The last Friday we had before the upcoming Dance Party and Seedbomb Demo… We now have flyers, seedbomb containers, seedbomb germination (in the wild), and tea container labels.
BCL Report – August 29, 2008
Toronto Pedestrian Scramble
On a pretty regular basis, I have to cross our infamous Huron Church Road intersection at College Avenue in order to get to LeBel. If I’m lucky, I’m coming from the West, and only have to cross College. However, there are many times that I have to cross Huron Church itself, fighting the timer (what is it, about 15 seconds?) and drivers making left-hand turns.
In Toronto, they unveiled a new set of pedestrian crossing signals, setup to create a crossing time of 57 seconds and an opportunity to cross in any direction (including diagonally). This change is happening at Yonge and Dundas and is being billed as one of Toronto’s initiatives to make the city more pedestrian-focused. While there are likely problems with this (traffic rerouting itself, many idling cars), I would welcome a change like this in Windsor.
That our city is clearly built around cars is one huge example of just how broken it is. Public transit here is rough (1/2 hour waits for buses after 6pm?), and I give anyone who bicycles on any major street a lot of credit, but how do we begin to look at a problem like the layout of a city on our terms and at our scale?
Image and details [via].
We Have Germination!
After taking a few seedbombs home with me yesterday, I’m happy to report that with some considerable watering, our second recipe seedbombs have started to germinate. Also, and maybe even more exciting, the test seedbombs in Michelle’s yard have also began to sprout! Michelle also suggested we should make some photocopy handouts with the recipe on it to give out to people at the demo… hoping Josh has that recipe?… or was it in Michelle’s sketchbook…?
Jessica Banks and Ayah Bdeir: Open Source Snobs
Short video from a talk by Jessica Banks & Ayah Bdeir from the MIND08 Symposium (part of the Design and the Elastic Mind exhibit at MOMA and co-presented by SEED Magazine). Both Banks and Bdeir are former MIT students and research fellows at Eyebeam’s R&D Open Lab. They talk about the concept of opensource design, and what it could mean for both designers and end-users. Over the 16 minutes, they briefly go over some history of opensource software, their ideas and products (which are pretty incredible), and the potential for the future to be patent-free.
BCL Report – August 22, 2008
I’m not sure why we didn’t start doing this earlier, but here’s the first report of our weekly activities. We’ve been meeting on Fridays for almost half the summer, trying to make, plan, and do events/projects/demos/awesome. Today involved us revisiting our seed bomb recipe, beginning the stenciling for posters for our upcoming Dance Party (details soon), and plotting our next adventures.
T.S.A. Communication
T.S.A. Communication by Evan Roth is a 2009 Rhizome Member Selection Commission, in which Roth proposed to laser cut 8.5 x 11 inch pieces of stainless steel with messages directed at the T.S.A. to put in your suitcase for airport inspections. Roth writes, “T.S.A. Communication is a project that alters the airport security experience and allows the government to learn more about you then just what’s in your backpack … Change your role as air traveler from passive to active.”
Roth is also one of the masterminds behind F.A.T. Labs and Graffiti Research Lab.
Bright Idea Shade
Bright Idea Shade from Michael Mandiberg on Vimeo.
The Bright Idea Shade from Eyebeam OpenLab’s Sustainable Action Group is a simply designed kit-assembly lampshade for compact fluorescent bulbs, which some people won’t change over to due to their harsh light or swirly design. The shade itself is made from a number of laser-cut pieces of heat-resistant photo diffuser material, each of which is identical, meaning the product itself could be easily manufactured and sold at big chain stores everywhere. Oh, and that’s their goal. The interesting thinking behind it is to make the design with a very open, Creative Commons Attribution license attached, so it can be “stolen” and recreated anywhere by anyone.
(Also, that video is a very, very good example of documenting a project.)
In Progress
Augmented Sculpture
Augmented Sculpture Series by Pablo Valbuena “focuse[s] on the temporary quality of space, investigating space-time not only as a three dimensional environment, but as space in transformation.” I remember coming across this last year, but was reminded of it by a post on vvork. It’s very refreshing to see projection occurring on a 3D object, thereby animating something very rigid and physical. Watch the video to get the full effect.
Google Stockholm by Yorit
