Robots as art June 30, 2008

In honor of Wall-E being the top-grossing film at the box office this weekend, here is a little piece on Robots: designed by humans to look like, act like, and perform like humans, but not actually be humans. In fact, there have been enough I, Robot rip-offs (Matrix, anyone?) to prove that humans are just plain scared of their own technology:

A top-ten list of movie robots, good and bad.

A profile of Ben Burtt, the creator of R2D2 and Chewbacca’s voice, and now Wall-E’s. The article has some nice insight into the process of making robotic sound effects.

Coming soon…a write-up on dancing robot competitions!

House built out of a plane June 30, 2008

A superb combination or architecture and engineering. A woman in California is in the process of building a house and other smaller structures on her property entirely out of a jet, reusing the entire jet. The most expensive part was flying the plane’s wings to the site. The plane itself was surprisingly inexpensive, and a great way of getting non-biodegradable items out of a landfill.

After working on my own house project, I’m amazed that this woman is already thinking about her next house’s material: a boat.

Photography exhibition with live camera obscura June 27, 2008

Only being shown in Connecticut, but a good excuse to get out of the hot weather.

A Triple-Header Celebrates Art Of Light
New Haven Independent – CT, USA
His eye-bending work in optics and in the ancient technique of camera obscura, which he renders anew, are featured in an exhibition at Yale University Art …

This exhibit really focuses on the photographic method, not just the subject matter the artists have tried to capture. All of the artists shown have very different statements to make, and are in different parts of their career, which I think is always fun since as an audience I’m not seeing work done by everyone in the graduating class or work done by a group of people at the end of their career. You get to see the artists’ on different parts of their path, and compare the different paths each photographer is taking/has taken in their exploration of light.

Fear over the airwaves June 27, 2008

Radiolab, a radio show produced by New York NPR station WNYC, has done this really interesting show about the legacy of Orson Welles’ radio play War of the Worlds. They look at how art combined with technology – specifically the radio – was able to create mass hysteria, not once, not twice, not even three, but four times in the 20th Century.

The show also points out that the Blair Witch Project film could be described as a modern-day version of this type of storytelling, only using video cameras instead of the radio.

I should also mention that while I had heard of this show mentioned before on radio show This American Life, it was finally after reading science writer Sunny Bain’s blog that I checked it out for myself.

art-sci-tech member organization June 26, 2008

I am just beginning to explore (read: I am neither endorsing or denouncing) the Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. website. ASCI is a membership organization for artists and scientists interested in working on multidisciplinary projects, namely those involving art, technology, and science.

Despite sounding a bit proud of themselves – “ASCI was instrumental in reinvigorating the art-sci-tech movement in the United States during the mid-1990’s and helped coalesce the art-science movement [1998-2002]” – they offer some good resources, and although they’re specficially geared towards artists, the artists’ work is strongly based in technology and the sciences. They are also based in New York, so a lot of their “free tickets” and on-site help are presumably only available to New Yorkers or area locals.

Centre for Poetry and Science June 25, 2008

I stumbled upon this awhile ago, and with their new web design I almost didn’t recognize it: This is a program based at the University of Liverpool (UK) called the Liverpool University Centre for Poetry and Science (LUPAS). This program is run by Deryn Rees-Jones of the School of English and Dr. Lesley A Iwanejko of the School of Biological Sciences. Pretty self-explanatory (I hope). The centre makes the argument that while “traditionally opposed,” poety and science have a lot to say about each other and these ties should be explored. Mostly the website features writings about science, although they are currently promoting speaker Alison Mark who “will explore the use of science in the poetry of Veronica Forrest-Thomson” in her upcoming talk.

Their Links page is also very interesting.

Recharge your phone by dancing June 24, 2008

Why this isn’t being marketed as an ipod charger I don’t know.

Reuters is reporting a mobile phone operator Orange in the UK has teamed up with renewable energies company GotWind to develop a cell phone charger that runs of kinetic energy.

“The portable kinetic energy chargers will be given a test run at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, the world’s biggest greenfield music and arts celebration that begins on a farm in Somerset, southwest England on Friday [June 27].”

If these are ever marketed in the U.S., I would so get one of these if a) I had an ipod, and b) I didn’t have two left feet. I might just get one anyway because I like the idea of sweating for my access to electronics. A quick scan of Google doesn’t find anything like this for runners, but there should be. The market for this type of thing in the fitness industry is HUGE.

Art, Science, and Reading June 24, 2008

I’ve mentioned Seed Magazine before, but I also wanted to mention a few (and I mean a few because a more extensive sampling would require WAY too much time, but maybe more later) other options for anyone interested in getting more in depth into the study of science and art.

Articles:
An interesting paper (PDF) on the human brain’s reaction to art, and how the brain has possibly evolved with the help of art.
A short 1997 article introducing a study of art that visually describes quantum physics.
Robin Yeary, “The Art of Science,” IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 17(2),  pp. 4-5,  March-April,  1997. (I can’t get a link because I’m not an IEEE member, but I’m sure it’s awesome).
And of course there is always the SPIE Journal of Electronic Imaging.

Books:
The Art of Science, By Boris Castel, Sergio Sismondo – looks at scientists and the doing of science
The Art of Science: Activities and Creative Ideas for the Teaching of Science to Children 5 to 9, by Barbara Hume and Christine Galton (pretty self-explanatory).
Pythagoras’ Trousers: God, Physics, and the Gender Wars, By Margaret Wertheim.
More a book about culture and science, but worth perusing. And NO, it’s not a man-bashing book. It’s really about Physics.

UK Tech Transfer board for creative technologies June 23, 2008

The UK government definitely appreciates the combination of art and science. They have created a business development group devoted entirely to ”creative technologies.”

To quote, the national government’s ”Technology Strategy Board appointed a consortium to manage the newly created Creative Industries Technology Innovation Network (CITIN). The consortium members are University of the Arts London, Imperial College London, The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), and TIGA, a trade group representing the UK gaming industry. The network plans to bring together businesses, universities, research and technology organizations, the finance community and other intermediaries to help boost commercialization of research and adoption of new technologies in a wide spectrum of creative industries, including advertising, architecture, computer games, crafts, performing arts, TV & radio, film and video, designer fashion, software, music, design, and publishing.” The full press release article is here.

The technologies include anything from Bioscience to sustainable technologies (I also love the distinctions made between the regions in the UK on their project reports page). Here is the page of forthcoming events.

Nabaztag bunny June 20, 2008

This is a product I stumbled across when writing my Green Tools article for SPIE Professional but couldn’t fit it into the article.

The Nabaztag bunny is a reactionary! Sort of. It is an electronic device designed to relay messages from the Internet in a new, creative, Japanese-style-yet-surprisingly-not-Japanese way, i.e. shaped like a cute bunny. The bunny’s ears move and light up according to WiFi messages it receives about weather, email, or whatever else you’d like to program it for. The bunny has a series of LED lights throughout its body (I believe the bunny is by default a “he” but I don’t want to offend any female Nabaztag out there) and has speech capabilities as well. It also can read, or “sniff,” zstamps (rtags) and will identify the object.

What’s cool about it is the novel, fun way of receiving updates and messages. What’s annoying is the bunny has to be plugged in to a wall socket so it’s not very mobile (although it’s small so it is portable), most of the services and features offered are only through the Nabaztag website (although the company says they can handle any platform), and it’s constantly updating you! Perhaps in a cute way, but you don’t get to choose when it alerts you; unless you turn the bunny off, it will randomly spout or flash updates at you.

This product could either be very cool or very annoying. The people who own them so far seem to like them; a few got together and created a bunny opera, using the bunnies as their instruments. (The video is pretty quiet so turn it up).