Living in a robot

Victor Vetterlein's Reboot is a self-sufficient and eco-friendly house. The building is constructed with a space frame, and the outer skin increases structural strength through double curvature. The skin system consists of a vapor barrier, dense foam insulation, and metal sheathing where the exterior face is glazed in solar cell paint. The surface of the building serves as a solar energy collector.



Supplemental electricity is provided by on-site wind turbines and energy is stored in batteries on Deck 1. Wind power is also used to pressurize a large canister to operate the hydraulic elevator and the water treatment system. The smooth outer skin of the building acts as a foil against adverse weather conditions, and the rooftop serves as a water collection surface where rainwater runs into a drain located above the resin laminated glass windows. The water is stored in holding tanks positioned below the Main Deck and managed by an in-house water treatment system on Deck 2. Natural ventilation is provided by operable vents located at the top and the bottom of the structure. Lastly, the building’s mechanical systems are stacked on two floors above the Ground level eliminating the need for massive ground penetrations and a large site footprint.

See also his robotic furniture design!

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure

A village on the ice

Antarctic Village by Orta Studio is a symbol of the plight of those struggling to transverse borders and to gain the freedom of movement necessary to escape political and social conflict.



Dotted along the ice, the tents formed a settlement reminiscent of the images of refugee camps we see so often reported about on our television screens and newspapers. Physically the installation Antarctic Village is emblematic of Ortas’ body of work, composed of what could be termed modular architecture and reflecting qualities of nomadic shelters and campsites. More on Orta's web site.

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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Cultural Chicago advertisement!

Icelandic Rift by new media artist Sabrina Raaf

Cultural Chicago is a community site for the arts based in Chicago. The online journal offers the possibility for readers to contribute with local cultural news. Among other things, it advertises Chicago artists, exhibitions, art events and allows readers to create a local community by sharing similar interests through a forum, regular posts and bookmarks. I wish such a journal existed in Boston. Combining the sharing of local art events with informative interviews to a social network is kind of unique.

Reading and subscribing to the journal, I discovered the spectacular work of Sabrina Raaf on creative machines capable of generating unique and unpredictable manifestations of art.



In her interview by Cultural Chicago, Sabrina Raaf explains:
"Technology (software and hardware) is not only a means or set of tools. It does also necessitate a type of logic-based thinking in order to use it and subvert it creatively. You really have to be a person who is innately fascinated by new technologies in order to be able to suffer through the learning curves and endless upgrades. But, ultimately, new technologies offer an endless string of more and more powerful and flexible tools to make art with. Even beyond that, they offer a new language to speak to viewers with; there are nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc., that artists haven’t ever strung together before in the service of art. And, that’s something really exciting."

Grower is a piece that responds to the carbon dioxide levels in the air generated by human breath. It draws individual blades of grass along a wall in varying heights in accordance to the amount of carbon dioxide present. As such it functions as a real time display on people attendance to the art space!



Dry Translator, a sculptural installation piece, is built in response to new trends in ‘smart architecture.’ Smart technology is being created for enhanced human interaction and control of one’s work and home environments. Interestingly what excites many is not the necessarily the enhancement of control, but really more the idea of intelligent responsiveness and heightened personal connection with the rooms they inhabit, dixit Sabrina Raaf.

In the journal I also enjoyed reading the interview of Colleen Plumb, Nature in Urban Spaces. The artist "examines nature in the urban environment, seeking to examine the relationship humans have with animals, how we coexist with the natural world, and the disappearance of it within the urban space."


Lobby with trees by Colleen Plumb

Being a video game addict at the same time than loving being lost in the countryside, I am always puzzled by criticism on a virtual reality that drives us from our physical reality. Reading this interview was refreshing and the following image by Colleen Plumb talks for itself. The overgrown tree squeezed within walls to provide a relief to humans, an experience of nature, recreated and artificial for the sake of us feeling/being connected to nature.


Laundromat

"We live in a time of games and virtual experiences which I find funny, sad, and, I guess, a reality. What effect could this be having on people? I guess representations are created due to a lack of the actual. We certainly can't walk through a forest of bamboo trees in downtown Chicago. It seems that almost real will suffice most of the time. It must provide relief, these fabrications, otherwise they would not be so popular: The Rainforest Café. Well, the trees here are real—they are in a fake habitat, a lobby, and seem to be thriving. - Colleen Plumb"



By Architectradure

Poetic chairs

I stumbled upon Stuhlhockerbank by Yvonne Fehling and Jennie Peiz. For a public use of architecture merging chair and stool into seat elements, the life of the sitting place becomes engraved in the artist' sculpture. The chairs are discombobulated.




By Architectradure

Children's toys

Toys always invite for reflection, but toys within the contemporary art context bring another dimension. I select these ones featured on Artnet.

I also author another blog that reflects this passion of mine!


Therapeutic children's toys by Renate Müller & Helene Haeusler, 1960.
Materials: Canvas, leather, wear

A 39cm high camel, a dice of 29.5 x 30 x 32 cm and an Hippopotamus of 35 x 75 x 34 cm.


Detail Song of the Finsh (The Bride) Jigsaw Puzzle by Isabel Samaras. The stories of Monsters and the mystical lives they lead ...



Benny and Red Bird Color Version by Kathy Olivas

(...) Many of the toys show a meticulous care in their creation; they are mechanically functional and cleverly conceived to move, lift or turn. I consider them to be truly remarkable in their abilities to function as well as being aesthetically pleasing. The enormous creative potential inherent in each piece became a challenge that I could not resist. Initially the toys were seen as individual objects, as the series developed, so did the thematic complexity. I did not realize that it would lead me on a journey of re-discovering my own childhood - Sidney Menkes

By Architectradure

A special chandelier

Back from the ICA with Adam, I was struck by the work designer Tobias Wong a provocateur who creates the unexpected from the everyday and the everyday from the unexpected as he was being introduced during the exhibition, but I also think it is more than. What is so special about such art and craft work is to feel inspired in experiencing the work.

The object is special. It takes a refined sensitivity from the artist to make the careful design decisions exhibited by this piece. In the black shade chandelier, a classical design is made new by a switch between the form of the candelabra and the candle. These are two different objects, two different materials that create a single form in glass and insist on the simple mechanism of an oil lamp. These subtleties are the decisions that I love in this work.

In the exhibition was also presented the Disposable Crystal Cup, a sixteen-ounce paper cup printed with a trompe l’oeil crystal pattern. In this piece I felt Tobias Wong took the epidemic of the thrown away and juxtaposed it with the ultimate of luxury imagery.


Tobiad Wong also created this traditional crystal chandelier encapsulated in industrial white rubber

By Architectradure

A portent of human augmentation

Greasy Spoon, 2007 by Brian Walker

In our cyborg world, I think it would be nice if prosthesis could mean expanding human skills or on a contrary re-creating fragile and powerless human sculptures.

Examples of prostheses

Researchers explored the ability of the skin to acquire and process information rivaling our senses of sight and hearing. The e-skin lab researches on tactile interfaces consisting both of sensors and actuators: wearable artificial skins as a navigation aid in space.

The Rheo Knee made by Ossur adapts to an individual's walking style by detecting 1,000 times every second the knee's position and the load applied to the limb. The user gets the proper amount of resistance for every step.
Via wired

Victhom's urinary implant, a catheter-free, fully implanted pacemaker for the bladder. If trials go well, it could help 800 million people worldwide with bladder dysfunctions caused by spinal cord injury.

Durom™ Hip Resurfacing a joint replacement system that offers "freedom" of movement.

The cyberhand gives amputees the ability to use thought to move and grasp naturally, even to feel whatever the device touches.

A nanotechnology developed at MIT can "knit" together damaged neurons. Researchers have already restored sight to rodents and they believe the technique might also help repair injured spinal cords

Penn State developed the first fully implantable artificial heart, and in 2000 AbloMed acquired rights to further develop the technology. It is FDA approved only for emergency use and the company hopes to have broader approval by 2008. Eventually, researchers hope it can be a long-term solution for heart failure patients.

Current research on technological prostheses by Hugh Herr -director of the bio mechatronics group at the MIT Media Laboratory- transforms the perception a person wearing a prosthesis has of his artificial body part. While the mechanical properties of conventional passive prostheses remain fixed with walking speed and terrain, this research explores the prosthesis not just as a passive object, but also as an extension of the body. The prosthesis enables additional mechanical energy for forward propulsion of an ankle as well as controlling the ankle joint impedance.

The rehabilitation institute of Chicago made a biohybrid arm that allows amputees to move the prosthetic by thought alone.

For patients who have lost the use of their arms, scientists at the Cleveland FES Center are developing functional electrical stimulation systems.

Harvard and Massachisetts General Hospital researchers are developing an implantable artificial electrolarynx communication system for patients who have had a complete laryngectomy. The technology includes a neural interface and hands-free control of a natural sounding voice prosthesis.

Advanced Bionics made a cochlear implant that sends sounds directly to the auditory nerve instead of amplifying sound like a regular hearing aid.

IIP technologies and Intelligent Medical Implants made a retinal implant that bridges and replaces the processing function of a defective retina. Using it some blind persons can regain partial vision and orientation, even in unfamiliar surroundings.

A silicon hippocampus replacement could eventually replace damaged areas of the brain. Currently being developed by scientists at the University of Southern California.

Cyberkinetics created Braingate, a neuroprosthetic system with a patch that attaches directly to neurons in the brain to sense electrical signals. The sensor sends signals that can move a computer cursor or flip a switch.

Living bacteria have been incorporated into an electronic circuit to produce a supersensitive humidity sensor. Similar devices could one day be made that take greater advantage of living organisms, perhaps even using bacteria's energy systems to power electrical devices. Via We make money not art.

Microsoft Research filed a patent on power and data transmission through the human body. The human body is used as a conductive medium, which distributes power and/or data by coupling a power source to the human body via a first set of electrodes. In this case, the body acts as a computer network.


Don't forget to check out the insightful Prosthetic Impulse: From a Posthuman Present to a Biocultural Future

The prosthesis is not a mere extension of the human body; it is the constitution of this body qua “human.”
—Bernard Steigler,Technics and Time


Natalie Portman by freaking news.

Bootleg objects

Rebraun by Marcus Wolf + Marcus Bader

Designed in 1962 by Dieter Rams, the “Audio 1 Kompaktanlage” is a milestone of german post-war design. It embodies, even more than its predecessor, the famous “snow-white’s coffin”, the design ideals of the rationalist “Ulm School”. These sober paradigms of utility and matter-of-factness are playfully remodelled in the “ReBraun”: Two TFT-Displays take the place of the radio scales, the lettering on the anodised front plate ironically quotes the lingo of the radio era. A randomly positioned button, labelled “Zufall” (Randomness) stands for the freedom from mechanical constraints. The antenna does not receive any FM radio, but is used to connect the system to the internet via Wireless LAN. The case and acrylic hood were lowered by several centimetres for sporty reasons (think: hot rod!), and the window that formerly contained a signal strength readout now becomes a tabernacle for the old Braun nameplate.

A phono-radio without the phono, a cassette receiver sans cassette, and a non-turning turntable are the first three pieces in a series called “Bootleg Objects”. Obviously, something has been stolen here from these three right honorable design classics. Or rather, was something added?

Home

Nao Matsunaga | Conversation Part 2

Everyday objects and architecture have symbolic meanings that we have come to accept and rely on, as if they are the norm and there is no alternative. They create a sense/illusion of a place where what we expect from our world and what is expected from us are seemingly set. I feel that my job is to remind myself and others that this is not always the case. --Nao Matsunaga

Object Artistically Modified

Stéphane Vigny, Mécanique Populaire. For this installation, an electric drill becomes a skipping rope.

I discovered the work of Stéphane Vigny at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Mixing minimalism to mainstream objects, he produces subversive pieces. I love his work that I find humorous as much as alarming.

Camping sauvage

Camping Sauvage (projet), Tentes igloos, toile de spi, ballon météo, hélium, 100 x 200 x 200 cm chacune, 2006.

I love this art proposal from La Guardia. Because free camping is forbidden in France, La Guardia decided to create a new genre of tents, still attached to the ground using ropes tied to stakes, but the tent itself is floating in the air. This allows anyone to camp without law infraction as well as being suitable in any type of landscape environment.

A nice place to hang out

Falling Garden, San Staë church on the Canale Grande, 50th Biennial of Venice, 2003

A nice place to hang out ... in 2003!

The Doge (Mocenigo) needed a church so as to be able to have a monumental tomb built for himself, the church (San Staë) needed a saint so as to be able to be built, the saint (San Eustachio) needed a miracle so as to be pronounced a saint, the miracle needed a stag in order to be seen, and we built the garden for the reindeer.
The visitors lie on the bed above the doge’s gravestone, and the garden thinks for them.

More info

The next step for Tangible Media research

Photography by Jean-Yves Lemoigne

Display

Sanggil Kim, display, Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art #3, 2007.

Exhibition FLASH CUBE, July 5 - September 30, 2007, at Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, 747-18, Hanam-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, Korea 140-893. Via E-flux

The exhibition Flash Cube will chart a series of such spatial research strategies implicating a diversity of artistic points of departure such as fluid inner space, open urban space and installative space. The various photographic strategies will be mutually confronted in a transformative way in the exhibition's methodology of mounting (floorplan) - underscored by Rem Koolhaas’ unique non-perspectivist display system of Leeum's exhibition space - so that both spatial reflection and spatial experience can occur in dynamic and invigorating ways.

Cable carpet

Britta Böhne's Cable Carpet.

Why hide cable clutter when you can embrace it and make it an integral part of your environment? The cable's path is cut into the carpet, but there's also an insert that the cable snaps into to hold it in place. More after the jump. Britta has a placeholder website here.

Thank you Touching the city for the link! Also more info on Moco Loco

A breathing robot

Few weeks ago, I carried in my arms Omo, Kelly Dobson's new companion robot. A very therapeutic robot, it expands and matches your breathing. Made of rubber, shaped like an egg to be carried in your arms, it feels soft and alive.

Omo is an alternative relational object. While similar to "carebots" and companion robots, Omo draws on ongoing Machine Therapy work revealing the psychological, social, and political dynamics between people and machines. As a result, Omo's role is empathic and sometimes unexpected rather than normative. Omo breathes and senses the breathing of anyone interacting closely with it, matching—or seeking to lead—patterns of breathing. Omo does not always privilege soothing.

Shell

[The other's eyes] turn to me a liquid pool waiting for unforseeable disturbances. They are more naked than the flesh without pelt or hide, without clothing. ... They are more naked than things can be, than walls bared of their adornments and revolvers stripped of their camouflage; they bare a substance susceptible and vulnerable. Their nudity exposes them to whatever message I may want to impose, whatever offense I can contrive - Alphonso Lingis, Foreign Bodies, p171.

In shell, I tailored a plastic envelop of a human body, envelop that is then discarded. The plastic fabric is carved with textural information. Its transparence resembles a ghost, its undefined junctions and closed top suggest a metamorphosis rather than a piece of clothing. It is an object that has been depersonalized by being discarded in public.

Attached to a long stick, it floats in the wind, linking the experience of the playground (yard), the uncomfortable cocoon (the shell) and academic knowledge (the Widener library at Harvard University).

Music performance: water walk

In 1960 John Cage appears in a popular TV show and performs the music piece water walk. He uses sounds of everyday objects to compose. His carefulness and very precise actions show that he must have rehearsed hundred of times to perform his piece. Via multimedialab.

Video


Recently, Nicholas Knouf created an interactive version of John Cage's graphical score Variations 2, called Variations 10b. I tried it during an exhibition at the Lewis Music Library at MIT and found the interface very convincing. The interface allows a performer to change the score and get immediate feedback as to the result. Nicholas hopes that both listeners and performers will develop a more nuanced understanding of the score through the use of the interface.

Paper on variations 10b.


Three dots activated in a performance

Almost Safe

Deconstruction, 2007; Low Tide, 2007 by Anthony Goicolea

In his new show "Almost Safe," photographer Anthony Goicolea presents digitally-composed, black-and-white images of a shattered earth. The artist portrays a world that bears the wounds of globalization, war, and a crippled environment. Only these wastelands are left in their wake. Goicolea has composited images taken at several disaster sites, adding elements (like power lines across an ocean rock formation) that seem out-of-place or just barely plausible. In Deconstruction, ominous dark clouds form over an office building that's been halved in two and thrown across a beach. In Black Ice, a car is shown leaving a post-apocalyptic cityscape that's maybe part-New York City and part-Oz. This world is only half-real, but the more you look at Goicolea's constructions, the less impossible they seem. - Christopher Bartley

"Almost Safe" opens April 28 and runs through June 2, 2007 at Postmasters Gallery, NYC.
More info

Via V magazine

Inspiring book : the Prosthetic Impulse

The Prosthetic Impulse: From a Posthuman Present to a Biocultural Future, by Marquard Smith and Joanne Morra, eds. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2006.

The prosthesis is not a mere extension of the human body; it is the constitution of this body qua “human.”
—Bernard Steigler,Technics and Time

With every tool man is perfecting his own organs, whether motor or sensory, or is removing the limits to their functioning. . . . Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God.When he puts on all his auxiliary organs, he is truly magnificent; but these organs have not grown on to him, and they still give him trouble at times. . . . Future ages will bring with them new and probably unimaginable great advances in this field of civilization and will increase man’s likeness to God still more. But in the interests of our investigations, we will not forget that present-day man does not feel happy in his Godlike character.
—Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

The first chapter can be downloaded here