Thursday, September 22, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
The unsung sense: How smell rules your life
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128301.800-the-unsung-sense-how-smell-rules-your-life.html?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg21128301.800
"What's more, it is becoming clear that the brain's olfactory centres are intimately linked to its limbic system, which is involved in emotion, fear and memory. That suggests a link between smell and the way we think.
The power of smell will be no news to estate agents, who often advocate the smell of baking bread or brewing coffee to promote the sale of a house. But there are more subtle and surprising effects too. For instance, when Hendrick Schifferstein from Delft University of Technology and colleagues pumped the smell of orange, seawater or peppermint into a nightclub, the revellers partied harder - they danced more, rated their night as more enjoyable, and even thought the music was better - than when there was no added scent (Chemosensory Perception, vol 4, p 55). Rob Holland and colleagues at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, meanwhile, have found that the hint of aroma wafting out of a hidden bucket of citrus-scented cleaner was enough to persuade students to clean up after themselves - even though the vast majority of them hadn't actually registered the smell (Psychological Science, vol 16, p 689)."
New York Calling
http://www.core77.com/gallery/talk-to-me-2011/24.asp
City: What a Hundred Million Calls to 311 Reveal About NYC
Originally published in Wired magazine in 2010, Pitch Interactive's data visualizations illuminate complex sets of information in a way that is dynamic, accessible, and visually eloquent. NYC's 311 call center, which receives more than 50,000 calls each day, offers citizens information on school closings, recycling rules, etc. and fields complaints on anything from property taxes to rodents. In an undulating, colorful graphic, Pitch Interactive plotted the most common complaints by time of day, exposing what irks New Yorkers at all hours of the day and night. www.pitchinteractive.com
Design: Wesley Grubbs and Mladen Balog
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Visited: 'The Price of Altruism' @ RSA
"Survival of the fittest or survival of the nicest?
Since the dawn of time man has contemplated the mystery of altruism, but it was Darwin who posed the question most starkly. From the selfless ant to the stinging bee to the man laying down his life for a stranger, evolution has yielded a goodness that in theory should never be.
Academic and author Oren Harman visits the RSA to tell the moving story of the eccentric American genius George Price, who strove to answer evolution's greatest riddle. Different and driven to succeed, Price was a gifted polymath with a Zelig-like ability to be part of much of the seminal science of the twentieth century. But it was tackling Darwin’s great mystery where he finally made his most dramatic discovery.
Ultimately a homeless recluse, he had caught a glimpse of a deep and scary truth about humanity. From the heights of the Manhattan Project to the inspired, soul-shaking equation that explains altruism, to the depths of homelessness and despair, Price's life embodies the paradoxes of Darwin’s enigma. His tragic suicide in a squatter’s flat, among the vagabonds to whom he gave all his possessions, provides the ultimate contemplation on the possibility of genuine benevolence."
Since the dawn of time man has contemplated the mystery of altruism, but it was Darwin who posed the question most starkly. From the selfless ant to the stinging bee to the man laying down his life for a stranger, evolution has yielded a goodness that in theory should never be.
Academic and author Oren Harman visits the RSA to tell the moving story of the eccentric American genius George Price, who strove to answer evolution's greatest riddle. Different and driven to succeed, Price was a gifted polymath with a Zelig-like ability to be part of much of the seminal science of the twentieth century. But it was tackling Darwin’s great mystery where he finally made his most dramatic discovery.
Ultimately a homeless recluse, he had caught a glimpse of a deep and scary truth about humanity. From the heights of the Manhattan Project to the inspired, soul-shaking equation that explains altruism, to the depths of homelessness and despair, Price's life embodies the paradoxes of Darwin’s enigma. His tragic suicide in a squatter’s flat, among the vagabonds to whom he gave all his possessions, provides the ultimate contemplation on the possibility of genuine benevolence."
George Price
I listened to this after going to a talk called 'The Price of Altruism' at the RSA by Oren Harman and Matthew Taylor.
Producer: Peter Everett.
'Humankind' on Radio 4 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012wxyl
Louise Mensch MP calls for Twitter and Facebook blackout during riots
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8697850/Louise-Mensch-MP-calls-for-Twitter-and-Facebook-blackout-during-riots.html
Fear of the internet
Power of the internet
Internet Vs. Government
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Cally Festival / Postcard Project
For the Cally Festival we had postcards printed of Caledonian road for people to take home with them. The were kindly printed by Dodd's on King's Cross Road.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
The Cally Festival
I helped to organise this. A community festival. 3rd July 2011, Caledonian Road, London. Such an amazing day!
Entrance to the festival. Mario came with 100's of plants!
Street buskers and a juggling granny!
Music stage
Beginnings of the mural on the side of RSPCA shop
This disused shop became a pop-up gallery.
Miles and miles of bunting and flags outside the Cally Festival HQ shop.Loads more, much better, photos HERE by Steph Wood.
(making something out of nothing)
Friday, August 19, 2011
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Colour
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14421303
"In an experiment testing the relationship between emotions and colour we discovered that nearly every adult assigned yellow to happiness, blue to sadness and red to anger (surprise and fear, which are the other two universal emotions, had no obvious colour). While children showed the same trend, their choices were far more mixed and variable.
On the other hand nearly everyone (young and old) showed a similar relationship between colour and sound, where lower notes are thought to be best represented as dark blue and higher notes as bright yellow.
In other words people seem to have internal mental maps between colour and other perceptual qualities, such as sound and form. Amazing when these relationships do not exist in nature.
.........
"In another experiment we asked people to put 49 coloured blocks on a surface area of 49 spaces. They had no other instruction.
The number of possible images that could have been created was 10 raised to the power of 62 - a huge number.
What's remarkable is that people made patterns that were largely predictable, because everyone grouped colours together according to similarity. Why?
Because we have an inherent need for structure, and in particular structures that are familiar, in this case structures that are similar to the mathematics of the images of nature.
In yet another experiment that really looked at the fundamentals of colour vision, we asked whether there might be individual differences in simply detecting light.
What we discovered is that not only are women more sensitive than men, but also women who feel they have a stronger sense of control are significantly better than those women who feel powerless.
Remarkable really when one remembers that we're just talking about light detection.
We also examined whether colour can actually alter our sense of a minute.
Our initial observations suggested that a minute takes longer for men than for women… about 11 seconds longer on average.
But a minute took longer for men and women when surrounded by red light, as compared to blue light.
This effect is likely to be linked to arousal since it is well-known that red and blue create different states of arousal in men and women alike."
Friday, August 5, 2011
Getting old
"
As Leon Trotsky put it: "Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that happen to a man." Behavioural thinkers believe that most people are incapable of imagining themselves getting old, one reason why people fail to invest sufficiently in a pension.
.....
Living longer is one thing, but the quality of the extra years is what counts, he believes. And no-one knows if these extra years will be spent working for longer and being mentally and physically active, or finding oneself frail and bed-ridden.
"We may not be able to expect people to work much longer than they already are," Read warns. "If the productive years remain about the same but the lifespan expands that becomes a major issue for society."
The novelist Martin Amis argued last year that the answer might be "euthanasia booths on every street corner". As he explained at a public Q&A session the swelling ranks of the elderly would not only be a drain on resources for younger generations, but lead to an undignified end to one's life.
......
"The progress has been astonishing," he notes. For the last 50 or so years life expectancy has been increasing at a rate of six hours a day."
"
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
negatives into positives
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/arts/05iht-design5.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1295813940-2VAepqeBDorsxPBuThy+Tg
"EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDS — One student suggested designing a computer virus to help, rather than hinder, our efforts to use digital technology, by editing all of the personal information that is posted on the Internet. Worried that a prospective employer might spot a long-forgotten photo on Facebook taken while you were drunk or whatever? Problem solved.
Another student favored cultivating a fungus to destroy some of the plastics that are threateningto clog up landfill sites for centuries to come. The fungus, or so his theory went, would “eat” the plastic and purify any toxic remains."
Friday, July 22, 2011
Wave Data Installation
This installation draws information from the intensity and movement of the water in a remote location. Wave data is being collected in real-time from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data buoy Station 46246 (49°59’7″ N 145°5’20″ W) on the Pacific Ocean.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Big Ideas
"World community"
"Politicians and policy makers can be influenced by illustrating an idea"
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Visited: See Yourself Sensing: Redefining Human Perception @ WORK
"As daily life becomes increasingly mediated by technology, there is a growing interest in the original interface between human consciousness, the body, and the outside world: the senses. See Yourself Sensing: Redefining Human Perception brings together a combination of young and established artists and designers to show work that pushes boundaries both conceptually and technically, harnessing existing and developing technologies to challenge our perceptions of ourselves, and the ways we communicate and inhabit space.
Using anything from elaborate robotics and slick product design, to experimental scientific procedures and prosthetics, the artists and designers engaged in this field destabilise distinctions between mind and body, and blur boundaries between organic and artificial, internal and external, and public and private. And indeed, between fiction and fact.
Whether hi-tech or lo-fi, this work deals with human emotions and senses. Ranging from the practical to the fantastic and absurd, the futuristic projections of this cross-section of designers and artists whose practices envision new ways of relating to and experiencing the world around us provide glimpses of strange new tomorrows in which humans and technology coexist - often within the same body.
The exhibition looks at the material spatially, from the body outwards to three-dimensional space. Exhibits in which body and device become one, or are so closely linked as to be almost indistinguishable from one another, are shown alongside those that, in some way, impact upon the space around us. Others that examine how we engage with our immediate suuroundings and how we interact are exhibited side-by-side with those that play without senses and feelings, sometimes enhancing—sometimes disorientating—our perceptions.
Simultaneously playful and incisive, these propositions inevitably produce more questions than answers, inviting critical dialogue on issues such as bioethics, simulated reality, post-humanism and genetic modification. Artists and designers in this field constantly push boundaries, sometimes working at the edges of conventional respectability, challenging our most basic assumptions about our own bodies and minds.
Curated by Marianne Templeton and Kate Trant, See Yourself Sensing: Redefining Human Perception has been developed in conjunction with the publication of the same name, authored by Madeline Schwartzman, and released in June 2011 by Black Dog Publishing."
From here.
I also bought the book which is really cool.
Visited: Folly for a Flyover
Last year, architecture collective Assemble CIC were one of the winners of the Groups Fund with their project Cineroleum – a cinema in a disused petrol station. This summer’s project, Folly for a Flyover, is even more ambitious: a pop-up building under a flyover on the A12, hosting cinema, performance and workshops.
More information here -
Masamichi Souzou
Masamichi Souzou is a New Kind of Company. We solve for human happiness.
In a world where everything is connected, there no system, activity, or interaction, that falls outside our purview. And through the appropriate consideration of every part of this beautifully complex world we work to optimize for human happiness.
Masamichi Souzou from J. Paul Neeley on Vimeo.
http://www.masamichisouzou.com/index.php
Masamichi Souzou: Everything Considered
"For the past six months, J. Paul Neeley has been tinkering with the many variables of his daily life - from sleeping patterns, to exercise regime and diet - in an attempt to optimize his happiness. Having removed seating from his life almost entirely in the process, J. Paul walks well over 10km a day whilst working atop a treadmill. His concept "Masamichi Souzou" proposes to offer such happiness optimisation as a service."
Sound map: the Caledonian Road
Award winning broadcaster and oral historian Alan Dein walks us down the Caledonian Road, telling the story of the north London street through the voices of the people who live and work on it.
This is wicked. Ties in a lot with my ongoing interest in oral history and ethnography.
Wish I'd seen it before, although I suppose it makes a lot more sense after having worked on Cally Road.
Am I becoming Cally obsessed? Possibly...
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
An Area of Outstanding Unnatural Beauty / Richard Wentworth
"An Area of Outstanding Unnatural Beauty" 2002, put on by Artangel.
This bit of writing from an old Telegraph article seems to paint a good picture of what the exhibition was like was like plus the general motivations behind it -
"In his comprehensive deconstruction of King's Cross, Wentworth moves not only across the streets, up into the air and down under the ground, but also backwards in time. Among the historical maps on show is one made in the late 19th century indicating areas of poverty and affluence across London.....
When you have absorbed these lessons in urban history, it is time to take a few minutes to watch Wentworth's videos. These sound un-watchable but are actually well made and don't last long. One simply follows a plane as it leaves a vapour trail in the sky above King's Cross Station; another wittily documents the deft artistry of workmen from the highways department painting road markings.
In these films Wentworth metaphorically states the theme of the show: that London is a kind of blank sheet on which everyone is writing, all of the time. Every generation leaves its mark on the living, changing city. We make it our own.
Wentworth's installation for Artangel will mimic this process. What I saw on the day of the opening is just the basic structure of a work that will change and grow from day to day as more and more material is added to it.
To ensure that the display doesn't become museumy and moribund, Wentworth has set up a half a dozen ping pong tables and announced the first King's Cross table tennis tournament. Anyone can drop by at any time of the day and pick up a game. For the next few months at least, General Plumbing Supplies will function like a neighbourhood social club.
Thanks to Wentworth's engaging, humorous take on everything he touches, the show is hugely entertaining - so much so that I forgot to ask myself what it all had to do with art. Then, after I'd left the show and stepped out into York Way, I realised that the work of art wasn't to be found on the premises of General Plumbing Supplies, but in the streets around me.
As I walked back to my car, I noticed the Italianate villa from which taxis are despatched at the side of King's Cross station. I stopped to read faded signs for shops that vanished long ago, and peered into old-fashioned cafes cheerfully dishing up the kind of food the Brussels health police will soon make it a criminal offence to serve.
Above your head you see planes you hadn't noticed before, and at your feet you become alert to the sheer complexity of road markings we spend our whole lives obeying, and yet never really see.
Wentworth's genius is to make us see the world from the fresh and original perspectives that he does, and to make us aware that, if London is a living city, it is simultaneously a dying one. Places we have known all our lives will become a memory in 10 years' time."
Full article here - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3582251/View-of-streets-we-never-see.html
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
Urban Stargazing by Oscar Lhermitte
French-born, london-based product designer oscar lhermitte has created 'urban stargazing', a series of
12 artificial constellations depicting traditional and contemporary myths around the city of london.recognizing the current downward trajectory of city dwellers and their attention for stars, the project
seeks to refocus their presence in the night sky by installing new and site-specific constellations that
can be observed with the naked eye.
constructed out of ø 0.6mm nylon line, ø 0.2mm polyethylene braid, ø 0.75 mm fibre optics and
LED lights, the 'stars' are fixed to their location using telescopic catapults. secured by nearby trees,
the lights are charged by tiny solar panels during the day and automatically switches on when it is dark
enough to see. each design references a specific story that is relevant to the city of london, such as
'the mosquito' which relates to the unique species of the insects discovered in the london underground
in 1985, and 'the irish giant and hunter', after british surgeon john hunter and his work with the corpse
of charles o'brien, a 2.34 meter tall giant who's skeleton rests at the hunterian museum in lincoln's inn fields.
'urban stargazing' was conceived for the royal college of art summer show and will be on view until
3 july, 2011. for more information on the project and to do a star gazing walking tour, click here. - From DesignBoom
Solar Sinter by Markus Kayser
london-based markus kayser, a masters candidate in design products at the royal college of art, converts the raw resources
of sunlight and sand into glass products with his fully automated, solar-powered 'solar sinter' 3D printer.
the device works from the same technique of sintering that is common to most 3D printer processes,
heating a powder (here silicia sand) to its melting point and letting it cool and solidify (here into glass).
'solar sinter' utilizes the sun's rays in place of a laser to selectively heat parts of the sand.
the device moves automatically, positioning itself in proper focus relative to the sun's rays;
and by continually sweeping new layers of fresh sand over the selectively melted down parts,
kayser builds up a 3-dimensional product.
kayser created and tested a manually operated 'solar sinter' in february 2011, before producing the fully automated,
computer-driven version depicted here during two weeks of testing in the sahara desert. the machine utilizes replicatorG
opensource software. - From DesignBoom
of sunlight and sand into glass products with his fully automated, solar-powered 'solar sinter' 3D printer.
the device works from the same technique of sintering that is common to most 3D printer processes,
heating a powder (here silicia sand) to its melting point and letting it cool and solidify (here into glass).
'solar sinter' utilizes the sun's rays in place of a laser to selectively heat parts of the sand.
the device moves automatically, positioning itself in proper focus relative to the sun's rays;
and by continually sweeping new layers of fresh sand over the selectively melted down parts,
kayser builds up a 3-dimensional product.
kayser created and tested a manually operated 'solar sinter' in february 2011, before producing the fully automated,
computer-driven version depicted here during two weeks of testing in the sahara desert. the machine utilizes replicatorG
opensource software. - From DesignBoom
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)