Science For the Sake of Fashion

Have you ever wanted to be a trendy and eco-conscious cyclist but held back by the fact that it is difficult to look fashionable while wearing a giant Styrofoam helmet? This product was engineered to get around this problem. It is essentially an airbag for your skull. Retailing for ~$600 it looks a lot like the high collar of a trendy rain jacket. It has motion sensors programmed specifically to recognize the event of falling off a bike to trigger the inflation of the airbag-helmet. The inflated helmet is filled with helium and covers your noggin in the way that a BMX helmet would. Assuming it functions properly, it seems like a very good design as it offers more coverage for your head while allowing your well coiffed hair to flow in the wind while you ride your vintage fixie. The only problem I worry about is the possibility that the helmet would inflate at an inappropriate time which could startle the rider into having an accident they wouldn't have had otherwise. The cost is also about six times higher than the conventional variety of helmet. At first I thought the single use aspect was also a detraction but nearly all helmets are designed as single use as well. Overall, I like that technology is creeping into more areas that wouldn't normally be seen as high tech sectors. Below is the promotional video.

The Welcome Wagon

Sometimes the red carpet isn't rolled out for you.  Sometimes, what comes first is more a matter of what is available.  We haven't posted anything in quite a while since our lives have taken new directions.  These new directions have landed us in Winnipeg, which coming from Toronto is quite a change.  The differences are neither subtle nor understated.  Everything is different right down to the way you feel walking down the street.  This city has a reputation for culture and we plan to experience as much as possible.

Being fresh off an expensive move, we went looking for something free.  Having found a few options, we decided to go to a curator talk at the Plug In ICA where Aoife MacNamara was scheduled to speak.  On the website it didn't really say what she would be speaking about but it did go on at great length touting her credentials and current projects. One I was very interested in hearing about was titled Botany and promised to raise interesting questions.

I've been to countless scientific talks and I had no idea what to expect from a curator talk.  A good scientific talk is a lot like being told a marvelous story with an interesting plot and always comes to a dramatic climax.  Then, when your adrenaline is pumping it raises poignant questions that the presenter promises to answer in the future.  Dr. MacNamara's talk was not even remotely close to a scientific talk (not necessarily in a bad way).  She simply described several similar, topic linked exhibitions that she curated and left all conclusions to the audience.  The audience we were part of consisted entirely of people who knew each other and we felt immediately out of place.  As for the content of the talk, I had to bite my cheek to keep from laughing at the humor of the situation since everyone around us were quite serious.  Dr. MacNamara talked about pictures of audio installations of people talking.  I couldn't make it up if I tried.  We all sat there and listened to her talk so we could imagined what her pictures of talking must have sounded like. The entire presentation was made while standing right beside the speaker of her well equipped lecture podium's audiovisual unit but no audio was ever presented.

Although I did find it tedious at times and the question period dragged of questions asked in ways to make the question poser sound as intelligent and sophisticated as possible, there was one sentence which made the entire experience worth while.  Dr. MacNamara said that it is easy to make a statement and portray a feeling with art but it is difficult to create and curate art which asks open ended questions and opens discussion.  This really hit home with me.  Looking back on the art that I love, it does exactly this, it forces open debate and discussion while making as few pointed statements as possible without losing a sense of intention.

Overall, we're going to give Winnipeg the benefit of the doubt and let it take its time to grow on us.  We may not jump at the opportunity to see just any curator talk moving forward, but I hope it wasn't our last.

Is art on purpose?

We have been taking a break from blogging for a while due to life. Life just keeps forcing us to prioritize our time and playing on the internet often comes very low on the list.


Here is a link to an article which I had to post here. It asks the question of whether or not artistic creation is limited to humans. Can an animal create art despite the fact that it doesn't have a word for art. To extend the issue, one could ponder whether or not art needs to be created on purpose, or not.


Link to Wired Science

DIY Genetics Kit Has Artistic Merit

There are many emotions that can be evoked through observation and interaction with works of art. It isn't often that the emotion is accompanied by an audible 'cool! that's awesome!' This was the case when I read about Eduardo Kac's work entitled Cypher. It is a very aesthetically pleasing transgenic kit complete with everything you need to create a transgenic cell line (including a step by step instruction manual). To top it all off, the engineered DNA provided with the kit spells out a poem Kac wrote using a nucleotide code he came up with himself.

I'll admit, the poem itself could be a little more dramatic. When fully interpreted the poem reads: ATAGGEDCATWILLATTACKGATTACA. He constructed this through what he believes to be the most simple method of creating an obvious code using the base pairs.

With Kac's cypher there is an entirely new level of audience engagement possible. I couldn't describe it any better than the description from Kac's website: "Cypher" is an artwork that presents itself as an invitation; it is a call to engage with a set of procedures that merge art and poetry, biological life and technology, reading/viewing and kinesthetic participation.

Dream Job: SymbioticA

I had no idea that such a place existed in the world. SymbioticA is part of the University of Western Australia and is a research laboratory entirely devoted to creating art.



What are you waiting for?! Check out their website!

http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/

Fun with Colour

When I was a kid I used to love playing with crayons. For US based artist Diem Chau, playing with crayons is more of a fine art. Her work with crayons isn't her most recent work (check out her site for some really beautiful stuff) but we couldn't help but feel like kids again when we came across her carvings. Who wouldn't want a set of these?







Check out Diem's site at: http://www.diemchau.com/about.html

Award Winning Time Lapse Photography

Alex Cherney won the STARMUS astrophotography competition with this video. Simply amazing.

Ocean Sky from Alex Cherney on Vimeo.