Tuesday, September 07. 2010
Arctic Technology
[Image: "Seeing-Outlook" (2001) from Arctic Technology by Christian Houge].
Photographer Christian Houge's Arctic Technology series offers a look at large-scale scientific installations on the Norwegian island of Svalbard.
[Image: From Arctic Technology by Christian Houge].
As the Hosfelt Gallery in San Francisco describes the series, several examples of which you see here:
- There is an island located between Greenland and the North Pole called Spitsbergen or Svalbard (“the cold land”). The seclusion of the island results in its having the cleanest atmosphere in the world and being one of the best places to do astronomical, meteorological or climate research. Hence, the remote and pristine landscape is marked by installations of technological and scientific equipment. Since 2000, Christian Houge has been making large-scale panoramic images in this landscape, exploring the human presence in this bleak yet beautiful site.
[Image: "Snowballs" (2001) from Arctic Technology by Christian Houge].Perhaps Svalbard needs its own, high-northern branch of the Center for Land Use Interpretation—using these photos by Christian Houge as its opening exhibition.
[Image: "Sphere at Dawn" (2003) from Arctic Technology by Christian Houge].The extraordinary emptiness of this landscape brings to mind a recent book called The Edge of Physics, by Anil Ananthaswamy, in which the author visits sites all of the planet where massive pieces of equipment necessary for cutting-edge physics experiments are being constructed and installed.
At one point, Ananthaswamy visits the remote South African lands of the Karoo, where, in a state of "accessible desolation," as Ananthaswamy describes it, the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is being assembled. The task of securing this site from interference by terrestrial transmissions—cell phones, radios, TV, GPS, wireless internet, etc.—not only involves getting special legislation passed by the South African government but the creation of "special antennas," designed with the help of global phone companies, "that will provide signals to urban pockets while beaming nothing toward the SKA site." He cites another telescopic installation, this time in India, where a burgeoning wine industry has taken shape in what was once nearly as isolated as the Karoo. Now, "Farmers occasionally dig up the fiber-optic cables when they are tilling the land," and "more radio and television stations, mobile phone towers, and power lines" are beginning to appear.
Thus the necessity of landscapes like the Karoo and, to a related extent, Svalbard (where it is the cleanliness of the air that adds scientific value). But electromagnetic isolation on this scale—whole landscapes quarantined from outside radio interference—presents an intriguing new branch for architectural investigation: new forms of fencing, or enclosure, scaled up to the continental, where the project site, and even its overall orientation, is based not on local aesthetic factors but on the potential, otherwise invisible interference presented by distant sources of radio waves.
It's like a spatial arms race waged against the growing presence of electromagnetism in our everyday lives: radio-free landscapes on the very edges of the inhabitable world.
[Image: "Winternight" (2001) from Arctic Technology by Christian Houge].In any case, these next two photos present an extraordinary combination. The first, called "Antenna Forest" (2000), displays more of the high-tech, radio-spectral wizardry of the other images in the series—but the second image, seemingly representing a very similar such installation, does away with this illusion with its title.
[Images: "Antenna Forest" (2000) and "Sunken Ship" (2001), from Arctic Technology by Christian Houge].That second photo is called "Sunken Ship" (2001).
Houge's work on Svalbard began, it's worth pointing out, as a survey of the bleak, Soviet-era mining towns of Barentsburg and Pyramid, and the photographs in that series are both haunting and well worth your viewing time. You can read more about those images here, courtesy of an essay by Basia Sokolowska, but an excerpt supplies sufficient introduction:
- Houge’s photographs of Barentsburg and Pyramid are a study of a decline of a colonial culture, functioning away from the centre that gave these communities their ideological, social and aesthetic identity. The panoramic format of his photographs often allows him to include the hostile, surreal surroundings in which they are embedded and thus to emphasise their isolation from other settlements as well as from the mainstream of civilisation and its changing fashions.
See much more of Houge's work at his website—and consider reading the Ananthaswamy book, as well, as it's quite an inspiring diversion from the field of traditional travel writing.
(Houge's work originally spotted via the Nevada Museum of Art's Center for Art + Environment).
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Lab Craft at Tent London
Image via Dezeen
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Image taken from a future show at Tent London about "digital craft" (marrying craftsmanship with digital technology).
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Personal comment:
About this picture: are (extruded) visual codes the new (but very basic and functional) "rococo"?
Sunday, September 05. 2010
ZERO1: The 2010 01SJ Biennial
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Practical Information:
The 2010 01SJ Biennial (ZERO1) presents artwork, performance, special events, and talks from September 16th through 19th under the theme, “Build Your Own World.”
swissnex San Francisco supports three projects included in this year’s interdisciplinary, multi-venue digital art Biennial. I-Weather as Deep Space Public Lighting, by fabric | ch, in the South Hall proposes an open source, artificial climate and public light source based on human metabolism that could be distributed through an imaginary “Deep Space Internet” to intergalactic colonies. Tomato Quintet, by Chris Chafe, Greg Niemeyer, Sasha Leitman, and Curtis Tamm, also shows in the South Hall. This piece both sonifies and visualizes the difference in air quality between a chamber housing ripening tomatoes and the ambient environment. At the San Jose Museum of Art, artist Camille Scherrer’s Le Monde des Montagnes (The World of Mountains) blends low and high tech in an interactive, ditigal fairy tale. Her augmented reality storybook lets viewers flip through the pages only to find magical animations appear on a nearby computer monitor.
With support from Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council. Stay tuned for related event announcements.
| I-Weather |
| Tomato Quintet |
| Le Monde des Montagnes |
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Related events
Retro-Tech Gallery Talk
September 16, 2010 at 12:00 pm
With Kristen Evangelista, associate curator and curator of the exhibition and Camille Scherrer
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I-Weather as Deep Space Public Lighting (2010), by fabric | ch
fabric | ch is Christian Babski, Stéphane Carion, Christophe Guignard, and Patrick Keller. The Lausanne, Switzerland team formulates new architectural proposals and produces radical livable spaces. In 2001, architect Philippe Rahm and fabric | ch set up I-Weather.org, an open source, artificial climate based on human metabolism, circadian rhythms, and light therapy research. I-Weather.org envisioned synchronizing and distributing climate to any physical or digital space connected to I-Weather’s server.
In 2008, NASA announced the first successful communication with a distant spacecraft 20 million miles away via the Deep Space Internet, a model for a forthcoming interplanetary Internet. At the 01SJ Biennial, fabric | ch takes this idea to its conclusion by setting up I-Weather Deep Space Public Lighting, a metabolic public light source distributed through the imagined Deep Space Internet spaceships and intergalactic colonies.
Tomato Quintet (2007/2010), by Chris Chafe, Greg Niemeyer, Sasha Leitman, and Curtis Tamm
Tomato Quintet (2007/ 2010) is a “musification” and visualization of the air quality differences between a container of ripening tomatoes and the ambient environment. Tent walls made from sheets of Mylar are induced to vibrate through transducers attached to the top and bottom. Visitors to the tent will find a Plexiglass chamber filled with green tomatoes. During the course of the show, the green tomatoes will ripen to perfection while air quality sensors measure the gas output (CO, CO2, NO2, plus temperature and light). The Tomato Quintet 2.0 software will compare the patterns and differences of air qualities in the two spaces and render them audibly through speakers and headphones. On the final day of the Biennial, the project will convert the ripe tomatoes into salsa for guests to enjoy during lunch, accompanied by the sounds of the tomato ripening data accelerated by a factor of 240X.
Le Monde des Montagnes (The World of Mountains) by Camille Scherrer
In Le Monde des Montagnes (The World of Mountains) (2008), Swiss artist and designer Camille Scherrer blends low and high tech to push storybooks into an interactive realm. She has created a digital fairy tale, enlisting both her background in illustration and new media art. As the reader turns the pages of an ordinary book, a nearby computer monitor displays the very same pages augmented with mysterious animations of birds and snowflakes. Scherrer created this magical illusion with custom software and a reading lamp that contains a hidden camera.
Scherrer likes to play at the intersection of technology and art, looking for new fields of investigation. In Le Monde des Montagnes, she created her own universe inspired by the mountains where she grew up. She graduated in 2008 from the University of Art and Design, Lausanne (ECAL) in visual communication and works at EPFL+ECAL Lab, whose mission is to foster innovation at a crossroads between technology, design, and architecture. Her project was awarded Best European Design Diploma (Talent exhibition, Design huis, Eindhoven) and has been exhibited and published internationally.
Friday, September 03. 2010
I-Weather as Deep Space Public Lighting
By fabric | ch
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fabric | ch will present a new work entitled I-Weather as Deep Space Public Lighting during the 2010 01SJ Biennial in San Jose (San Francisco Bay Area, CA, September 4-19, 2010).
Curated by Steve Dietz and assistant curator Jaime Austin, the 2010 01SJ Biennial will develop a full range of radical exhibitions in the Bay Area around this year's biennial theme, Build you own world. Our installation will be part of San Jose / South Hall exhibit: Out of the Garage into the World, which title takes its inspiration from the nearly mythological times of the early California's Silicon Valley, when young scientists supposedly started their future world scale business in their home's garage or backyard.
Curator Steve Dietz about this year's biennial: "Build Your Own World: The future is not just about what’s next. It’s also about what we can build to ensure that what’s next matters. How can we, as resourceful, innovative, and knowledgeable local and global citizens build and participate in a desirable future in the face of global climate change, economic meltdown, political instability, and cultural divisiveness?"
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I-Weather as Deep Space Public Lighting:
I-Weather as Deep Space Public Lighting, yellow-orange phase.
I-Weather as Deep Space Public Lighting, cyan-blue phase.
I-Weather as Deep Space Public Lighting, full gradient and time rainbow.
In 2001, architect Philippe Rahm and fabric | ch jointly set up I-Weather, an open source artificial climate based on human metabolism, circadian rhythms and on the medical knowledge of the time about light therapy and chronotherapy. I-Weather.org intended to allow the growing number of de-territorialized locations and people to synchronize their atmosphere and metabolism with this Internet distributed climate: a parallel day of 25 hours, that diffused its colored “daylight” in any physical or digital space connected to the I-Weather’s server.
In 2008, NASA made an announcement about a first successful communication with a 20 million miles distant spacecraft on the Deep Space Internet, the model for a forthcoming interplanetary Internet.
Late in 2009, the team upgraded I-Weather to a new version, as scientific knowledge of biological rhythms has evolved, demonstrating that melatonin regulation is enhanced by using a minimum wavelength of 460nm (blue) and a maximum wavelength of 597nm (orange) rather than between 385nm (deep purple) and 509 nm (green). Actually, blue light suppresses the diffusion of melatonin in the body, while orange light allows performing actions without altering the body clock.
In summer 2010, fabric | ch will set up a project called I-Weather as Deep Space Public Lighting, during the 01SJ Biennial in South Hall. It will propose a critical use of I-Weather as a model for a metabolic public lighting source, distributed and synchronized through an imaginary Deep Space Internet into the confined and conditioned environments of space exploration vehicles or into speculative public spaces of “distant colonies”.
It will be question of public space, public data, public technology and artificial climate.
fabric | ch, May 2010
I-Weather as Deep Space Public Lighting
fabric | ch
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Exhibition:
Build Your Own World
2010 01SJ Biennial
September 4-19, 2010
San Jose, CA
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Workshop:
I-Weather: open source artificial climate (how to)
Christian Babski, Patrick Keller
2-4 pm, September 16, 2010
San Jose, CA
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Conference:
Deep Space, Public Space, I-Weather as Public Climate & Technology
Patrick Keller
1-2.30 pm, September 19, 2010
San Jose, CA
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Project, conception and programmation: fabric | ch
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Ligths: 3B Lighting
Structure: Stages Unlimited
On site supervision: G. Craig Hobbs
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Curatorship: Steve Dietz, Jaime Austin
Produced by Zer01
I-Weather as Deep Space Public Lighting has been produced with the support of swissnex San Francisco and the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. It is a 2010 01SJ Biennial creation by fabric | ch.
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Personal comment:
Like for previous exhibitions, new posts will follow while (and after) we set up the work in San Francisco.
I-Weather, www.i-weather.org, libraries, apps and etc.
By fabric | ch
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fabric | ch and architect Philippe Rahm recently released an updated version of their I-Weather artificial light climate on www.i-weather.org.
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I-Weather is an international consortium created in 2001 that has set itself the goal of creating the world’s first artificial climate to satisfy the metabolic and physiological requirements of a human being in an environment partially or completely removed from earthly influences: mediated reality, networks and netlag, the disruption of the body clock that comes with air travel, as well as with extra-terrestrial trips and holidays.
Accessible everywhere and to everybody thanks to the Internet, this artificial climate called I-Weather makes it possible to live in a situation completely removed from natural locations by producing an artificial circadian rhythm synchronised to match the inner cycle of the human hormonal and endocrine system. In the absence of the natural terrestrial cycle of day and night, it becomes apparent that this inner cycle in fact lasts around 25 hours, and that body temperature, the alternation between sleep and wakefulness, and the accumulation and secretion of substances such as cortisone and oligopeptides, all depend on it. i-weather.org has therefore put together the first specifically human climate.
This version of I-Weather operates solely on the basis of fluctuations in the rate of melatonin, which in turn is influenced by variations in the intensity of light received by the retina. I-Weather acts as a kind of personal artificial sun, oscillating over a 25-hour 7 minutes and 40 seconds period between a maximum light frequency of 652 THz and a minimum of 503 THz.
The original version of I-Weather was launched on 26 October 2001 (version 1.0). It has been improved on June 5, 2009 (version 2.0) as scientific knowledge of biological rhythms has evolved, demonstrating that melatonin regulation is enhanced by using a minimum wavelength of 460nm (blue) and a maximum wavelength of 597nm (orange) rather than between 385nm (deep purple) and 509 nm (green). Actually, blue light suppresses the diffusion of melatonin in the body, while orange light allows performing actions without altering the body clock.
Melatonin diagram over a natural 24h hours, night and day cycle.
Projected melatonin diagram over an an artificial 25h 07min 40sec, I-Weather cycle.
I-Weather is an open source, speculative architecture and art project. Its code exists for several platforms and can be downloaded for free to be used in personal projects (light installations, web sites, mobile phone applications, etc).
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You can now download development libraries (Flash, Javascript, Processing) for your own applications or projects directly on the "download" section of I-Weather's website. Thanks you to mention the www.i-weather.org website and project if you do so.
I-Weather used as a synchronized website background and office lighting system.
Last but not least, fabric | ch just released two free mobile applications of our common project. One is for iPhones, iPods (Touch) and possibly for the iPads too, while the other one is dedicated to Android platforms (Google phones, HTC, tablets, etc.).
The I-Weather application in Personal Mode on iPhone and HTC's Android.
I-Weather Global Mode, on the Internet or on mobile devices, globally synchronized through networks.
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fabric | rblg
This blog is the survey website of fabric | ch - studio for architecture, interaction and research.
We curate and reblog articles, researches, writings, exhibitions and projects that we notice and find interesting during our everyday practice and readings.
Most articles concern the intertwined fields of architecture, territory, art, interaction design, thinking and science. From time to time, we also publish documentation about our own work and research, immersed among these related resources and inspirations.
This website is used by fabric | ch as archive, references and resources. It is shared with all those interested in the same topics as we are, in the hope that they will also find valuable references and content in it.
