Vimeo video:

A link to a nice pic on the Scientific American web site:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow.cfm?id=grad-school-for-gadgeteer

You may have heard terms such as Sustainability, Organic Farming, RoHS/Green Technology (one of many Green initiatives), Marine Stewardship and others that businesses use to describe the methods or practices used to grow food, manufacture products, etc. What do these term really mean to the average person? Can the regular Jane or Joe distinguish the difference between Natural Food, Organic Food and Organic Certified Food? Most people don’t know the difference, but that does not necessarily mean that they don’t care. The gap between the information that advocates for green practices gather and the public, has been pretty large. As technology and computing systems increase, so has the application of the technology to our every day life; which is forming a gap between the information about products and people.

An embracement of web and mobile technology is paving the way for smart consumers. People who look beyond the label and look at the whole picture. With all the information that is available about the products we consume, its only a matter of time before all that info catches up to the main stream. We are a long way from Bruce Sterling’s idea of Spimes which will allow us to know intimate details of a products with the click of a button. The ability to instantly accessing data about a product is are already at our finger tips, but is a bit complex. Phone Apps like the “Barcode Scanner” by ZXing Team and other mobile apps are allowing people to scan items and Google the serial data to get instant information about any product. These technologies are affecting the way that people consume because information critical to the consumer’s decision making process, is just a couple of clicks away. Deep down, people want the highest quality product for their money. Some will pay a bit more when they know which product is more friendly to the environment and their health.

With all the information available we can safely deduce that things like powder mix, such as Tang or Kool-aid are not as healthy to drink every day as organic orange juice would be. Our perception in 1965 was a bit different. We thought that Tang was better since it came from science and was engineered in a lab. The same was true for TV dinners which ensured that your frozen meal would be ready to eat in a few minutes. Fast forward to 2010, the general perception is different. We now know that fresh food is healthier than individually packaged servings of preserved food which also produce lots of garbage. There is a cultural change relating to consumption that is being accelerated by web technologies. Not only can you find information by using Google in smart phones and various mobile devices, you can also look up information like the health risks of trans fat. Weather it is via cell phone or browsing the web with your personal computer, people learn the facts and then put pressure on the regulation of such ingredients.

Online social media has a big impact on all products. When the BP oil rig collapsed in the Gulf of Mexico, we where reminded of the drastic change in the way news get communicated. The dramatic change is not in how the news get communicated, but by who does the communicating. Most likely than ever, it is the every day people that are the first to capture and distribute the news. Online social networks like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are the key components that allow people to communicate with a large network of people in real time. The conversations that revolve around events like the BP oil spill are key to understanding the effect of this new data stream in our culture.

Technology is not a wonder cure for all our problems, it is at best only speeding our awareness of the things that are going wrong and right in our society. Technology is actually an active participator in damaging the world. In 2007 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Report on data center energy efficiency “…estimated that Server Farm power consumption accounts for more than 1.5% of the total electricity usage in the U.S., at a cost of nearly $4.5 billion.” Since 2007 our technology needs have increased and so has the consumption of Energy. The race for developing green server farms has begun. Companies realize that being green is not only good for the environment, it is also profitable since being green means being efficient.

The internet’s footprint is only the start of how technology has had an impact on our environment. Lets take two simple examples of manufactured products and look at their effects. First lets look at electric hand dryers and paper towels (Why would any one go through the trouble of figuring out the energy content of a paper towel? Because you never know when you will need to know how much energy a paper towel contains.)

A paper towel has approximately 4,500 joules or 1.25 watt hours; enough to power a 100 watt light bulb for around 45 seconds or to be more familiar almost the same amount of energy in a AAA battery which has 1200 mA/h or 5,071 joules.

If you compare a paper towel (4500 joules/s or 1.25 watt-hours) and a hand dryer (1500 watts or 1500 joules/s) the we can see that the energy of one paper towel accounts for 3 seconds of hand dryer operation. Most hand dryers take anywhere between 10-30 seconds to dry your hands. That is around 4-10 paper towels towels or to make it sweeter, 1-5 AAA batteries! And that is not accounting the amount of energy and resources it takes to manufacture the wretched machines.

So are paper towels better? or are hand dryers? the biggest misconception is that the technological breakthroughs are better… Not true. Now lets look at personal computers and the rest of electronics. Do we want to go there… Yes, but instead of writing about it, here is a video (out of two in this documentary):

As a society we have not done a very good job in making sure that our environment remains a healthy place to live (that was a not in the previous line.) The alarming rate of waste we produce from the things we consume is taking a big toll on the environment. This is why online social networks [and real life social networks] are important to the development of a “Green Culture” where everyone is aware of the good and the bad about the products we like and dislike. The images you see in the video may look foreign to you, but its actually hitting closer to home than you may think.

There are a lot of web sites that are beginning the process of aggregating as much information as possible that will allow people to make environmentally conscious decisions. Some of them include The Green Guide which shares helpful information about every day things that can be done to help the environment out. Good Guide that rates products on their environmental impact. Energy Star which helps you find energy efficient products. Eat Well Guide which helps you find local sustainable and organic food.

These websites are only the beginning of a long process that as a humanity must tackle. That process is to achieve a sustainable system of consumer goods. This may sound like an impossible task, which may be even more true when we start to question even the most “Sustainable” methods we currently practice.

Toby Hemenway, author of Gaias Garden is one such person who believes that we are doing it all wrong. Toby Hemenway proposes new methods of food production to tackle the degenerative systems of food production.

http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/hemenway/ or YouTube play list >

Although Toby Hemenway’s proposed methods for food production may be a little too radical, his observations about the food systems are very interesting. There are other projects that touch on these subjects. One interesting project that has received a lot of attention is The Window Farms Project

Window farms are a derivative of rooftop farms and gardens. Although they may not be the answer to the farming dilemma, they are a good project to bring awareness to the problem and hopefully encourage more people to begin conserving and re-using resources. Change is slow and until you decide to start your own home garden, you can buy from local produce from the Green Market Farmers!

Our world is shrinking. Not only because we are running out of space to live or land to grow food. Our social networks and technology will allow us to become incredibly interconnected to the point that the average person will have to pay for privacy which will shrink our interactions to a limited social norm. Lets just hope that the social norm is one where we are striving for sustainability and not uncontrolled consumption.

About Energy

Energy is the amount of work that can be performed by a force.
Types of energy include elastic, kinetic, and gravitational.

About Power

Power is the rate at which energy is consumed over time.

What is a Watt?

A Watt is a unit of POWER, NOT ENERGY which is what confuses most people =) so:

A Watt is equal to the consumption of one joule of energy per second.

It is best to use Joules as a unit when working with Energy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule

Energy Storage

List of different types of storage:

See more about batteries below (under Batteries)

Capacitors

The energy stored on a cap: E = ½(C*V²)
E= Joules C= Farads V= Volts

Ambient Energy

Solar:
“The total solar energy absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and land masses is approximately 3,850,000 exajoules (EJ 10^18) per year.[11] In 2002, this was more energy in one hour than the world used in one year.

Wind:
An estimated 72 TW of wind power on the Earth potentially can be commercially viable.

Thermal:
Global terrestrial heat flow is about 45 TW (1 TW = 1012 watts). This is approximately 1/10 watt/square meter (which is about 1/10,000 of solar irradiation).

Hydro:

Tidal:

Wave:

Biomass:

Energy Conversions

Power Conversion:

Energy Conversion:

Walking:

A 160 lb person walking at 3.0 mph burns 85 Cal every mile (85,000 kilocalories) or 98.855 watt-hour ( Convert Calories to W/h in MAC Widget)

Jogging:

Jogging (5 miles per hour) for a mile @ 155lb weight= 563 Calories

Skateboarding:

Person 155lbs= 352 Calories per hour

Rollerblading:

Person 155lbs= 800 Calories per hour

Canoeing:

160lb person= 256 Calories per hour

Biking:

A 150lb person Biking at a Moderate level (12mph) will burn 45 Calories (45,000 kilocalories)
or 52.335 Watt-Hours each mile they travel.

Calories Burned in 30 min . . . . . . . . . . 150-lb person . . . 250-lb person
Bicycling, light effort (10 to 11.9 mph) . . . . . 200 . . . . . . . 340
Bicycling, moderate effort (12 to 13.9 mph) . 270 . . . . . . . 450
Bicycling, vigorous effort (14 to 15.9 mph) . . 340 . . . . . . . 570

Reference:

Motorcycle:

Average Fuel economy is 40-50 mpg.
energy in fuel(Regular Gasoline), 34.6 megajoules per litre (MJ/l) or 131.134 MJ/gallon.

One mile (@ 45mpg fuel economy)= 2.91MJ per mile = 808.3334 watthours per mile
or 695 Calories(kilocalories) or 1 super size serving of McDonald’s french fries.

Average horse power is 90HP @12,000rpm for a medium size motorbike (500cc)
1HP= 746W @ 100% efficiency.

Mopeds

Average horse power is 3HP @7500rpm and 80mpg fuel economy.

Car

Subway

Cessna 172R Small Airplane

747-8I Jet Airplane

How much energy is in a piece of paper?
1 sheet of paper = 4.5 grams

1 tons of dry wood= 18-22 GJ/t (7,600-9,600 Btu/lb)
1 Ton = 1,000,000 Grams
1.0 gigajoule (GJ) = 1,000,000,000 joules

1 gram of wood (paper)= 1,000 joules
1 gram of wood= 0.277777778 watt-hours

A piece of paper has approximately 4500 jules or 1.25 watt hours; enough to power a 100 watt light bulb for around 45 seconds.

If you compare a paper towel (4500 joules or 1.25 watt-hours) and a hand dryer (1500 watts) the we can see that the energy of one paper towel accounts for 3 seconds of hand dryer operation.

http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/energy_conv.html

Sustainable ITP Projects

ITP Web Site

http://itp.nyu.edu/sigs/sustainable/the-gallery

Helios Hopper

http://blubee.com/theblog/?s=heliohopper

Batteries

http://batteryuniversity.com/

Bookmarks

http://delicious.com/eyebeamSustainability

Images

Applied Technology in The Real World

http://www.postranchinn.com/green-solar-array-fact-sheet.shtml

With that in mind, lets take a look at some interesting Twitter integration.

I recently saw this awesome example of a twitter search and visualization. Its a literal representation of Clay Shirky’s book titled “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations”

The web site isparade.jp allows you to see what people are saying in a new context. A cartoon animated world where clusters of people march and display their tweet. So this is a new step of group awareness and the advancement for collective action.

Its not hard to see the value of these technologies once you see them working in front of you. It would be awesome if more companies had these tools. Well maybe we will not have to wait too long. Currently, most major web sites have released their APIs which allows people to use the data and functions that the web tools offer. It allows for companies an organizations to get creative in very unique ways. Lets look at the Grammys for instance. Would Lady Gaga be interested in what people think about her?
Maybe not, but her agent sure does. Not only her agent, but other fans care as well. And who cares about fans more than the agents? Organizations like the Grammys, so let them come up with a nice visualization tool to allow people to see what everyone else thinks about a specific artist. This is a group of people being aware of their collective thoughts, actions, intentions and even feelings. http://wereallfans.com is a venue that allows people to explore what other people think of a specific artist in real time.

As it can be seen from the example above, this information can be very confusing, but beautiful at the same time. So how do we make sense of all this information. The more information we have the more confusing things get. If you have tried to organize a group of people to do something, you may have already found out that each additional group member exponentially increases the complexity of the organization process. So what do you do when you are trying to get data from every single web site that has data available for you to digest? How do you make sense of Google Zeitgeist, Yahoo Buzz, Trend feeds, Twitter, Etc? Your traditional Pie chart or line graph is not enough. You will easily go from a nice little graph:

to something that looks like a barf from a computer:

The goal is not just to show data. It is to visualize data in a comprehensive way. To accomplish this task you come up with tools to sort data for you. Maybe tools like Zoe Fraade-Blanar’s “Current” tool which organizes data into digestible visuals.

You can also use other tools like Circos which looks,
like pac man on < insert drug name here .>

Going back to Twitter; Who really cares about twitter and its potential? People who want to know a little more about everything. The new question is: how are individuals going to be able to digest 4 years of information (twitter was launched in 2006) submitted by the masses?

Soon, we will all be walking data generators and we will have apps that give us summaries of what all our actions meant. This is not too far fetched if you look at projects like Nike Plus. And people have already started looking at ways to visualize life in general like Nicholas Felton who likes to map and visualize the data he collects in his every day life:

The Full Experience of this image:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

This is from CNN:

May 1st was the time when all the galleries in the spinner unveiled their spring exhibits, with thousands of visitors scrutinizing the work in display. Halle 14 exhibited an international group show titled “An Das Gerät!” which translates in english to “To The Tool” which was an exhibit focusing on the new tools being used by artists around the world.

The spinning mill area is an amazing sight, the integration of modern culture with a nostalgic feel from the past that is being preserved in the architecture of the cotton spinning mill. In the distance I could read the words “An Das Gerät!” which made it clear where the group exhibit was being held.

The first thing you see when you step in the door is a spectacular library that is the home for over 30,000 art books acquired from various galleries, funds, libraries and artists looking to show their work. The Books are available for the public during regular gallery hours.

The exhibition area is a massive space in the ranks of MASSMoCA and attracted talent in the past such as The Yes Men, The Surveillance Camera Players and NYC artist Michael Rakowitz to name a few. Now is attracting artists like Stelarc, Halldor Úlfarsson, Morten Viskum and Oscar G. Torres (me).

There are two giant pis by artist Stelarc a giant gun by Barking Dogs United and a pin hole camera installation by Liisa Lounila among the twenty five artists being featured in the exhibit.

Its great to exhibit with people this talented, specially when you get to meet a few of them and share ideas and theories behind their art and art in general. I definitely got a lot out of the show. These videos give you a glimpse at the exhibit.

More, An Das Gerät! from Oscar G. Torres on Vimeo.

ITP Spring Show 2010
Sunday, May 9 from 2 to 6 PM
Monday, May 10 from 5 to 9 PM

Interactive Telecommunications Program
Kanbar Institute of Film and Television
Tisch School of the Arts
New York University
721 Broadway, 4th Floor, South Elevators
New York NY 10003

Take the left elevators to the 4th Floor
This event is free and open to the public
No need to RSVP

For questions: 212-998-1880
email: itp.inquiries@nyu.edu
http://itp.nyu.edu/show

When technology advances, art follows. Typography has been an art form that is in constant flux due to new advances in technology.

Whenever a new technology becomes available, type forms change to accommodate the technology. We began to see this in woodtype prints and leterpress machines where individual letters would be placed next to each other to form words.

Offset printing and Digital printing followed which made the whole process a lot more efficient and less time consuming.

The age of the computer lead to an explosion of typefaces including some that did not follow the traditional type design and some that adjusted to the new technology.

Mobile phones and laptops lead to a need for type that would be clearly displayed on the low resolutions screens. The solution was pixel typefaces.

The evolution of type took a turn to the opposite direction due to a desire to have more organic and expressive design in typefaces.

Sagmeister is one of many designers who began to experiment with type in unique ways.

In a way Sagmeister consciously rejected technology. Other artists and designers decided to embrace technology.

I few months back I wrote about Bio Art and since, I have seen many projects that could be added to the genera. A project that I find to be in the fore front of innovation came in the simple form of a magazine cover.

The cover of May’s edition of Creative Review is the letter “A” with what seems like a cool Photoshop effect. If you take a closer look, you will notice that it is actually a microscopic photograph of the letter etch in a metallic surface; which happens to be aluminum.

The beautiful images of the type where generated by the collaboration of Craig Ward and Frank Conrad.
Mr. Ward initially experimented with different materials such as plastics and various types of molds that would eventually serve as skeletons for pollen cells to grow.

The result is unique imagery that was created by experimenting with materials, technology and cellular forms to generate art.

As we keep innovating and technology become more accessible by artists and designers we will see more projects like these. We can even predict that one day we will even have robots that specialize in the display of type… oh wait, such a robot exists already thanks to fellow ITPer Rob Seward.

Four Letter Words from Rob Seward on Vimeo.

Technology has shifted the way that art and design are viewed. Creativity comes from new inspirations and we can expect to see more appropriation of these breakthroughs into our everyday life.

If you are in Leipzig, Germany between May 1st to July 25, 2010 then you should check out this group show (Where I’ll be showing some work) at Halle 14 in Leipzig.

The Exhibit opens on Saturday, May 1st, 2010 @ 11:00 am.

I will have four little artbots on display along side of other amazing work by international artists such as:

MARK BAIN (US)
BARKING DOGS UNITED (GR/DE)
RODDY BELL (NO)
ENSEMBLE FÜR INTUITIVE MUSIK (DE)
KLAUS HÄHNER-SPRINGMÜHL (DE)
INGRID HORA (IT)
KIM JONES (US)
BJÖRN JUNG (DE)
DEBORAH KELLY (AU)
PAUL ETIENNE LINCOLN (US)
DAVID LINK (DE)
LIISA LOUNILA (FI)
TEA MÄKIPÄÄ (FI)
MAYWA DENKI (JP)
HEIKE MUTTER & ULRICH GENTH (DE)
ANNETTE & STEFFEN SCHÄFFLER (DE)
GEBHARD SENGMÜLLER (AT)
CLAUDE SHANNON (US)
STELARC (AU)
OSCAR G. TORRES (US)
HALLDÓR ÚLFARSSON (IS)
MORTEN VISKUM (NO)
JIM WHITING (DE)
KRZYSZTOF WODICZKO (US)
ZAFOS XAGORARIS (GR)

NYU ITP Spring Show 2010 from Winslow Porter on Vimeo.