augmented sculpture is an art installation that combines three-dimensional sculpture and 2-D projections by lichtfront and grosse8. the project was recently presented at imm cologne 2010 where viewers could see the piece in action. the project consists of an abstract geometric form that is spiky and jagged all over. the sculpture itself is white making it the perfect canvas for colourful light projections. an array of digital projectors is beamed onto the form in accordance to the specific shape of the sculpture. the projection can illuminate each facet of the form individually making the sculpture appear to be illuminating from within.
One day, a spectacular picture popped up in my brain. It was an image of abandoned electrical appliances being played as musical instruments on a street in a town. Using this image as a starting point, I set up the same number of tube televisions and PC-controlled video decks correspond to the number of notes in a musical scale to create a set of gamelan percussion instruments. Tapping TV tubes produces primitive and cosmic electrical music.
You can play music videos, access information on the artist, song, album, etcetera, and using such information control the flow of the songs. Meta data like popularity and genres control the way the music is displayed, with popular songs in the center, rarer songs emanating outward.
Activating one song or video will reveal a list of possible paths you might take toward other recommended songs, and then there’s the objects.
The objects are what control the music and video. The circle pieces are the speakers (really nice speakers it seems from the video) – wherever you place them on the board, that’s what song plays.
The Rectangle with antenna are the ones that activate the music videos. You can place them both, or just one at a time. There’s a plus object that shows textual information, and a dome that controls the view of the whole situation, allowing you to zoom in or out.
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
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.
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!?
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!
So last week the Burj Khalifa in Dubai was opened, the latest building to be qualified as the world’s tallest. It cost something like 1.5 billion dollars to construct and is basically a vertical city. In fact:
A firm of Chicago architects have designed it so that those who so wish will never have to leave, or even descend below the 108th floor.
That level is the top floor of residential apartments. For work, you can go to the offices upstairs - anywhere up to the 160th floor. To eat, you can visit the restaurant on the 122nd and to exercise, you can use the gym on the 123rd, about 440 metres up. The gym has both an indoor and, unnervingly, an outdoor swimming pool.
To prevent the high-flying yet enclosed life from becoming dull, the tower’s developers have a solution - at least for the young. The Burj intends to host the world’s highest nightclub, 20 floors higher still than the gym.
Back in May, 2008 two men snuck in and base jumped off it. This is their story:
San Bernadino was hit hard by the economic slump and subprime mortgage fiasco, so many of its properties have been left vacant. This gave the skating community the chance to mark their turf on an abundance of abandoned swimming pools – echoing the era when Alba and others took their hardcore style to the pools following the 1970s drought in Southern California.
The invitation to paint ‘Ridiculous’ was put out by MTV, but if that makes this sound more commercial than it perhaps should, remember that the guys who found it could, in theory, have been arrested for this stunt. And look no further than D*Face’s skull designs, hundreds of which litter the pool basin, to see that this is a graphic artist doing what comes naturally to him – and an artist who loves skating.
The Guards Chapel, spiritual home of the Household Division of the British Army, is host to an installation that looks at some of the present-day thoughts on heroes. Complete Hero is a projection-based artwork by Martin Firrell.
