Author: Kbaumlier

Kristen Baumlier’s work spans the full spectrum of interdisciplinary media, including performance, interactive installation, video and audio works.
Food Chain: Hear the Sounds of Produce Dying

Food Chain: Hear the Sounds of Produce Dying

What does it sound like when lettuce is withering up and “dying?” Leonardo Amico attached electric circuits to pieces of Romaine lettuce, and used oscillators to transform the measurements of water content and decomposing cells into sounds and tones.

In the online video titled Processing Decay, which documents the making of the piece, you hear sounds that sound like pulses and alarms.  When the lettuce is fresh, the sounds are longer and fuller, and when the video cuts to 5 days later, the sounds of the wilting lettuce are shorter notes that occur more frequently.  The experience of seeing the lettuce wilt and hearing the sounds change is unique and a little sad.

On the project/video site Amico writes:

“Technology relies on the stiffness of the inorganic. Digital processing consists of a sequence of logical operations inside lattices of chemically modified silicon crystal. Rarely computational and organic processes meet each other (apart from the peculiar relationship humans can build with electronic technology and gadgetry) but nonetheless they share a common characteristic: they both express themselves as phenomena over time.

This work intends to explore the possibility of an encounter between the two realms, by translating their processes into the universal language for phenomena; sound. Over the course of hours, days and weeks time spoils the texture of the leaves and degrades cells, slowly affecting the behavior of the system and its sonic output. The accuracy and precision of digital chips are forced to take into account the inevitably slow failure of inert biological matter.”

The piece is part of a collaborative project by Amico and Pere Saguer called Food Chain that was a music cd, dvd, and zine that explored the metaphysical properties of food coproduced with Badweather Press.

 

Images and Links:

Processing Decay – Video 

www.badweatherpress.com/foodchain.html

 

Park(ing) Day  – Use a Parking Space as a Public Space

Park(ing) Day – Use a Parking Space as a Public Space

Park(ing) Day is a urban intervention project that occurs each September, where people put money in a parking meter and instead of parking, use the space to create their own public park.  People will use the space to lay down grass sod, park a boat, or to gather and enjoy a picnic lunch.

The project began in 2005 when Rebar, a San Francisco art and design studio, converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in downtown San Francisco. Since 2005, PARK(ing) Day has evolved into a global event, with groups and individuals creating new forms of temporary public space in urban places around the world.

In recent years, parking spaces have been used to create free health clinics, temporary urban farms, sites to show ecology demonstrations, art installations, free bike repair shops and as a location for a wedding ceremony.

The Parking Day website reports that in 2011 there were 975 parks created in 162 cities in 35 countries.  If you are interested in planning a Park(ing) Day event for next year, you can download the Park(ing)Day Manual to get ready and rally for next year’s event.  What would you do in your own public space?

 

Links:

parkingday.org

The Park(ing)Day Manual 

 

 

 

 

Outdoor Mural of a Tree Appears When Splashed with Water

Outdoor Mural of a Tree Appears When Splashed with Water

I live near Chapel Hill, NC a city that has over 30 outdoor public painted murals on buildings and walls. Some of the murals that I regularly see include a wall with giant prehistoric turtles and a long wall with a giant pencil painted on it.

Most murals are made with paint that you can see day and night, but artist Adam Niklewicz created a new approach to murals for a public art project in Hartford Connecticut.  Using water repelling Rust-Oleum paint, he created a large image of an oak tree called The Charter Oak that is only seen when it is wet.

On many days, the mural can not be seen, but when the wall is covered with water the large image of a oak tree is visible.  For The Charter Oak mural to be seen, water must hit the wall directly rather than be sprinkled from above, so 5 sprinklers were set up to spray water on the mural once a day.

The tree image is inspired by a painting from 1957 by Charles De Wolf called the Charter Oak.  The tree is said to be a tree that grew for thousands of years on a hill in Connecticut and contains the Charter of 1662 hidden in its hollowed-out trunk.

The mural when it appears looks like a large ghost-like tree that stays visible for a few hours, and disappears as it dries.

 

Image Source and Links:

www.adamniklewicz.com

PP Capsule – Chairs filled with Upcycled Plastic Bottle Caps

PP Capsule – Chairs filled with Upcycled Plastic Bottle Caps

Each time I throw a plastic bottle into a recycle bin, I am unsure of what to do with the cap.  I know that they are not recyclable, but it feels wrong to throw them in the garbage.  The caps are made out of a different plastic than the bottles, the  #5 plastic and usually are not taken by most recycling plants.  I sometimes pocket them for a while, only to throw them out later.

The caps usually end up in landfills.  A design agency based in Hong Kong called Kacama has created a new way to use plastic caps.  Why not sit on them?  Kacama’s chair designed, called PP Capsule is a beanbag chair that is made with recycled plastic fabrics, and is filled with over 4.000 plastic caps.  The caps are ground up into small pieces, making a plastic confetti that is used as stuffing, and is comfortable to sit on.

The chairs have been made in various colors, and have a modern but warm look to them.  The development of the chairs was supported by a community development program called Yan Oi Tong, and Kacama worked with a local recycling plant and local seamstresses who sewed the chairs.

 

Image Source and Links:

www.kacama.hk

www.designboom.com – PP Capsule Chairs

 

Tip Toe Through the Lasers – The Heart Collection Game

Tip Toe Through the Lasers – The Heart Collection Game

In 1999 Entrapment, a artwork heist movie was released, and had a  scene with Catherine Zeta-Jones skillfully navigating through a room full of lasers, in order to steal a priceless lasers.

A new interactive maze game, called The Heart Collection gives you a chance to try going through a maze of a laser security system, in order to steal some art.  The game premiered at the Come Out and Play Festival and was first installed with the William Randolph Hearst collection.

Reports from those who have tried to navigate through the lasers to steal art pieces on the wall report that it is harder than it looks.  (It is really hard.)

The game, created by Go Game, has been reengineered to travel and fit into a suitcase sized laser maze construction kit. The kit has custom components including light sensors, aimable lasers, cable connectors, and an arduino board that runs the game software.  With the kit, you construct a maze of your own design in about 20 minutes.  To vary the difficulty and create levels, this would depend on the physical space that the game is setup and the position of the paitnings that are to be stolen.

Two videos about the game are online, featuring the game creator Gabe Smedresman and also showing the game in action.

Image Source and Links:

www.smedresmania.com/the-hearst-collection/

Video From Come Out and Play Festival

Video from IndieCade