Art + Architecture + Design
Politics
Canned Radiation from Three Mile Island
Mar 19th
We’re big fans of canned..well, anything really. Our prized can of LA smog sits on the living room mantle in our home, and will soon be joined by this:
This "Canned Radiation" produced by Brenster Enterprises in 1980 was probably the most popular souvenir from the Three Mile Island nuclear incident.
Amongst the six suggested uses listed on the label is this one:
via Neatorama
Big Brother State: Why You Shouldn’t Trust “Trusted Computing”
Mar 13th
Check out this great response to "Trusted Computing" aka, Email scanning, phone tapping, airline screening etc. Awesome infographics too!
Make Your Own BIODIESEL: DIY Recipies
Mar 13th
Around here we are partial to hybrid technology, particularly the Prius. But this has us thinking about doing a little home-chemistry experiments…
"
Biodiesel has better cold weather properties than straight vegetable oil, and it requires no modifications for your diesel engine or fuel system. It may take a little more processing time, but when you consider the impurity filtering that needs to be done with waste veggie oil, a lot of biodieselers will tell you that it’s not really much more work. What’s best is that the process is something anyone can do, and you can experiment with it easily on a small scale.
Anybody can make biodiesel. It’s easy, you can make it in your kitchen — and it’s BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big oil companies sell you. Your diesel motor will run better and last longer on your home-made fuel, and it’s much cleaner — better for the environment and better for health.
If you decide that the 50-cent to $1 per gallon price tag still isn’t worth the trouble, at least you’ll be able to learn a few things from an afternoon chemistry experiment! -Link.
Related:
- Making Biodiesel – from MAKE:03 (read it online. lot’s of biodiesel community links.)
- MAKE AUDIO SHOW: Biodiesel!
- Homebrew Biodiesel reactor plans
via Make Magazine
West Bank Graffiti: Muheisen Photographs Israel’s Separation Barrier
Mar 7th
It never ceases to amaze me how art survives in even the most horrific environments. I first saw this powerful picture on Wooster Collective and I had to know more about it. So I tracked down the photographer, Muhammed Muheisen and Emailed him. Here is what he had to say:
"Backdropped by a section of Israel’s separation barrier, Israeli troops fire rubber bullets at Palestinian stone throwers, not seen, during clashes in the West Bank village of Kalandia between Jerusalem and Ramallah, Friday, Feb. 9, 2007. Throughout the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians protested against Israel’s renovation works near the disputed Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
Thanks Muhammed. Send us more!
David Spero’s “Settlements”
Mar 6th
Check out these photographs by artist David Spero. His subjects are "low impact developments" (LIDs), eco-friendly, back-to-the-land settlements in the Brittish countryside.
According to the Observer:
"the ones Spero photographed – Tinker’s Bubble and King’s Hill in Somerset, Brithdir Mawr in Pembrokeshire and Steward Woodland on Dartmoor, each home to between 10 and 20 residents – are culturally significant by virtue of the fact that they are environmentally insignificant.
The toll that these structures take on the physical environment is so slight that it makes the government’s sustainable development agenda look like eco hooliganism. There are several defining characteristics of LIDs, but certainly no rule book. Simon Fairlie, a former co-editor of the Ecologist magazine and trustee of Tinker’s Bubble, defines a LID as a development that ‘through its low negative environmental impact either enhances or does not significantly diminish environmental quality’.
His own community typifies a LID’s aspirations: Tinker’s Bubble is a small-scale, low-impact farming community that shuns carbon-fuel imports and uses the products of the landscape.
Residents build their shelters with their own hands, pooling knowledge of materials – which are recycled or biodegradable. While mainstream society is busy erecting monuments to perpetuity, low-impact livers construct their dwellings from rammed earth, mud, straw bales and local timber, often reclaimed. Rather than being built to last, these are homes built with the end in mind. Uninhabited, a roundhouse will degrade peaceably into the earth in under 10 years.
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While these photographs are being couched as "green communities" "ideological" structures, "eco-friendly", "harmonious" and "fairytale"-like, though from what we can see, they seem a good deal more sinister.
Like Jason meets Jack the Ripper. Or maybe that is the point.
Regardless, these photographs are wonderful…
thanks Jewels
TED Talks, Open Architecture Network, and the Allure of Changing the World
Mar 5th
"…it includes Murray Gell-Mann, the Nobel laureate in physics; Paul Simon, the songwriter; Richard Branson, the Virgin Group magnate; and the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
The occasion is the annual TED conference, named for the convergence of technology, entertainment and design— with a dash of social activism thrown in recently as well. It is expected to draw 1,200 people to Monterey, Calif., starting Wednesday." –NYT
This is a must-see; the TED conference is posting free videos of the proceedings here.
And in related news:
"In 2006 Architecture for Humanity won the TED Prize and was given one wish to change the world. We decided to wish for something simple: A place where we could all come together to improve the living standards of 5 billion people.
Starting March 8th 2007, the Open Architecture Network will be that place. We hope you will join us in building a more sustainable future by sharing your designs and expertise.
Find it HERE
FBI to Steve Kurtz, you will pay!
Mar 2nd
FBI to artists, Don’t piss us off, or we’ll make you sorry!
Here is a great video documenting the Steve Kurtz case to date. In short, Kurtz makes art that questions US biological warfare/research complex. I’m not the biggest fan of the work, but I am outraged at the trumped up charges by the small-minded FBI middle management who are, no doubt, charged with ‘monitoring’ dissenting opinion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bExpRb7vryA
via Off Center
Innovation timeline 1900-2050
Mar 2nd
Check out this great map by Richard Watson of nowandnext, who says on his blog;
"The timeline is offered in the same spirit as the 2007 trend map – it’s open source so people are encouraged to adapt or play around with it or use it in anyway they like. One final point though – please don’t take it too seriously!"
Looking at the full-size pdf, I’m all over the "sleep surrogates" and "invisi-spray"!
get the full picture here
Gulag Nationalism: Solzhenitsyn Weighs-in @ Rossiyskaya Gazeta
Feb 27th
In tomorrow’s Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Alexander Solzhenitsyn will once again publish writing critical of his native Russia. Though he has recently supported Putin’s international policy, Solzhenitsyn still finds much to criticize in Putin’s Russia.
Personally, I find it tragic that this icon of resistance has had to align himself with Putin’s nationalistic agenda, though I suppose it should come as no surprise. It is a truism that with age comes conservatism.
The impending end of Putin’s term in 2008, and his ‘required’ resignation, provides a glimmer of hope that new leadership will be able to lead the Russian Bear safely into the 21st Century–a faint glimmer. From the Independent:
"Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn warns in the preface to a newly republished article that Russia is still struggling with challenges similar to those of the revolutionary turmoil of 1917 that led to the demise of the czarist empire.
"The article – which will appear tomorrow in the influential government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta – analyzes the roots of the February revolution 90 years ago that forced the abdication of the last czar, Nicholas II, and helped pave the way for the Bolsheviks.
"It’s all the more bitter that a quarter of a century later, some of these conclusions are still applicable to the alarming disorder of today," Solzhenitsyn wrote in a preface to the article first written in the early 1980s.
"Solzhenitsyn’s wife, Natalya, said it should serve as a reminder to Russia’s political class about the dangers stemming from the huge gap between the rich and the poor, and the stark contrast in lifestyle and moral attitudes in the glitzy Russian capital compared to the far less prosperous provinces.
"Alexander Isayevich is deeply worried by this gap," Natalya Solzhenitsyn told a news conference Monday. "It’s necessary to pay attention to that. If the government fails to do that, consequences would be grave."
for the rest, click HERE.
Seattle Viaduct Propoganda
Feb 26th
Viaduct propoganda is everywhere in Seattle these days, so we thought we’d join the fray…
Item #1: We found this on SLOG and thought that if this picture was posted EVERYWHERE, a viaduct rebuild would never have a chance:
Item #2: Also from the boys and girls of SLOG a preview of a new commercial that is to begin airing in Seattle this week from noviaduct.com:
Here is the video…
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