Author: Kbaumlier

Kristen Baumlier’s work spans the full spectrum of interdisciplinary media, including performance, interactive installation, video and audio works.
Freight Farms: Upcycled Shipping Containers Become Garden Units

Freight Farms: Upcycled Shipping Containers Become Garden Units

Want to grow 400 heads of lettuce a week?  Freight Farms is a new solution for growing food in any geographic location, all within a 40’x  8’ freight container.  The units are equipped with growing equipment and the latest harvest technology necessary for commercial scale agriculture.   The setup provides efficient, year-round growing and will help reduce transportation costs.

The systems uses soilless agriculture setups, and uses solar energy.  Freight containers are a water-tight, weather-proof structure that is capable of withstanding the most extreme weather conditions. Their size and structure provide a versatile, durable and cost effective way to grow food.  Freight farms use less water than traditional agriculture and eliminate the need for pesticides or herbicides.

The company behind the units call them “A local solution for the next generation of global food supply.”The units are designed to be used by a wide variety of users, including institutional foodservice providers, schools, restaurants, farmers, grocery stores, disaster relief efforts, wholesale produce distributors and developing communities.

You can read more about their different units and even order one today if you want to get growing at freightfarms.com
Image Source:
freightfarms.com

Links:

freightfarms.com

 

 

Deconstructed Flowers – The Art of Fong Qi Wei

Deconstructed Flowers – The Art of Fong Qi Wei

We’ve all seen flowers and heard of the “he loves me, he loves me not,” method of pulling off flower petals to predict if someone loves you.  Fong Qi Wei, takes the removal of petals to a new level in his series of photographs of deconstructed flowers.

Wei is a conceptual fine art photographer who is based in Singapore, who views role of artist is to be a communicator what he calls an authentic message.  He writes on his site, “I try to engage my audience by providing a new perspective on familiar subjects or themes. Through my art, I hope to introduce my point of view to my viewer and engage them beyond aesthetics. I wish to provoke them to think further about the familiar and ordinary.”

His series called Exploded flowers presents the beauty and design of flowers by taking flowers and presented them in a manner similar to a dissection.  Each piece is separated and presented next to the other parts. The results is images that show the radial symmetry of flowers, and presents the moment of time in which a flower is still alive and in bloom.

He writes about the series, “… what is interesting to me is how much more expanded some flowers can get when they are disassembled – the relative surface area to size of a rose is so much greater compared to a larger flower like the sunflower.”   The series has been featured in publications that include The Boston Globe and My Modern Met, and can be seen on his website fqwimages.com.

 

Image Source:
http://fqwimages.com/2011/08/exploded-flowers-3/

 

Links:

http://fqwimages.com/2011/08/exploded-flowers-3/

 

Events and Actions:  Food Font Tool Development Update

Events and Actions: Food Font Tool Development Update

Today at work a colleague of mine asked me, “So when is the Food Font tool going to be ready?”  We talked about the process of developing programs and tools, and I gave him an update of the progress.

So what is the progress?  After months of design work, the  interface and design of the tool is done.  Currently I am creating the Event Action Matrix document, a document comprised of images, text descriptions and directions for how the tool works.  To make this, I create images and screen shots of each element (each button state, each menu, what happens on the canvas, etc.) and explain how each element works and functions.  The work is detailed – but it is exciting to be working on this document that helps the programmer do the work to make the tool work.  I am lucky to have a brother who does this kind of work, so he is consulting on this step of the process.

Here are some images that are used in the document to show stages of the tool, and how it works:

Screen Shot 2013-04-10 at 9.07.16 PM

Food Font Tool Panel – Use this to select a Food Font  to use.  Select and find Fonts
by the image, name, location/group, tags, or by general text search.

 

Screen Shot 2013-04-10 at 9.07.41 PM

Background Tool Panel – choose a background.  Don’t like it?  Change it again!

 

Screen Shot 2013-04-10 at 9.12.10 PM

The Stamp Tool – Stamp and Draw with a letter!

 

Screen Shot 2013-04-10 at 9.06.44 PM

Post an Image – Dialogue Window

 

Teachbox:  A Toy Design for Emergency Supply Boxes

Teachbox: A Toy Design for Emergency Supply Boxes

Each year, millions of boxes are shipped to developing countries by organizations like UNICEF, where food and medical supplies are needed. Designers Milad Mohajeri and Ali Haji came up with a idea for the boxes to be used for toys, and not to be used for just kindling. Their simple design integrates printing designs with perforated edges, so that they could be popped out and assembled like puzzles.

The designs when assembled become animals, vehicles, and people. Abuot their design, Tuvie writes, “Upon unpacking, most of these boxes are disposed of while these plain boxes enjoy a powerful potential to be creatively reused. In this concept, a sustainable solution is presented, based on which the simple model of 3-D puzzles is perforated on the boxes sent by UNICEF.”

Images of their design can be seen on tuvie.com

Image Source:
www.tuvie.com/teachbox-concept-trains-childrens-creative-mind

Links:

www.tuvie.com/teachbox-concept-trains-childrens-creative-mind

Food and You:  An Animation About Our Food System

Food and You: An Animation About Our Food System

Oxfam International Youth Partnerships (OIYP) is a global network of young people, aged 18-25, known as Action Partners, who work with their communities to create positive, equitable and sustainable change.  One issue that the group works on is about food and sustainability, and specifically getting the word out about our food system.

It has been reported that the in the last 50 years, industrial food companies have led us to unsustainable food system.  The system relies on oil in order to sustain it, and it takes 10 calories into our food system for every 1 calorie we get out.  The chemical fertizlizers are creating unhealthy soil, and we are not able to use all of the food that we grow.

An animation called Food and You, uses motion graphics to  illustrate issues that have created our current food system and then presents the transformation that is already underway to bring about change. The piece ends by asking,” What can you do to help grow the movement?”  Want a fun big picture of a serious issue?  Food and You can be seen on the OxFam’s Youtube. Channel.

Image Source:
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3cGEqBrlVzM


Links:

www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3cGEqBrlVzM

oiyp.oxfam.org.au