for the plants. The wall system can be installed in large commercial interiors, but works equally well in small settings—a four-module system in an apartment would have the impact of 800 to
Bacterial radio Joe Davis 2012 environment, pollution, radio, cells, genes, electric circuits, bacteria, art, biocircuits, golden nica price
Bacterial Radio, first part of ongoing project envisioning many different kinds of electrical circuits created with bacteria. Circuits are formed from bacteria modified with genes that impart electrical qualities to cells. Bacteria cloned with variants of gene from marine sponges (Tethya aurantia) to chelate electronic circuits on growth media. Variants of Tethya gene optimized to chelate metallic conductors and semiconductors. Genetically modified bacteria and small amounts of growth media containing metal salts embedded in non-conductive materials and induced to plate electrical circuits. Bacterial Radio signifies artistic use of these materials to render music, voice and intellectual content off the air. Bacterial Radio represents safe and pollution-free alternatives to environmentally threatening practices.
Christien Meindertsma Web Page Christien Meindertsma portfolio, artist, inspiration, product, books, knitting, raw materials, life of products, industry, global world, art, design
Christien Meindertsma explores the life of products and raw materials. For her first book, Checked Baggage (2004), Christien purchased a container filled with a week's worth of objects confiscated at security checkpoints in Schiphol Airport after 9/11. She meticulously categorized all 3267 items and photographed them on a white seamless background. Christien’s second book, PIG 05049 (2007), is an extensive collection of photographic images that documents an astounding array of products that different parts of an anonymous pig called 05049 could support. With this book, Christien reveals lines that link raw materials with producers, products and consumers that have become so invisible in an increasingly globalized world.
Grower Sabrina Raaf, (Raaf) 2004 sensors, air, CO2, technology, ecology, data, plant, environment, visualization, robot, art
Translator II: Grower is a small 'rover' vehicle which navigates around the periphery of a room. It hugs the room’s walls and responds to the carbon dioxide levels in the air by actually drawing varying heights of 'grass' on the walls in green ink. The Grower robot senses the carbon dioxide (CO2) level in the air via a small digital CO2 sensor. This sensor is mounted high on a wall of the exhibition space and sends data wirelessly to the robot. The number of people in an exhibit space breathing in oxygen and exhaling CO2 has an immediate effect on the sensor. My robot takes a reading of the CO2 level every few seconds and in response it draws a vertical line in green ink on the wall. The line height pertains directly to the level of CO2 (and therefore also the people traffic) in the space. The more CO2, the higher the line is drawn - the maximum height being 1ft. Once Grower completes a line, it moves forward several millimeters and repeats the process.
Hydramax (FUTURE CITIES LAB) 2012 garden, architecture, buildings, landscape, infrastructure, machine, sensors, robotics, air, solar energy, intelligent buildings, community, water parks, sea, water, urban
Future Cities Lab’s HYDRAMAX Port Machines project proposes a radical rethinking of San Francisco’s urban waterfront post sea-level rise. The proposal renders the existing hard edges of the waterfront as new “soft systems” that would include aquatic parks, community gardens, wildlife refuges and aquaponic farms. A synthetic architecture is introduced that blurs the distinction between building, landscape, infrastructure and machine. Using thousands of sensors and motorized components, the massive urban scale robotic structure harvests rainwater and fog, while modulating air flow, solar exposure and intelligent building systems.
Is there a horizon in the deep water? Helen Evans,Heiko Hansen (HeHe) 2011 bp, gulf of mexico, ocean, oil spill, oil, performance, art, pool
is there a horizon in the deep water? is a performance by HeHe that reconstructs, in miniature, the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in an outdoor swimming pool. This event triggered the BP oil spill, the largest ever recorded marine oil spill, causing immense damage to ocean and coastal wildlife habitats across vast areas in the Gulf of Mexico. Any suggestion that an open-air swimming pool might suffer the same fate as the Gulf of Mexico and become polluted for the sake of art is provocative and absurd. In fact, during the performance harmful or poisonous substances do not contaminate the pool, unless you consider art to be corrosive and corruptive. The work aims to bring home to audiences the significance of the disaster, albeit on a very small scale.
Kibilight Project Several Authors (solafrica org) electricity, diy, fair-trade, solar energy, solar lamp, community, environment
The objective of this project was to train young people living in Kibera slum (Kenya) to assemble portable solar lamps and then test them for daily uses with the intention of starting a small production centre if the pilot phase is a success. The solar lamps will then be produced by these trained young solar technicians and first sold to the local market. A part of the production will be exported to Switzerland and sold as fair-trade. Pre-fabricated lamps will be used as solar energy learning sets in schools and workshops in Switzerland. The youths were also trained to install solar home systems.
Open Columns Omar Khan et al. ( University at Buffalo) architecture, structures, responsive environment, CO2, self-organization, systems, complexity, emergence, adaptability, resilience, nonlinearity, materials, technology, augmented materials
Open Columns is a system of nonstructural columns, made from composite urethane elastomers and can be deployed in a variety of patterns to reconfigure the space beneath them. The system is a mutable architecture that responds to its inhabitants by changing its shape based upon the carbon dioxide (CO2) content in the air. It is capable of learning about its environment by directly acting within it. The genesis of this research and design comes out of an interest in self-organizing systems, which exhibit phenomena of nonlinearity, instability and adaptability. Open Columns is part of a research project exploring computationally inspired and augmented materials for responsive architecture.
Oxygen Curtain Mae Shaban (RAD: Responsive Architecture at Daniels) 2011 air refreshing, autonomy, organisms, environment, water, sensors, CO2, project, nutrients, algae, bioreactor, plant, carbon, oxygen, design
The curtain integrates an efficient organic living carbon sink into an interior space. The curtain produces an amount of oxygen equivalent to a mature broad leaved tree – it is a dramatically enhanced house plant. The curtain is composed of an array of algae bioreactors. A network of indoor air, power and nutrient supply lines weave the bioreactors into a single membrane. The nutrients are supplied by the building’s waste water. The curtain is nourished by the CO2 from the exhalation of the inhabitants. It is directly responsive to the users and the environment; each module operates autonomously and sensors activate select modules as appropriate to the changing levels of CO2 within a space. The modules then expand and contract with circulating air revealing a mechanic-organic organism that is continuously refreshing the air.
Pulser pump Brain White 2010 water pump, water, oil, air, energy, ecology, environment, diy
The pulser pump is a simple, water powered mechanical device, also known as a bubble pump. Components of this pump have been used for various purposes, including the extraction of oil or in refrigeration cycles. Heat driven bubble pumps are most common, but this particular design of a pulser pump using the turbulent flow in a stream to trap air has yet to become common. The two main benefits of this pump are that it has no mechanical or moving parts, and that it doesn't use any chemicals, only the water from a stream. Once installed near a stream, the pump can lift water using only the energy from the stream.
The Body is a Big Place Peta Clancy,Helen Pynor 2012 transplantation, death, biology, bio-art, installation, sculpture, heart, organs, live
‘The Body is a Big Place’ explores organ transplantation and the ambiguous thresholds between life and death, revealing the process of death as an extended durational moment, rather than an event that occurs in a single moment in time. This bio-art work is a large-scale immersive installation comprising a 5-channel video projection, a fully functioning bio-sculptural heart perfusion system, an undulating aqueous soundscape, and a single channel video work. ‘The Body is a Big Place’ re-enacted certain defining aspects of the human heart transplant process. The heart perfusion device was used to reanimate to a beating state a pair of fresh pig hearts in 2 performances staged during the exhibition. Rather than sensationalising these performative events, the artists sought to encourage empathic responses from viewers, activating the bodies of viewers by appealing to their somatic senses and fostering their identification with the hearts they were watching. This opened up the possibility of a deeper awareness and connection with viewers’ own interiors.
The Enteric Consciousness Ken Rinaldo 2010 technology, design, interactive, visualization, installation, robots, biology, organisms, culture, robotics, art
Enteric Consciousness 2010 is a large robotic tongue controlled by an artificial stomach filled with the living bacteria Lactobacillus Acidophulus. The artificial stomach in this installation controls and activates the robotic tongue. If the bacteria within the stomach is healthy and reproducing, then robotic tongue-chair senses the presence of the viewer/interactant reclines and delivers a deluxe 15 minute massage. When the interactant leaves the chair the robot tongue returns to an upright position. The Enteric Consciousness is a commission from the Maison d'Aillieur in Switzerland in 2010 for the Do Robots Dream of Spring retrospective exhibition.