fabric | rblg

(Image by Rael San Fratello Architects.)

What better way to introduce invasive species; cluster bomb pollens on nature-deprived asthmatic children and, to the delight of Big Pharma, Claritin-addicted allergy sufferers; and deplete the coffers of post-econopocalypse cities by littering their streets with fallen fruits and leafy detritus for their under budgeted public works department to clean up, than with a floating mobile garden.


(Image by Rael San Fratello Architects.)

As envisioned by Rael San Fratello Architects, these nomadic gardens “would be suspended in the air from large remotely controlled dirigibles. Each inflatable craft would house thousands of smaller plants attached to long vines. A family of dirigibles would migrate within a city, moving towards areas where the heat island effect is greatest, and also migrate seasonally, traveling to southern cities during winter months and northern cities during summer months.”

One wonders if there will be an outbreak of botanical piracy, whereby someone lassos in one of the floating mobile gardens by the tentacles and anchors it right above his house all summer long, its cooling shades cutting down his air conditioner use, not to mention his electricity bill.

Perhaps urban adventurers will also snag one of these gardens, but only temporarily, long enough for them to explore its feral tendrils and gelatinous parterres. They'll emerge out of their sewers and their abandoned hospitals, and, squinting hard at the fullness of the sun, they'll climb up, up, up, up towards the clouds, the heaviness of their claustrophobic playgrounds giving way to buoyancy and vistas.

Nearby, meanwhile, will be another parked garden crawling with Avatar cosplayers.


(Image by Rael San Fratello Architects.)

Finally, we read that “each plant is attached to an individual propelled device that allows it to be set free from it’s base. Controlled by GPS and GIS information and organized in flocking patterns, plants move through the city in swarms hydrating, providing shade, and bring oxygen to greenless spaces in the urban field.”

Clearly this means that any rogue robo-botanical hacker will be able to stage a vegetal version of The Birds.

(Go see Rael San Fratello Architects in Consume at Exit Art in New York from June 18 to August 28, 2010. A project of SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics), Consume “is a multimedia group exhibition and event series that investigates the world's systems of food production, distribution, consumption and waste.”)

(Analog Media Lab, Chair I: Rococo Armchair Retrofit, 2010. Photo by Analog Media Lab.)

Chair I: Rococo Armchair Retrofit and Chair II: Ghost Chair Retrofit belong to a series of projects by Analog Media Lab exploring interfaces between insect and human communities. These works focus on domestic insects that have not been domesticated — meaning, they are generally considered invasive, unproductive or otherwise problematic (e.g., ants, termites, moths).


(Analog Media Lab, Chair I: Rococo Armchair Retrofit, 2010. Photo by Analog Media Lab.)

Connected by flexible tubing to ports in a perimeter wall, the interior volumes of Chair I and Chair II are literally part of the outdoors, making them inhabitable by insects. Active nesting and reproductive behaviors are made visible within the context of the domestic interior.


(Analog Media Lab, Chair II: Ghost Chair Retrofit, 2010. Photo by Analog Media Lab.)

Analog Media Lab is a collaborative practice founded by David L. Hays, Kevin Stewart and Shuangshuang Wu.

Hans Jørgen Olsen, a 12-year-old Norwegian boy, saved himself and his sister from a moose attack using skills he picked up playing the online role playing game World of Warcraft.

Hans and his sister got into trouble after they had trespassed the territory of the moose during a walk in the forest near their home. When the moose attacked them, Hans knew the first thing he had to do was ‘taunt’ and provoke the animal so that it would leave his sister alone and she could run to safety. ‘Taunting’ is a move one uses in World of Warcraft to get monsters off of the less-well-armored team members.

Once Hans was a target, he remembered another skill he had picked up at level 30 in ‘World of Warcraft’ – he feigned death. The moose lost interest in the inanimate boy and wandered off into the woods. When he was safely alone Hans ran back home to share his tale of video game-inspired survival.

Via Nettavisen.no.