Acting Together

Last night at the Forum on Wind Energy preceding the Building Energy Conference author Bill Mckibben asserted that the debates about our choices in response to the threats to the life of our planet, its people, and every element of the environment that sustains life no longer allow us to consider a choice between technology and the preservation of wilderness. The wilderness that we cherish and imagine preserving will not exist if we do not act and act now on all fronts. No silver bullet – silver buckshot is in order. A little bit of everything – including turbines on the edges of cherished wild spaces – must be pursued with immediacy.

He suggested that to accomplish the movement necessary to galvanize the public will and the resources that might follow is not lacking for information, ideas, and technical solutions. It just lacks the movement itself.

In response he invites us all to participate in a national mobilization on April 14th that you are invited to learn more about at stepitup07.org,

Consider yourself invited.

Treadmill Power

Who hasn’t thought that all that cardio exercise was generating enought energy to light the room. California Fitness is taking a look at doing it!

Dance Power

Using the energy generated by the impact of dancers on a dance floor The Sustainable Dance Club in Rotterdam is generating the power to operate the sound and lights of the club (I’d like to see the numbers of that). I don’t care if its only offsetting a bit of the load – the concept is an irresistable story; the kind of positive and imaginative thinking we all want to believe in.

Botanicalls

Here’s an idea, dubbed Bontanicalls, and its associated technology that generates a worthwhile evaluation of where the edges of “sensing” technologies can abide. The notion is that sensors allow plants to place calls regarding their need for specific care. As they describe it:

“Utilizing moisture sensors – which are attached to the plants – as well as an open-source telephony application called Asterisk, the programmed software triggers Asterisk to call a designated number whenever a plant needs watering. Upon answering the call, the plant owner is treated to an audio file – or the so-called ‘voice of the plant’ – which describes exactly what it needs. Botanicalls opens a new channel of communication between plants and humans, in an effort to promote successful inter-species cohabitation and understanding.”

As some have responded, “This is really upsetting, a technological invasion of an otherwise magical and healthful interaction. here’s my way of knowing when to water the houseplants that do so much for me: i pay attention to them.”

What’s your take?

Form Follows Data

Information Aesthetics – a site mentioned previously has an astounding collection of remarkable projects that are well worth the time you might end up devoting to exploration there. Use the “Explore: by Category” search function to unearth hundreds of astonishing projects – be sure to go to the bottom of the page to dig back in time.

Power Socket Visualization

An information-augmented power socket that makes visible the amount of power being consumed by each mains socket in a direct & immediate way. this visualization is intended to change patterns of power use by creating awareness of how much power individual appliance draws, leading users to re-evaluate how they consume power.

Learn more at sciencearts

Podium Light Wall

OK – this is not about sensing energy so much as sensing motion and evoking it architecturally – Kinecity is one of the emerging practitioners of interactive architecture. Visit the site and experience this project:

“The Podium Light Wall is located on the South and North facades of 7 World Trade Center. As people wander on the pavement below a strip of blue light gracefully follows them. This strip of blue light is 7 floors tall and is visible from Freedom Park. The Podium Wall accentuates the individual, and the patterns that are created as many pass by together. Kinecity designed the interactive element of the design for James Carpenter Design Assoc. who were the responsible for the wall as an art piece.”

Visualizing Social Network Activity

Digg.com is a social networking site (I just learned that these are called flares) that allows people to tag (digg) an online article or post they think is worth sharing and aggregating that interest to highlight news and stories that are capturing the web’s collective imaginations.

The creators created visulization tools as part of the site that they call SWARM and STACK that provide dynamic graphic representations of the networks forming around these stories.

Oh yeah – and how about the amazing We Feel Fine site! A swirling field of colored dots – each a web posting about what is being felt. Rathern incredible. Go get lost there for awhile.
This seems to be a whole new field. Another one that these guys at Stamen Design developed for the SF Exploratorium is called Cabspotting which uses the GPS in San Francisco Yellow Cabs to create these time lapse videos of their traffic – a pulsing circulatory system that reveals patterns – making the intangible tangible!

Situated Technologies

It seems that this idea of “sensing energy” resides within an emergent (and fascinating) field called Situated Technology. I just spent several hours linking off the Participants page of a conference on the topic recently held in NYC.

SITUATED TECHNOLOGIES

At the bottom of each participant’s Bio are weblinks to a wide range of fascinating projects, blogs, and altogether fascinating ideas. Check out the link to Anne Galloway’s Touchpedia on her blog PurseLipSquareJaw! Explore.

Its one of those places that lead you to strange destinations. Midway down Columbia School of Architecture’s Kazyz Varnelis blog I found myself at the amazing site Visual Complexity all about the mapping of complex networks and before you know it I’m looking at this extraordinary Fetish Roadmap!

Electroceramescent Lighting

Electroceramescent lighting is the latest breakthrough in solid state lighting technology. It offers thin, durable, and energy efficient lighting with unlimited application potential in versatility for all indirect and backlit designs without generating any heat.

This intriguing technology holds some potential for the kind of visual display that “seeing energy” might benefit from.

Check it out at Firefly Lighting Innovations

Freeset Technologies

Freeset Creative Technologies is an interactive tech company that has developed a pretty amazing technology called “Human Locator”. They have applied this in fascinating projects in public spaces. Visit the website and take a look at their Mimic Wall and especially the Interactive Tables

Presence in the Place of Mindfulness

This from a recent article in Fast Company

”…that’s the thing about consumption: It’s essentially a myopic, self- centered pastime. Addictive consumption submerges our concerns about ourselves, others, and the Earth. The things we buy and use become extensions of ourselves; we use them mindlessly, with little awareness of why. The challenge for business should be to reverse this pattern by offering goods and services that, beyond merely adding to our possessions, actually restore and maintain our ability to care and flourish.

Such products exist today. My favorite example is the two-button toilet, still a rarity in the United States but increasingly popular in Northern Europe and New Zealand. In place of the usual single lever or button, the toilet offers two buttons or levers, one small and one large, actuating a smaller or larger flush volume. Beyond its obvious “green” credentials, this toilet actually forces users to engage with it on more than a utilitarian level, and to make a choice. It creates presence in place of mindlessness.”

We’re championing this product from Sterling at Wolfworks for this very reason. Saving water seems less meaningful in our bioregion than engaging consciousness about the use of resources with every flush.

Soft House

Sheila Kennedy and her architectural firm Kennedy & Voilich in Boston are exploring a textile that can produce light AND collect PV energy. Their project SOFT HOUSE proposes a building that transforms the household curtain into a set of energy harvesting and light emitting textiles that adapt to the changing space needs of home owners and generate up to 16,000 watt-hours of electricity.

In another project PORTABLE LIGHT, done in association with the University of Michigan, they have developed a portable LED fabric “lantern” to help people who lack access to electrical power and light. Their inspiration is derived from the notion that even in small amounts, digital light can provide educational opportunities, improve community literacy and health, and increase daily household economic production.

Listen to an interview with Sheila Kennedy and view the Gallery of fascinating applications of her ideas.

Maybe we should go visit her!

Nabaztag

While this is a product that isn’t necessarily immediately about “sensing energy” it embodies the underlying sensibility – information mediated thru a visceral relation with an object that “knows” things. So what is Nabaztag

quoting Rafi Haladjian:

“When I’m online, Web sites know who I am, what I like, and what I did the last time I was there. In the real world, that doesn’t happen. I want to reproduce the stuff that happens online in the real world. Because if we’re truly going to have a connected world, it’s not just going to be through sitting in front of a screen, which is very limiting. We need smart objects that can help us create a screenless world that still gives us the power of the Internet.

People have tried to create ‘smart’ refrigerators and things like that before, but what’s fun about that? If you want to make something pop, you have to do it through something fun, not something useful.”

So he created Nabaztag, a Wi-Fi—enabled rabbit that can silently communicate weather and stock information through colored lights, as well as offer aural versions of RSS feeds, email, and MP3 files.

Eyebeam

This is the kind of incubator that is generating the exciting work that supports the notions of “senseing energy”

Eyebeam is an art and technology center in NYC that provides a fertile context and state-of-the-art tools for digital research and experimentation. It is a lively incubator of creativity and thought, where artists and technologists actively engage with culture, addressing the issues and concerns of our time. Eyebeam challenges convention, celebrates the hack, educates the next generation, encourages collaboration, freely offers its contributions to the community, and invites the public to share in a spirit of openness: open source, open content and open distribution.

Atelier
The atelier model is fundamental to the concept of Eyebeam. The studio/workspace environment, in which the energies of artistic production, education and curatorial practice fuse, provides a unique, stimulating and vital working context for creating art. This tremendous energy, along with the dialogue exchanged between curators, artists and students of various practices and stages of development, can inform and inspire the creation of artworks that may not previously been imagined or produced.

That’s what they say anyway. Here is one of their many, many projects – this is a happening place!

Its called Personal Kyoto and suggest you track your residential or commercial electric usage automatically and achieve your own Personal Kyoto (Con Ed customers).

Fun Stuff!