Pixelache – Kristen Baumlier

Tag: Pixelache

Open Data Cooking Workshop: a Mix of Food and Data

Posted on August 3, 2012August 4, 2012 by Kbaumlier

What would a fish soup taste like if the recipe was based on publicly available local fishing data? What a pizza would be like if it was based on the population of Helsinki? What are the principles of local cuisine and how can this be represented?

One way to think about a recipe is that it is comprised of food and data. In the Open Data Cooking Workshop organized with Pixelache in Helsinki in September, the relationship of food and data is going a bit farther. The workshop explores how to represent information and data related to culinary topics. How can local food be represented in its qualities of color, form, texture, smell, taste, nutrition, and origin? In the workshop participants will have the opportunity to translate data in concrete, as well as more abstract methods. This includes using the senses, numbers, descriptions, language, and other means.

The workshop is described as a “collaborative research experience, blurring the boundaries between teachers and participants as well as data and food.” At the end of the workshop, a public event with a “data menu” will be tasted and documetation will be done in the form of a online cookbook.

The workshop is produced by Pixelache and organized by prozessagenten based studio that researches and initates processes by art and design), the OK Festival, Marc Aulum (creative chef and owner of the restaurant Qulma), and Moritz Stefaner and Miska Knapek, who do research and work in information visualization.

Image Source:
www.flickr.com/photos/suviko/
www.pixelache.ac/helsinki/open-data-cooking-workshop/
www.qulma.fi/

Links:
www.pixelache.ac/helsinki/open-data-cooking-workshop/

prozessagenten

PhoEf – Edible and Sustainable Solar Cells…. In Your Mouth

Posted on June 19, 2012June 27, 2012 by Kbaumlier

When I was at the Camp Pixelache event in Helsinki, Finland in May I learned about a unique project involving energy and food. On the Pixelache website, it had an article that talked about a past workshop called Temporary photoElectric Digestopians WorkLab which was aco-creation worklab with research based experimentations

on the transformation of light energy into electric energy with food. For the workshop, the participants worked with edible materials to create ‘e-tapas’ of different aesthetics and tastes by creating edile solar cells. The aronia berry was used, which is a sustainable power source for both the body and electronic devices.

I did some research on the worksnhop and project, and learned that PhoEf is the work Bartaku who does projects that explore both the micro and macro realms of Photovoltaics, which is the conversion of light energy into electrical energy.

On the project page of his website, Bartaku writes that, “PhoEf emerges from a personal, transversal flight through the interconnected worlds behind and around photovoltaics; a technology based on A.E. Becquerel’s 1839 observation of the photovoltaic effect… PhoEf is an attempt to reach, inspire and connect researchers, developers and artists.” I also found an interesting five minute video of an interview with Bartaku, which helped me better understand the project and how it works.

Solar cells can be expensive, so Bartaku was interested in using simple technology to create cheaper and sustainable solar cells. For the experiments pigments from plants (which can be natural or synthetic), electrolites, and graphite or carbon are mixed together and squeezed between glass plates – making a solar cell.

Since you design the cell, which is a temporary photoelectric cell, you can choose the shape, color, and other design elements. In the workshops that he leads, people make a cell, put it on their tongue, and then turn towards a light. The result is an electric sensation of the tongue as the energy hits the cell and the tongue.

The goal of the workshops is to share the technology and idea with others who are not familiar with making energy and solar cells. Bartaku hopes that other artists might think more about energy sources in their work, and make solar cells to power installations, outdoor activites, and elements used in performances.

His goal is to eventually make a solar cell made of 100 percent edible ingredients using the principles from the realms of alchemistry, photovoltaics, and cooking.

There is a flickr site that has photos from one of the workshops, which features lots of pictures with people with strange color shapes in their mouths. I am very interested in this idea and project, and hope to be able to attend a workshop in the future. Informaiton about making a PhoEf is on Bartaku’s research site, so go head and see if you can get your solar on!

Image Source:
PhoEf Project – Images on flickr

Links:
Video with Bartaku talking about PhoEf Project on Cobra TV

PhoEf Research Page – libarynth.org

PhoEf Project – Images on flickr

A “Collective Cake” and Local Food – Artist and Cultural Producer Milanda Sipos

Posted on June 5, 2012June 6, 2012 by Kbaumlier

At Camp Pixelache, the festival/unconference event that I attended last month in Helsinki, Finland, I got a chance to talk to Melinda Sipos, who was an artist in residence in the Pixelache Micro-Residency program. Melinda is from Budapest, Hungary, and has recently been doing projects about food and sustainability.

The group Pixelache turned 10 this year – and at the event there was to be a celebration of the group turning 10 years old. Milanda organized the creation of a “collective cake.” For this – participants were encouraged to bring a local ingredient from our home country. These ingredients were going to be used to create a cake.

It turned out that there were so many ingredients – that Melinda had to create a cake that was kind of like ladyfingers – and then she setup a buffet of all of the ingredients that people brought. I brought local honey from Ohio. There was chocolate, chocolate noodles from Germany, jellies from Finland, England, and Estonia, several bottles of alcohol, and some other ingredients.

The other project that Milanda tested out was to test a data-visualization model of the food that was served in the cafeteria on the main Pixelache day at the Arbis center, where the event was held. She developed ideas around catering. She wrote about the project, “Usually catering is considered as a necessary element of an event, but we tend to take it for granted that we are served with food and drinks. This experiment focuses on two main questions: how catering affects the ecological footprint of the whole event (especially traveling) and can we balance this out with a joint effort? In addition the goal is also to raise awareness on what we eat by providing information on the ingredients (their “stories”) and through a special arrangement in the restaurant space.”

At the event – there was an amazing carrot soup, a mushroom soup, a pasta dish with fish, and another dish that Milanda worked with the cook at the cafeteria to source out local ingredients, and to keep track of the food miles of all of the food. I had a gluten-free version of the soup – and it was amazing.

At 4 pm – it was time for the 10 year anniversary cake. The cake and the ingredients were put out on a table. Everyone took some cake, and then added ingredients to the cake a la carte. I tested 3 kinds of honeys, had some great jam, also some chocolate. It was a nice moment of the conference – with everyone talking, eating, and gathering around the food table.

Milanda told me about some of her work at Kitchen Budapest – a center of art and technology, and also about her new project called Based on Pig which explores food and culture. Based on the Pig is a project that has the goal to discover the Hungarian Kitchen, especially the eating habits of the contemporary Budapest people using artistic research methods. She and her collaborators are exploring what stories, traditions, and legends a certain food, ingredient or living creature used in the kitchen has. Questions they are exploring include, “What information is available online about food, and what do we face in the market?” The project aims to map the cultural framework of our food-related decisions and also to do some kitchen experiments. They kicked off the project with the ingredient of pigs. They plan to go after many other animals and vegetables with the project.

To learn more about her work, check out a video interview with Milanda on Vimeo that Pixelache recently posted. You also can read about the project Pig, and learn more about some Hungarian food at www.baedonpig.com/en/.

Links:

Milanda Sipos @ Camp Pixelache Interview – on Vimeo

www.basedonpig.com/en/

The Hexayurt Sauna @ Camp Pixelache

Posted on May 20, 2012May 21, 2012 by Kbaumlier

One of the kick-off activities at Camp Pixelache in Helsinki, Finland was a group activity to build a hexayurt structure that would later in the evening become a sauna.

A hexayurt is a 6 sided structure that can be built out of any materials including plywood, has little waste in its construction.

To make the simplest hexayurt, you make a wall by putting six sheets of plywood on their sides in a hexagon. Nex, cut six more sheets in half diagonally, and screw them together into a shallow cone. Finally, you lift the roof on to the wall with a large group of people, then fasten it down with more screws. You can seal and paint it for durability – and the hexyurt is done.

For the sauna design, Justin Tyler Tate and Ernest Truly were commissioned to build a mobile stove (kiuas in Finnish) for the Hexayurt Sauna. They built the stove in a shopping cart, and created a chimney from a long box like metal piece that came from a local factory. The outside of the hexayurt was a local material, also from a local factory. The stove design was made by putting ghte chimney structure in the center of the cart, and then putting rocks around this. The fire was made in the chimney, which then lit up the rocks.

It was rainy when the stove was lit, but we all stood around getting warm near the stove, and also took turns checking out the hexayurt structure. I did not wait for the stove to make it into the hexayurt since my feet were wet, but I heard the rocks did get warm – and people stayed up til 3 am in the sauna hexayurt structure.

The hexayurt shelter is meant to be an easy to build shelter, and is inspired by the Buckydome geodesic dome structure. The designs of the hexayurt are online and are open source. Since the design was put on the web 10 years ago, there are now more variations on the designs, one of which has expanded headroom and a full-height doorway.

The hexyurt design has no copyright or patent, and anyone can build it for free. It is meant to enable areas to create shelter, and in a crisis these could be made quickly and efficiently when shelter is needed.

A Hexayurt has been built in Haiti, were used at Occupy in Pittsburgh, and many hexayurt structures popped up at Burning Man this year (over 500!)

They goal is to get hexayurts all over the world – and I plan to see if we can build one where I work – maybe to use as another classroom, mediation room, clubhouse, or a sauna?

Links:

hexayurt.com/

Video about the Mobile Stove for the hexayurt at Camp Pixelache

Vinay Gupta at Camp Pixelache: Tools and Language

Posted on May 19, 2012May 21, 2012 by Kbaumlier

As the opening lines of Do-Re-Mi from Sound of Music go, “Let’s start at the very beginning…” I have many things to write about from my experience at Camp Pixelache in Helsinki last weekend – and I am going to start at the beginning.

The beginning of the festival started with a keynote talk by Vinay Gupta, who is one of the world’s leading thinkers on infrastructure theory and managing geopoltical risk. He is an environmentalist and a sustainability activist. He developed the Hexayurt, the free/open source emergency shelter and recently published the book The Future We Deserve.

His talk was called Tools and Language – Why government can’t manage the 21st century, but we can. In his talk he talked about the shifting balance of power between the State and Corporations, which is a huge part of the problems our democracies face in responding to issues like climate change.

He started the talk by talking about some lessons that he had learned, and by sharing some of the tools and projects he has developed that address issues of future survival and climate change.

He talked about the hexayurt structure, which is a six sided structure that can be built for cheap, is made out of plywood or similar materials, and can cost less than a relief. It can be built anywhere in the world at any scale, and is an open source design. The hexayurt started when someone asked Gupta if he could build a 6 sided structure based on the BuckyDome ( a geodesic dome) structure. He worked on this – and came up with the first hexayurt structure. He shared it with a few friends, and each year since then there have been more and more people building these structures. It took 10 years for the hexyurt to be used on a larger scale.

Vinay used this as a way to demonstrate the lesson that “change is slow” and “lasting change chages people.” He also talked about passive cooperation, and that the hexayurt structure was passed on from person to person, and the documentation and free licenses made it easy for people to use and access.

Vinay also shared a model he developed to support crisis management called Six Ways to Die. (6WTD.) This model helps explain what needs to get done in a crisis. Basically the six ways to die are: Too hot, too cold, thirst, hunger, illness, and inury. If you map out estiamtes of the thtreat in each area and any spystems or behaviors that need to be added to the situation to keep people safe, you can plan for emergencies. He also talked about the crisis in Haiti, and how when you have different type of organizations trying to work together – it can be a “goat rodeo” or a mess – since the groups have different methods to get to the same goal of helping those in need in a crisis.

One last lesson that Gupta talked about that I found interesting was that having a controlled vocabulary and precise language is important. Our language affects our thinking – and it is important to have a shared understood vocabulary. Gupta talked about how the Occupy movement at first did not have this – and it was a bit of a mess when Occupiers would be on the news interviewed, etc. Currently, Occupy is working on making a controlled vocabulary. This vocabulary maps and shapes our thinking. And Gupta refered to the Whorf theory – which is the linguistic principle that the structure of a language affects how we are able to concpetualize the world.

Gupta’s ideas are easy to access. He has a blog, a wiki website, and many of his lectures and talks are on his sites.

They also taped and posted his lecture on Vimeo. I recommend watching this –there is a part 1 and part 2 – and check out his lecture at http://vimeo.com/pixelache.

Links:

Vinay Gupta Talk at Pixelache – Vimeo Video Part 1 and Vimeo Video Part 2

hexayurt.com – http://hexayurt.com/

6 Ways to Die