Kbaumlier

Author: Kbaumlier

Kristen Baumlier’s work spans the full spectrum of interdisciplinary media, including performance, interactive installation, video and audio works.

The Empire Drive-In – The Drive-In Theatre with Upcycled Cars

Posted on October 28, 2013October 28, 2013 by Kbaumlier

Drive in theaters, where you could sit and watch a movie in your car were popular in the late 1950s, and there were between 4000 and 5000 drive-ins. Today it is reported that there are about 422 that are open around the world. (1)

Brooklyn-based artists Jeff Stark and Todd Chandler have created a drive-in movie theater experience that mixes upcycling and drive-ins in a new way. Titled The Empire Drive-In, the project uses cars from local junk yards and repurposes them as the seats for an outdoor theater. The screen used to project the movie is 40 feet tall, and is made from salvaged wood. A Low-power radio transmits the movie’s stereo audio directly to each car.

The first Empire Drive-In was created for a viewing of one of the artist’s films and was located in San Jose, California in 2010. The project has now traveled, and has been a featured installation at a number of festivals and events, including the 2012 Abandon Normal Devices Festival in Manchester, United Kingdom.

During the Empire Drive-In experience, viewers are invited to change seat and switch cars, to check the glove compartments and to even sit on the cars. The cars selected are not flashy, but often are cars that we see every day (like Nissans and Fords.) The artists have included these familiar brands in an attempt to demonstrate the planned obsolescence of cars with so many people getting new cars every few years.

This past month, the Empire Drive-In showed a variety of movies at New York Hall of Science in Queens, New York between October 4-20^th that included a series of Bollywood films, Animation shorts, movies made by youth groups, and some movie shorts about transportation.

What to experience the Empire? The schedule of events and screenings are listed on the project website.

Image Source and Links:

empiredrivein.com

Sources:

(1) http://www.drive-ins.com/pressfaq.htm.

Ghost Food – Experience How We Might Eat After Global Warming

Posted on October 24, 2013October 28, 2013 by Kbaumlier

Two years ago, the cost of peanut butter went up, due to a lower supply of peanuts due to severe heat and drought. In the discussion about climate change, our food supply and food security are named as a growing problem, and that 2050 is the tipping point for when our supply will not meet our demand.

GhostFood is an interactive art project created by artists Miriam Simun and Miriam Songster which presents an experience of how we might eat in the future. For the project, a food truck offers a menu with food substitutes for 3 foods that would be affected by global warming. The menu lists cod, chocolate, and peanut butter. A visitor can order a food sample, which comes in a white tray and a thin tubelike mask that allows you to smell what you are supposed to eat.

Once the mask is on, the visitor is able to smell the food that they ordered, in a small round piece that is soaked in synthetic chocolate, cod, or peanut butter.

Both Simun and Songster have done past projects with food and smell. GhostFood is meant to present a simulation of how food might be experienced if it is no longer available.

The press release for the project describes the experience as:

“When you get to the front of the line, ask for the cod, and rest assured that the food substitute served is fish-less and made from climate-change resilient ingredients. Your flavor experience will be delivered by a GhostFood server.

If you inquire, you might learn that the potential future of the codfish as an ocean ghost is the result of a future mass drowning. Cod eggs that the female fish release into our oceans can no longer float in surface waters due to decreasing salinity levels in an Atlantic that is warming.

GhostFood serves this post-extinction sidewalk snack hoping that when you float in the ocean next summer you will consider that buoyant feeling a little differently.”

The project premiered as part of the DesignPhilly event on October 9, 2013.

Image Source and Links:

steamworkphilly.com/ghostfood.html

www.designphiladelphia.org/

World Food Day is Coming Up – October 24

Posted on October 19, 2013October 28, 2013 by Kbaumlier

On October 24^th all across the U.S. various groups including health officials, nutritionists, college students, environmentalists, farmers, food and health advocates, companies, chefs, parents, and teachers will be sponsoring and participating in activities encouraging Americans to eat healthy and “real” food. Food Day is a worldwide event that is designed to increase awareness, understanding and informed, year-around action to alleviate hunger and good eating, and there is still time to get involved.

On a personal level, you can use Food Day as an inspiration to introduce healthier foods into your diet. Some individuals will ask their employer to create an office wellness policy or participate in a community supported agriculture program. School cooking lessons, making a garden, or holding a dinner parties are other ways to participate.

Some larger events that are happening for Food Day include the Bon Appétit Management company (which has over 500 food cafes) are working to promote sodium reduction in their food and The Big Apple Crunch event which is an attempt to set the world record for the “Most Participants in an Apple-Crunching Event.”

If you want to organize an event, or do something for the day, the site has organizing guides and resources that include a film screening guide, a dinner party kit, and discussion guides.

Image Sources and Links:

www.foodday.org

Food Day – Facebook page

Big Apple Crunch Event

I Eat Real – Food Day Poster

Empower Playground – Playground Equipment Generating Electricity for Schools in Rural Ghana

Posted on October 17, 2013October 18, 2013 by Kbaumlier

Each day all around the world, children play together. In some communities and schools there are playgrounds and play equipment, but in rural Ghana, there is often no play equipment at the schools. Former ExxonMobil VP Ben Markham was volunteering with his wife as Mormon missionaries in Ghana, where he noticed the lack of electricity and basic playground equipment in most of the schools he visited.

He thought he could come up with a solution to help with this, and he worked to develop a merry-go-round that would generate about 150 watts of energy per hour as children played on it, that is stored in a battery pack.

Empower Playgrounds, founded by Markham is a nonprofit that has worked to develop these energy creating play equipment, and also works to get these systems to schools in Ghana. Ghana is located just above the equator, and the day is divided between 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness for most of the year. It is rated as one of the darkest places, and is great for stargazing, but maybe not so great for getting things done in the dark.

The electricity generated by Empower Playground’s merry-go-round goes to power 50 LED lanterns, that children are able to take home at night. The playground provides equipment for up to 200 students. Children are grouped into “Lantern Groups” according to neighborhoods, and usually have about 6 students who use the lanterns to study around the lantern. Each lantern can last up to 50 hours per charge.

The project is ongoing, and individuals can support the project by donating money, and sharing the word about the project. The website says that you can provide light for a child for $10 per year.

Image Source and Links:

http://emplay.squarespace.com/

History of Empower Playgrounds – YouTube Video

The Mašta Handbook – a Practical Guide to Creative Activism

Posted on October 14, 2013October 18, 2013 by Kbaumlier

So what is going on in current practices of creative activism? I recently read an update on the Kulturlabor Trial & Error website about a new handbook about creative activism created by Masta magazine. The handbook is a collection of creative activism and is intended to inspire others to move from thinking to doing. In the handbook, there are stories shared by collectives and activists that include different methodologies, best practices, experiences, advice, anecdotes, tips and tricks.

The handbook is meant to function as an online community and publication for youth educators, activists, artists, community facilitators and others who are interested in socially engaged change. Some of the collectives and activists that have participated include yay@flautas, F*ck for forest, Partizaning, Molestar.org, Karsay Dorottya and Dainis Ozoliņš and others from Germany, Spain, Holland, and other European countries. The Handbook is an open document, and more action reports and interviews can be added as it grows.
I checked out the handbook, and some of the groups that I found interesting included HUMOENLACIUDAD, a group that created engaging signs in public space and a project called the Teilnahmerei, a meeting space and series of events in Germany where everything was free of charge.

Some interesting projects in Spain included #Porrablock,when hundreds of thousands of citizens surrounded the Spanish Parliament asking for politicians to resign, and brought an edible baton (in Spanish “porras-churros” a typical Spanish food); and Ayuntañecos, a series of public puppet shows that were done in front of a popular Spanish bank in order to bring awareness to unjust home evictions in 2012.

The Handbook is an open process, so you can still contribute to the publication, so if you are a creative activist who wants to share an action report, contact the project at editor@mastazine.net. Please note that the handbook will not include projects that explores a superficial way, so no performances of “free hugs” or dance flashmobs.

The Mašta Handbook – practical guide to creative activism was made possible with help of financial support from the Council of Europe – European Youth Foundation.

Image Source and Links:

http://www.mastazine.net/handbook