You are currently browsing the grinding.be archives for January, 2010.
Criminally under-appreciated Canadian director Vincenzo Natali (Cube) is making a welcome return to the big screen, with Splice.
This clip seems to be the online footage at the moment.
In fact, the film’s yet to be picked up for distribution – so keep an eye out at your local film festival, it might be your only chance to see it.
You can, however, watch this interview with Natali, where he talks not only Splice, but also his plans to adapt JG Ballard’s High Rise:
Outlaw Biology, present by the UCLA Center for Society and Genetics and Art/Sci, presented a symposium, workshop and exhibition this weekend.
A symposium exploring new forms of public participation in biological research, raising questions and cultivating ideas about how life could and should be studied. Panelists will address issues including do-it-yourself biology, open source science, at home medical genetics, bio-art, and novel ethical engagements with science at the cutting edge. Event schedule includes: Friday, a panelist discussion with artists, scientists and normal people; Saturday, workshops and an open-house exhibition throughout.
A tentative list of workshops and exhibitions included:
1. Bioweathermap, Jason Bobe. With field-trips to the UCLA Arboretum and Hammer Museum (in cooperation with Machine Project
2. Learn to Design a DNA-based nanostructure using cadnano software, Philip Lukeman
3. Paint colorful microbes – luminescent, fluorescent, and pigmented – on do-it-yourself solid media. With a little time and luck, we’ll preserve the painted results in epoxy, like microbiological paintings in amber, Mackenzie Cowell
4. SKDB: Learn to use software tools for open source manufacturing and bioengineering, Bryan Bishop and Ben Lipkowitz
5. Use of Acinetobacter calcoaceticus strain ADP1 as a DIY bioengineering platform, David Metzgar
6. Ars Synthetica: Have an informed, ethical, and open dialogue on the emerging field of synthetic biology, Gaymon Bennett
7. Extract DNA from Strawberries, CSG Staff
8. Lactobacillus Plasmid Recovery and Visualization for fun and profit, Meredith L. Patterson
9. DIY Webcam Microscopy. Join us for a worldwide webcam hacking event and make your own 100x USB microscope for less than $10. We’ll provide the webcams and a live internet feed from other workshop locations across the world, from Bangalore to Australia. Find out more at diybio.org/ucam
10. Velolab, See the first Bicyclized Mobile Biology lab, Sam Starr
Created by artist Dan Perjovschi, The Everyday Drawing, which occupied two floors of the Sucrière:
Everyday, the artist sent by email a drawing inspired by what made the headlines of the press. The Biennale staff then erased one of the drawings on the black board and dutifully copied the new one instead. Cynical, spot-on, the commentary responds to the latest news while addressing at the same time the -alas immutable- issues of our time: the distribution of wealth, globalisation, religion, migrations, the art market, global warming.
Link and photo via we-make-money-not-art.com.
Rock, paper scissors for the next generation:
This month’s issue of tee-magazine T-post is maybe the weirdest shirt I’ve ever seen. It looks normal (and pretty nice, actually) in real life, but when worn in front of a webcam hooked up to T-post’s special web app, a ghostly, green hand emerges from it and challenges you to a game of Rochambeau.
Via core77.com.
In preparation for February’s Association of the US Army Winter Conference, Lockheed Martin has released a promotional video of the company’s proposed HULC (Human Universal Load Carrier) powered exoskeleton.
The HULC is a completely un-tethered, hydraulic-powered anthropomorphic exoskeleton that provides users with the ability to carry loads of up to 200 lbs for extended periods of time and over all terrains. Its flexible design allows for deep squats, crawls and upper-body lifting. There is no joystick or other control mechanism. The exoskeleton senses what users want to do and where they want to go. It augments their ability, strength and endurance. An onboard micro-computer ensures the exoskeleton moves in concert with the individual. Its modularity allows for major components to be swapped out in the field. Additionally, its unique power-saving design allows the user to operate on battery power for extended missions. The HULC’s load-carrying ability works even when power is not available.
[Via Defense Tech]
Seems a belated retraction is in order; @Astro_Mike wasn’t tweeting from orbit, but was having his updates relayed via mission control.
@Astro_TJ is the first to update live from the space station.
From the NASA press release, here’s how:
This personal Web access, called the Crew Support LAN, takes advantage of existing communication links to and from the station and gives astronauts the ability to browse and use the Web. The system will provide astronauts with direct private communications to enhance their quality of life during long-duration missions by helping to ease the isolation associated with life in a closed environment.
During periods when the station is actively communicating with the ground using high-speed Ku-band communications, the crew will have remote access to the Internet via a ground computer. The crew will view the desktop of the ground computer using an onboard laptop and interact remotely with their keyboard touchpad.
An indie short film starring robots and funded by a vodka company? The future-present hasn’t gotten weird enough for me yet. (Please, give Chris Cunningham some of that money too!)
I know, you’re probably sick of AR this and AR that by now, and the technology is only in its infancy, but this? Too awesome not to post.
Any future Beethoven’s in the house?
Oh my goodness this is cute. The design you’re about to experience is called “Original Sound Track” and it’s basically a sound box flipped inside out and turned into a train on tracks. Set up your tracks, which have pins in them in just the right places, wind up your train car and set it on the tracks, and wowie! You’ve got your own little sound compilation! Made for kids, but who am I to say you adult figures can’t have one for yourself.
When this train makes it to production, it will come with 10 pieces of track which can be arranged in any number of different ways, allowing for the kid who runs it to make lots of different fresh songs! Then, just like any good modern toy, this train has song tracks you can buy separately. I’ll be in line the day they release the Chemical Brothers tracks! Or the Kraftwerk tracks – how awesome would that be?
This toy is basically GOING to inspire creativity and growth in cognitive ability in any child that uses it. Arranging music is intense – this is by far the simplest way to get a child excited about creating real amazing songs. Who DOESNT want their kid to become a composer!?
Video and link via yankodesign.
Strapya World, Tokyo’s cell phone charm vendor extraordinaire, commissioned renowned Japanese tattoo artist Choryu Roppongi to design and draw these brilliant miniature works of tattoo art, traditionally displayed only by members of Japan’s notorious homegrown gangsters, the Yakuza!
Via inventorspot.com.
In a mashup between some of my favourite sexy technologies, Qosmo and architects teradadesign have transformed Tachikawa’s N Building into a QR-branded, augmented, fishtank of an building.
The building’s facade is imprinted with QRCodes that when scanned with a AR program allows viewers to peek inside the building and see animated versions of the movements and activities of those inside. People inside the building are tracked via GPS and their tweets are transformed into thought balloons hovering over their heads.
N Building from Alexander Reeder on Vimeo.
[Via Creative Applications]
The Israeli Ministry of Defense recently licensed ArmyTec, an Israel-based technology development advisory firm, to mass produce what they call “the Thunder Generator” for military use. Based on a technology developed to scare birds away from crops, the Thunder Generator uses liquefied petroleum, cooking gas and air to deliver massive sonic shocks.
Much like the wall of speakers at a Butthole Surfers show, the Thunder Generator is disruptive at long ranges (30-100 meters) but likely fatal at the sub-10 meter range.
Developed and produced for the agricultural industry by PDT Agro, a small firm based in Herzliya, Israel, the system detonates a mixture of common liquefied petroleum (LPG), cooking gas and air to generate a series of loud, stunning shock waves.
Using a patented process involving Pulse Detonation Technology (PDT), the system feeds the gas-air mixture into one or more so-called impulse chambers or cannon barrels, where the burning fuel detonates and intensifies in force as it travels through the chamber, exiting in a rapid-fire succession of high-velocity shock bursts.
A small battery-powered control system – about twice the size of a pack of cigarettes – measures fuel pressure, temperature and flow rates while monitoring the continuous intake of the air-gas mixture.
According to company data, the system generates 60 to 100 bursts per minute, each traveling at about 2,000 meters per second and lasting up to 300 milliseconds.
The resulting shocks create a double deterrent to rioters and potential intruders, developers here say, by the extreme air pressure and sonic boom effect generated once the mixture propagates and expands through the air. One standard 12-kilogram LPG gas canister (retail cost: about $25) can produce up to 5,000 shock bursts.
Being a very cheap and simple weapons platform, how long will it take for this to go from active deployment in the field to something you can build as a weekend project with stuff from Home Depot?
[Via Defense News.]
A video of the 70+ images that were submitted was created:
Link via medgadget.com. Photos of all the top thirty winners can be found here, but I liked this one the best.
Could a mixture of water and clay replace plastics? The desire to wean the world off oil has sparked all manner of research into novel transportation fuels, but manufacturing plastics uses large amounts of oil too. Researchers at the University of Tokyo, Japan, think their material could be up to the task.
Takuzo Aida and his team mixed a few grams of clay with 100 grams of water in the presence of tiny quantities of a thickening agent called sodium polyacrylate and an organic “molecular glue”. The thickening agent teases apart the clay into thin sheets, increasing its surface area and allowing the glue to get a better hold on it.
This means that, while the mixture is almost 98 per cent water, it forms a transparent and elastic hydrogel with sufficient mechanical strength to make a 3.5-centimetre-wide self-standing bridge.
Link and words from newscientist.com, photo by Takuzo Aida and Nature.
In Bangladesh, people routinely stack mountainous piles of bricks onto their heads when loading and unloading the boats and Bedford trucks used to transport clay-fired bricks from the kilns where they are made to the construction sites where they are used. These feats of endurance and equilibrium look near inconceivable to blinkered Western eyes, but for the brick carriers it’s all in a day’s work.
That stack of some 20 bricks is almost as tall as the man carrying it, yet he still has room to flip a few more on top and walk the plank onto dry land. After this initial effort, workers often have to carry their precarious piles some distance, and when on site climb several flights of stairs to the rooftops where the bricks will be laid. Without wheelbarrows, single-minded stability is all that stands between a slip and tens of kilos of bricks falling – and perhaps even a snapped neck.
Words and link from environmentalgraffiti.com.
Mathematics and fashion aren’t necessarily strange bedfellows. The craft of pattern making and transforming 2D flats into three-dimenionsal garments does require an understanding of basic arithmetics.
LISA SHAHNO’s latest collection “SQUARING THE SQUARE” takes mathematical principles and uses them as pure, unadulterated inspiration.
The entire collection is created from rectangular pieces of fabric in various lengths and widths sewn together into sculptural forms. The result is bold and dramatic architectural fashions that reshape silhouettes with faceted surfaces and sharp angles.
From Syuzi, via fashioningtech.com.
tokyo based designer mac funamizu wondered what would happen if we rethought how coins were designed with an infographic perspective. funamizu remarks on the merits and drawbacks of round coins. while he acknowledges their benefits he wanted to see if they could be redesigned in a way that was more universally understood. this would benefit travelers and people not accustomed to a specific currency. the idea barrows from the world of graphic design, giving each coin an infographic form that corresponds to pie charts. a one dollar coin is a circle, while a two dollar coin is two. the smaller increments are segments of the circle or perforated to show what percentage they represents. while this idea wouldn’t work very well in things like vending machines, it makes you think about alternative ways we could design money.
Link via designboom.com, photos from petitinvention.
Designed by artist Harold Hoy:
The works of Harold Hoy have centered on the complex relationship between mankind and the natural world. Hoy’s current body of work is constructed of galvanized steel and pipe hanger material and is based partly on an erector set. He uses the child’s toy as a platform to work around larger issues of man’s predilection for claiming ownership of the natural world and our desire to manipulate and re-form it.
From makezine.com.
