Author: Kbaumlier

Kristen Baumlier’s work spans the full spectrum of interdisciplinary media, including performance, interactive installation, video and audio works.
Want a Random Sandwich? Order a Randwich

Want a Random Sandwich? Order a Randwich

Posted on by Kbaumlier

In the mood for a random sandwich?  If you live in New York City, you can order a Randwich, and get a “surprise” sandwich. Randwiches is a new venture by Jenn de la Vega and Jeff Stockton of Escoffiette, wanted to put a spin on ordering sandwiches are delivered.  When you order, you can choose some choices in terms of the type of sandwich you want and how you like it – and you get a surprise sandwich.

Calling itself part of the “slow food movement,” Randwich sandwiches are handmade, use local ingredients, and hand-crafted.  By delivering surprise sandwiches – people get to try new food combinations.  So far some of the sandwiches have included unique such  as lavender bechamel, homemade jalapeno mustard, homemade lemongrass strawberry jam, duck salami, broccoli rabe, and arugala.  What kind of bread?  The sandwiches are made on locally made maple oat break.

The first Randwich sandwich were delivered in October in 2011, and are delivered 2-3 days a week. Jenn de la Vega and Jeff Stockton of Escoffiette, which is a food study and catering service based in Brooklyn, NY.

Live in New York?  They have been on break – but after February 3rd you can order my email at randwiches [at] gmail [dot] com or follow them on Twitter as @randwiches. Since they are delivering on bike and on foot right now, they usually only deliver 8 at a time – so they don’t get smushed.

Don’t worry about having to tip them, they don’t take tips but would rather have you  tell your friends to try out our service via word of mouth or email .  Also – if you have nonperishable items or kitchen tools, you can tip us with those too, or email them about trading services if you can’t afford a sandwich.

Image Source:
Randwich Website

 

Links:

Randwich Website

Escoffiette Website

Examining Values Can Affect Climate Change

Examining Values Can Affect Climate Change

Posted on by Kbaumlier

I recently read an article about conference organized by the Scottish Government in June of 2010 which focused on the ways that psychology could work to address issues of climate change. The conference focused on examining human values and behaviors.

There was an interesting chart that was included in the article, called Scwartz’s Value Circumplex which charts values such as achievement, power, security, benevolence, and others. Tim Kasser, who presented at the conference, writes about how in order to engage people in issues of global warming, people’s ‘intrinsic’ values such as universalism and benevolence need to be engaged as opposed to their ‘extrinsic’ values such as power and achievement.  These ideas and the chart are included in the The Common Cause Handbook, a publication which calls itself “A Guide to Values and Frames for Campaigners, Community Organizers, Civil Servants, Fundraisers, Educators, Social Entrepreneurs, Activist.”  This book available for free to  download from www.valuesandframes.org.

This book and website were developed out of an effort in 2009 when several organizations from the U.K. including OxFam and World Wildlife Federation), and came together to discuss the inadequacy of current responses to challenges like climate change, global poverty and biodiversity loss. Research by experts in in social science and cognitive science was at the core of the discussion of how to approach motivating specific behaviors in individuals for social and environment change.

The handbook and website give an overview to values, talking about how values represent our guiding principles: our broadest motivations, influencing the attitudes we hold and how we act, why values matter, and how we use values.

How do values develop and change?   Over time, repeated engagement of values is likely to strengthen them.   Our repeated interactions with institutions (such as a school classroom, library, forest, or park) will affect our development of appreciation, achievement, or other values.  The interesting outcome of this type of thinking and analysis is that it has recently been implemented in order to adjust communication in order to appeal to the primary motivations of different groups of people.

Some examples are in order to promote volunteering, educational activities and charitable giving – this could be presented as opportunities personal gain. To promote value of human rights, these ideas can be promoted through fear, stating that any human rights abuse makes it less safe for all of us. Motiving environmental behavior can be promoted as “eco-chic” for those who value status, or as a way to save money for those who value being frugal.

The website has a lot of great resources, including some case studies you can review, an extended reading list, working groups you can join, and also a case study and blog area where you can contribute or participate  in a dialogue about these ideas.

Image Source:
www.valuesandframes.org

Links:

The Common Cause Handbook

www.valuesandframes.org

What Works in Behaviour Change?” Conference (28 June 2010)

Video – of Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

HIVE and COOP: Designer Homes for Bees and Chickens

HIVE and COOP: Designer Homes for Bees and Chickens

Posted on by Kbaumlier

Last Friday I attended the Cleveland 2012 Year of Local Food event downtown at City Hall.  While there, I met Timothy Riffle, who is a woodcarver and historic specialist who has designed some interesting beehives and chicken coops designed for urban settings.  He had several beehives on display, and I spent some time talking to him about his unique designs of beehives and chicken coops.

Thinking about raising chickens in the future, but aren’t thrilled about having a clunky wood box in your backyard?  Riffle’s designs, under the name of HIVE and COOP are more of an artistic home for bees and chickens.

One design is the Urbanite – which is blue and has a modern design/ trailer look and feel. Another is called the Usonian, and is named after a Frank Lloyd Wright design.  This beehive is made of wood and has a curved slanted copper roof.  The hives are all “top bar” hives, where bees build the hive down from a single bar at the top.   The hives are lighter and cleaner – but it takes a little longer to harvest the honey.

Urban farming?  Designer architecture?  Hive and Coop is both – and once my city (Cleveland Heights) passes an ordinance to have chickens – I might look into one of Riffle’s designs for my yard.

Image Source:
Kristen Baumlier

 

Links:

Hive and Coop

 

Concrete Jungle: Picking and Using Neglected Roadside Produce

Concrete Jungle: Picking and Using Neglected Roadside Produce

Posted on by Kbaumlier

A few years ago, I saw my friend Ian outside of where I work, picking apples from a tree that I parked near every day.  I had never noticed that this small tree was an apple tree.  Later that week I went biking with Ian, and we went to several other locations where Ian gathered apples from trees around Cleveland. He used the apples to make apple butter.  Urban unharvested  and neglected fruit trees exist in lots of cities, and in larger amounts in cities in warm climates.

In 2009, Craig Durkin and Aubrey Daniels had noticed a large amount of apples growing on neglected trees all over Atlanta, GA. The group decided to create an annual gathering, nicknamed “Ciderfest,” to pick these apples and turn them into apple cider.

After several years of larger and larger apple harvests, Durkin and Daniels started Concrete Jungle, a non-profit, which after its third year has  documented nearly 1,000 fruit-bearing trees across the city, and has donated over 6,000 lbs of produce to local homeless shelters and charitable organizations.

They organize group harvest events, and harvest hundreds of fruit and nut trees in the Atlanta area that are by the side of the road or by buildings.    Before going out to harvest, the group documents the tree to make sure that it will yield healthy fruit. They also get verbal permission if the trees are on private land, and work with the land/business owners to get access to the trees.

Concrete Jungle sorts the fruit once picked, and checks for worms and bruised spots. They wash the fruit and donate to organizations that include churches, homeless shelters, and food banks.

The food map that they made on their site indicates over 573 locations  in Atlanta which include apples, peaches, blackberries, blueberries, figs, and other fruits and nuts.    If you live in the area, you can volunteer to help pick and the group uses Twitter and Facebook to list picking and community events.

 

Image Source:
Concrete Jungle

Links:

Concrete Jungle

Concrete Jungle – Food Map

Biophilia – Bjorks’s New Album of Nature +Music Ipad apps

Biophilia – Bjorks’s New Album of Nature +Music Ipad apps

Posted on by Kbaumlier

Biophilia, a album and project by Bjork is the first album to be released as a suite of iPad and iPhone apps, and is intended to be experiential educational project that uses sound, texts and visuals that focus on natural science topics including plate tectonics, genetics and human biorhythms.

The project took over 3 years to develop, and Bjork, her record company, Apple, and National Geographic contributed to making an album that is the first album releases that worked with Apple to produce a series of iPad apps as an album.. Some key collabators to the project were made by David Attenborough,  who does narration on the project and Dr Nicola Dibben, a senior lecturer in music at Sheffield University, who wrote the essays that accompany every song. Also part of the team was a mathematician, British scientist and film-maker, and a robotics company’s director of engineering.

I downloaded the app, which currently has 9 song/apps that are available for purchase.  The application opens with an interactive view of star constellations, with bright stars labeled with names like sacrifice, thunderbolt, and virus.  A voiceover begins that  talks about where me nature, and that  much of it is hidden, we can not see or touch it , such as sound which is usually hidden.   The idea behind Biophilia is that nature, music, and technology come together- and you can listen, interact, and create.

I paid to download the song/application Virus, which said it was about the biological virus and the host. In the song notes, the piece talked about how Bjork was fighting a “candida issue” in her throat, and was learning to live with and get rid of a fungus in her.  The piece is about fungus inside of us, and living to live with it.

When I played the piece, the piece had images of cells that I could interact with while I could hear the song, and lips appeared inside of the cells.  I read that I am supposed to try to stop the attack of the virus (which were green.)  The directions did not tell me what to do – so I did what my four year old nephew would do – I just tried to touch and click everything.  I don’t think I was successful – since the piece is supposed to stop if I was successful, and it never stopped.   I kept swiping my ipad and watched as more green virus organisms surrounded the large cell, then green strings came in to surround the nucleus, and the song progressed into different keys.  Eventually the big cell disappeared – and the virus remained.

After the song ended – I was left with a cell/virus synthesizer of sort – where I could click and get different sounds which included bells, synthesizers, zylophones, etc.

Overall I was disappointed with the application.  The interface was unclear, and I did not feel that I got a meaningful experience with the music or ideas through the piece I downloaded.   The graphics and text of the main interface seem like something I would have seen 10 years ago, and I would have liked the option to read some direction or F.A.Qs about the piece.

At 1.99 a song – I’m not going to by the other 8.  Interactive mediums are always a challenge – but my experience with Biophilia did not seem like anything new except it was made by Bjork and her collaborators.

Image Source:
Creative Applications – Bjork Biophilia

Links:
Creative Applications – Bjork Biophilia

Bjork’s website

Biophelia application on Itunes