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I read an issue of Art in America -featuring the amazing work of Janine Antoni on the cover and discovered a past work of Antal Lakner: home transporter (from the passive working devices series).
Skewering a vain leisure society that “labors” pointlessly on exercise equipment, Lakner designs workout machines like the “Forest Master” (a saw) and the “Home Transporter” (a wheelbarrow). Each is accompanied by a didactic photo of a worker using the prototype tool.
I find this work actually very marketable as a neat idea for making fitness centers more fun! I know it is not the point and the work is remarkable, but it is also an amazing interface design for transforming fitness centers. Instead of trying to hook up a rowing machine to a virtual boat in a video game, why not connecting the actions with meaningful activities!
LucyandBart is a collaboration between Lucy McRae and Bart Hess described as an instinctual stalking of fashion, architecture, performance and the body. They share a fascination with genetic manipulation and beauty expression. Unconsciously their work touches upon these themes, however it is not their intention to communicate this. They work in a primitive and limitless way creating future human shapes, blindly discovering low – tech prosthetic ways for human enhancement.
Playing with suggestive photography for high impact, they seem obsessed with the body metamorphosis. I call their work organic prosthesis, because they mainly use organic material in their body extension. For instance, they grow seeds on a fabric, which gives the impression of a body grown of grass and soil. The following pictures show the germination from day one to day eight.
I love their work with foam. The foam transforms the body in a gentle way. Here the artists embrace the prosthetic impulse …
Ayah Bdeir examines the role technology plays in cross cultural communication and attempts to create technologies that promote human rights. One of her latest work “Teta Haniya’s secrets” is one of the most hilarious one -> pics here <-
After decades of running her kinky Syrian lingerie store in the Hamidiya souk of Damascus, Teta Haniya has arrived in America bearing gifts. Drawing on more than 60 years of Islamic teachings on seduction, and updating it using her arsenal of kitschy technology, Teta Haniya hijacks the Western panty, triggering the sexual liberation of American women.
My friend Amit Zoran, from the Ambient Intelligence group at MIT Media Lab, continued his work on structural innovation, re-designing acoustic musical instrument according to the abilities and characteristics of rapid prototype materials. Together with Pattie Maes and Marco Coppiardi, they created a new generation of physical instruments by tailoring wooden hearts. The wooden pieces are inserted in body of the guitar to give the instrument the desired sound identity.
can traditional values be embedded into a digital object? in this project we implement a special guitar that combines physical acoustic properties with virtual capabilities. The acoustical values will be embodied by a wooden heart - a unique, replaceable piece of wood that will give the guitar a unique acoustic sound. The acoustic signal created by this wooden heart will be digitally processed in a virtual sound box in order to create flexible sound design.
His research will be presented at Nime 2008 this summer.
His paper is ->here<-
His presentation is ->here<-
After leaving us for London, Daisy Ginsberg now designs health obsessed robots at RCA! Daisy uses her Bio Spy concept to express that we develop irrational relationships with machines, mourning dead appliances or resisting unfamiliar replacements. How will we behave when robots are trusted with the most intimate moments of our personal lives? Will the master/slave relationship survive? Is symbiosis with a robot possible? And what are the consequences of offering our most personal data for surveillance? Her questions remind me of my post on jealous computers and the 80’s electric dreams movie, with a special RCA’s touch!
For the hypochondriac, the BioSpy offers reassuring constant health surveillance, removing the nagging fear of illness. But would such a health aid induce unhealthy behaviour? The user and robot develop obsessive mutual dependence: the user only feels healthy when accompanied by the robot, sharing her most intimate information with it. Meanwhile, recording, storing and analyzing every physical change 24/7, the robot is dependent on its user’s health for its existence.
After a period of domestic harmony, the robot captures data that indicates serious illness. ‘Fearful’, it mirrors its user’s own neurosis. It logically computes that if it records any more data, it might ultimately result in unplugging. The robot’s erratic behaviour confuses the owner – is it behaving autonomously or malfunctioning? Is the user really ill or is it imagined?
Who does not remember Space Invaders, one of the very first video-games? With your spaceship, your task was to defend the Earth against squadrons of invaders coming from outer space… Well the Human Space Invaders is the second video performance of the Game Over project, directed by Guillaume Reymond.
Video
For the project 67 people sat for almost 4 hours in the theatre of the Espace Nuithonie. After they received colour t-shirts, they simulated the pixels of the game. For each of the 390 pictures, these human pixels moved or not, from one seat to another, following the specific rules they had been given according to their role (canon, spaceship, missile, bunker,…). All photographs were then put together into a short animation movie.
Check also the Tetris, Pole Position and Human Pong!
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.
Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
