January 2012 – Page 4 – Kristen Baumlier

Month: January 2012

Plants that can Call for Help and Glacier Embracing Suits: The Work of Kate Hartman

Posted on January 13, 2012January 13, 2012 by Kbaumlier

Artist Kate Hartman explores human communication in her work by using wearable technologies and physical computing. Some of her past work includes making muttering hats or clothes that communicate to the wearer.

Some of her pieces have explored technology working with natural systems including being part of a team that developed Botanicalls, a device that allows neglected plants to call and send Twitter messages for assistance. Botanicalls was shown at MoMA a the “Talk to Me” exhibition last summer and was intended to be eventually sold at the design store, so that people could use it. The piece was made with 3 collaborators, and started in 2006.

Botanicalls aims to open a new channel of communication between plants and humans, in an effort to promote successful inter-species understanding. The artists are empowering both by inventing new avenues of interaction. Plants that might otherwise be neglected are given the ability to call and text message people to request assistance. People who are unsure of their ability to effectively care for growing things are given visual and aural clues using common human methods of communication.

Current projects of hers include working with glaciers. She got interested in glaciers due to personal experience, and also since they represent icons of climate change. Hartman’s Glacier-Embracing Suit was a suit you could wear, and was designed to make it comfortable to embrace a glacier.

This suit explores “body” language and non-verbal communication. Hartman writes that it is intended for awkward introductory glacier encounters, it acts as an “ice breaker”, better enabling a person to lie prone on the surface of the glacier and give it a hug. Worn on the front of the body, the reflective padded material serves to mediate the difference in temperatures between the human body and the glacial ice.

The suit is currently being used by a 18-year old documentary filmmaker working on a film called An Inconvenient Youth which is about kids and climate change. She used the suit in Nepal while shooting.

Interested in wearable communication? I recently listened to Hartman’s TED Talk, where she talks about her work, communication, and technology.

Image Source:
www.katehartman.com

Links:

Kate Hartman- The Art of Wearable communicatiom- Ted Talk

www.katehartman.com

www.botanicalls.com/

Clean Your Jeans in the Freezer? Levis is Making More Jeans with Less Water

Posted on January 12, 2012January 12, 2012 by Kbaumlier

A typical pair of blue jeans consumes 919 gallons of water during its life cycle, which is enough water to fill 5 spa-size bathtubs. This water includes the irrigation of the cotton, stitching the fabric, and washing them. This past year, a new line of Levis jeans have been developed with future water shortages in mind.

The Levis company is planning ahead, for future water shortages caused by climate change that could make cotton too expensive or scarce, and possibly bankrupt the company. Behind each pair of jeans is two pounds of cotton.

Some new changes include developing a new non-profit program to teach farmers in India, Pakistan, Brazil and West and Central Africa new irrigation and rainwater-capture techniques. Another new development is new stone-washed denim which is smoothed with rocks but does not use any water.

The reason for the company’s interest in conserving water began last year when floods in Pakistan and a drought in China ruined cotton crops and made prices higher. This increase of droughts and floods support the predicted patterns of global warming.

The cotton grown with the new farming methods is called by Levis Strauss as the “better cotton” initiative. About 5% of the cotton used in the two million pairs of jeans made this fall was grown with the sustainable method. The company wants that number to rise to 20% by 2015.

All Levis jeans have new tags in them that suggest that the owner wash them less and only use cold water. Wash your jeans less? Is there an alternative to wearing dirty and stinky pants? One way to get them clean is to put them in the freezer, a practice that will kill germs that cause them to smell.

I’ve been wearing my Levis jeans for 2-3 days now. Tonight, I am going to try the freezer method to clean them – and will report back how it works.

Image Source:
Levis Water<Less

Links:

Levis Water<Less

More Jeans – Less Water – from LS&Co. Unzipped

Richard Mabey’s Book: WEEDS – In Defense of Nature’s Most Unloved Plants

Posted on January 11, 2012January 11, 2012 by Kbaumlier

Do you spend part of spring or summer trying to get rid of weeds? If so, the book Weeds –In Defense of Nature’s Most Unloved Plants by Richard Mabey might give you a new perspective on these plants that we consider to be invasive and essentially “in our way.” Since the development of agriculture, weeds have been seen as a problem. The concept of a weed was developed by man, and the classic saying “a weed is just a plant in the wrong place still applies.

Weeds have served as food, fuel, medicine, dyes and have functioned as a building material for a variety of insects, birds and humans. I was surprised to learn that weeds are largely a consequence of human activity. We have delivered weeds to other areas in a ships’ ballast, in the storage areas of trains, in packaging materials, in wool and brewing merchants’ raw goods, in the soil of our plants that we import or export.

The book is a biological and cultural history of weeds and covers the role of weeds in literature, art, folklore, and medicine. The book highlights the usefulness of weeds. Weeds stabilize soil, provide shelter for plants, control water loss, and can help repair landscapes affected by landslides, flood, fire, development and weaponry.

After I go hiking and I return home surprised to see the back of my pant leg is covered with burrs, I am reminded by how ingenuous weeds are. They have evolved to have hooks, burrs, spines, rib hairs and even a glue-like substance in order to traffic their seeds to other places. Often the seeds of weeds can wait a long time, as much as 40 years, in order to grow.

Many times when we try to get rid of weeds, we improve the health of the weed. Using a hoe often does not get rid of weeds with deeper roots, and chemical weed killers often can affect those who develop a resistance. Due to our actions, weeds have evolved to mimic the size, shape, height and coloring of plants favored by us to grow for food. Weeds sometime seem supernatural. They can grow fast, morph into new shapes, travel through ingenious methods, change color to adapt, and also endure rough conditions.

Over the centuries, we have tried every conceivable method of getting rid of undesirable plants. In Medieval times, farmers tried curses and negative names: calling weeds names such as hellweed, devil’s claws, devil’s fingers, devil’s daisy, devil’s tether.

In his book, Mabey promotes our acceptance weeds and writes that, “at a time of great environmental change and uncertainty, weeds may soon be all we’ve got left.” He recommends that we learn to tolerate them, and even celebrate them.

When the snow melts, and the weeds start to pop up around my yard – I’m not sure I’m ready to celebrate them yet – but I do see them a little differently.

Image Source:
Anecdotal Evidence

Links:

Weeds: In Defense of Nature’s Most Unloved Plants

Interview on NPR – ‘Weeds’: In Defense Of Botany’s Cockroach

Land Art Generator Initiative NYC Renewable Energy Public Art Competition 2012

Posted on January 10, 2012January 10, 2012 by Kbaumlier

Freshkills Park is a new public park in New York City. It was once the world’s largest landfill (formerly called Fresh Kills Landfill) but will eventually become the city’s biggest park, almost 3 times the size of Central Park. The park will be transitioning into its final farm in stages over the next 20 years, and will be designed to be a symbol of sustainable natural ecology within the context of the constructed city environment.

The park already is providing sustainable energy, and there are plans for more. The landfill below the park is currently generating methane gas, which is being sold to a local utility at an amount, which is enough to heat 22,000 homes. Due to the proximity to residential areas, the wildlife, and its role as a public park make it a unique site that requires sustainable energy that also can provide a visual, educational, or unique experience while conserving the natural environment

Got any artistic ideas of how renewable energy can be installed at the site? In partnership with New York City’s Department of Parks & Recreation, the 2012 Land Art Generator Initiative design competition is being held for a site within Freshkills Park. The competition is free and open designers, artists, engineers, architects, landscape architects, university students, urban planners, scientists and anyone else can enter with public art installation proposals. There is $20,000 in prize award money, and also a $1000 contest for high school students

The website promotes artist doing solution –based art and says, “The time is now for artists to go further and take an active role in solving the problem through their own work: solution-based art practice.”

All proposals should be pieces that are large scale clean energy generation which will continuously distribute clean energy into the electrical grid, with the potential to provide power to thousands of homes. Got an idea? You need to register with the website, and submit your final proposal by July 1, 2012.

To read more, you can check out the Design Brief and competition information on LAGI’s website.
Image Source:
Land Art Generator Initiative

Links:

Design Brief for Fresh Kills LAGI Competition

Land Art Generator Initiative

New York City’s Department of Parks & Recreation

Fish Farming and Aquaponics

Posted on January 8, 2012January 5, 2012 by Kbaumlier

When I was back in Wisconsin for the holidays, I spent some time with my friend Joe Kaye, who has been doing research and experimentation in the area of aquaponics, and making a fish farm.

Aquaponics is the symbiotic cultivation of plants and aquatic animals in a re-circulating system. In a greenhouse setting, Kaye has been growing perch and using cattails, irises, and other native WI plants to filter the water. The water needs to be filtered since fish excrete ammonia, which turns to nitrogen. The nitrogen needs to be removed or it kills the fish. Usually this is done by filtering the water through a bed of gravel, then to the plants, which remove the nitrates, and then back to the fish.

In Kaye’s greenhouse, the perch are in an insulated tank and are heated by day from the sun and light, and at night from a small heater. Kaye chose perch to grow, since they are the favorite fish fry fish, are currently are selling at $17 a pound, and are supposed to be easy to grow.

Today Kaye has 100 perch growing. Perch will grow to full-size in 2-3 years when outdoors, and indoors in one year. Keeping the water warm, and feeding them as much as they can eat will increase their growth.

Years ago in Milwaukee, people used to fish in lake Michigan, and within an afternoon fill up a 5-gallon bucket with fish. They would then bring the fish to their local church – and the popular Friday night tradition was founded. Statewide, at a fish fry battered or deep-fried fish is accompanied by potato (baked, mashed, French fries, etc.) and coleslaw. This became popularity due to the tradition of meatless Fridays among German Catholics and Wisconsin’s proximity to Great Lakes.

Perch used to be widely available. According to population estimates, the number of perch in the Wisconsin waters of Lake Michigan has declined from 24.6 million in 1990, to 2.6 million in 2000, to 316,210 in 2009. There are several efforts occurring in Wisconsin and other states to support improving water quality, and in increasing the fish population in the lake.

Milwaukee is location for fish farm and aquaculture. Recently at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, a new School of Freshwater Science was created which includes research and education in the area of filtering water, aquaculture and other water issues.

At the forefront of aquaculture, a national non-profit organization called Growing Power that supports access to healthy, high-quality, safe and affordable food and is at the forefront of acquaulture. Their fish farms use plants such as basil and with the use of compost – other vegetable plants like tomatoes are grown while also filtering the water for the fish. It was started by Will Allen, a former professional basketball player who bought the Milwaukee farm in 1993. He was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” in 2008 for his work on urban farming, sustainable food production, and with Growing Power.

Next time I am in Wisconsin, I plan to visit Growing Power, and also to check in and see how Kaye’s fish are doing.

Image Source:

Growing Power

Links:

School of Freshwater Sciences

Growing Power – Hydroponics