Nomadic Museum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomadic_Museum

The Nomadic Museum is a temporary structure used to house the Ashes and Snow photography and film exhibition by Gregory Colbert. The first Nomadic Museum, designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban and engineers Buro Happold, debuted with the opening of Ashes and Snowin New York City in March 2005. The museum then traveled to Santa Monica, California, in 2006, Tokyo in 2007, and Mexico City in 2008.

Open City: Designing Coexistence - Part 2, Refuge

from http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com

Previously: Open City: Designing Coexistence - Part 1, Community


Exterior view of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) during the biennale. Photo © Michelle Wilderom
Open City: Designing Coexistence, the main exhibition of the 4th International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam, has been sub-divided into seven areas of investigation. I reported on Community a couple of days ago. Now comes the turn of Refuge - Architectural Propositions for Unbound Spaces, curated by Phillip Misselwitz and Can Altay.

Refuge - Architectural Propositions for Unbound Spaces explores the causes and spatial impact of migration through voluntary or involuntary "refugees" who are transforming cities around the globe. Individuals or groups are elegantly or forcefully encapsulated from within the context of the city and society. Refuge produces an ever more atomized urban tissue where the "camp" has become both spatial paradigm and everyday reality, be it in the form of a gated community, slum, or humanitarian refugee camp.

View of the exhibition about Refuge. Photography by Michelle Wilderom
Refuge is subdivided into 4 categories, each illustrated by 3 examples found in various locations around the world. I picked up only one for each section of the exhibition.
Artist Thomas Kilpper opened the section Providing Refuge with a poetic and burning appeal to build A Lighthouse for Lampedusa! Providing Refuge explores how architects respond to the need of temporary spaces of refuge that offer protection to fragile or threatened constitutencies, or that legitimate expressions of a human desire for withdrawal, safety, seclusion and loneliness.


(detail of Thomas Kilpper's drawing)
Every year, some 20 000 refugees, mostly from Africa, try to reach Europe via Lampedusa, a tiny Italian island between Sicily and Tunisia. Aid organisations estimate that one in ten die during the dangerous crossing. Once they've set foot on 'the promised land', immigrants are directed to a 'Welcome Centre' which inadequacy is creating a worrying humanitarian situation.

The illegal immigrant detention centre on the island of Lampedusa in Italy. Photo: Paul Grover
Thomas Kilpper, along with a team of architects, engineers and local people, hope to build a lighthouse with a powerful beam that would provide orientation at sea and help reduce the danger to life. Furthermore, the ground floor of the lighthouse would host an arts center. The discussions, exhibitions, concerts and other cultural events organized there would attract both new visitors to the island and local people, giving them an opportunity and space to learn from and listen to each other.
This project underlines the need for a solution to the refugee problem: it's not possible to solve it via restrictions and declaring a 'state of emergency'. We call for a humanitarian and just immigration and integration policy in Europe. None of the refugees is illegal. We oppose any idea to establish a 'Fortress Europe'. The lighthouse will be a self-confident signal: 'here we are, we do not hide'.
Preventing Refuge are proactive projects that aim to prevent entire groups of city dwellers from becoming refugees.

2 million square meters of development projected on the city
After the 2003 Rose Revolution, Georgia embraced a wild capitalism. Spatial planning became suspect, public assets were quickly privatized, and the city faced rampant land and property speculation, leaving the city authority without strategic plan. Some 2,000,000 m2 of newly developed areas threaten to destroy Tbilisi and led to large-scale urban displacement. A city already filled with thousands of war refugees has transformed citizens into refugees in their own city.
FAST, One architecture and local artists outlined a The New Map of Tbilisi to expose all spatial and infrastructural projects being imagined or built in the city, highlighting its lack of strategic coherence. It also shows how refugees from earlier civil wars and current residents are displaced. And, it tracks how public buildings, spaces, and parks were privatized, left to stand empty due to the crisis, then to be reclaimed by internally displaced persons.



By exposing corrupt land deals and making the effect of failed statehood transparent, the "New Map of Tbilisi" aims to empower citizens to take positive action, providing a platform for grass root initiative, civil society institutions and municipal authorities alike to re-engage in a strategic discussion on the urban future of Tbilisi.
Laboratories of Returns, one of the projects i discovered in the Dismantling Refuge section, examines return from exile. When return becomes possible, the site of origins is already irrevocably transformed. Return is never a simple turning back of time, a return is always a return to the already built.

(image)
The notion of "return" has defined the diasporic and extraterritorial nature of Palestinian politics and cultural life since al Nakba in 1947-48. The work of Alessandro Petti, Sandi Hilal and Eyal Weizman urges architects to engage in a discussion about the revisiting, re-occupation, and appropriation of the already built. Their research and proposals on the appropriation of settlements and military bases to be evacuated -the "future archaeology" of Israel's occupation -- has been recently expanded to include other instances of displacement such as the afterlife of Italian colonial architecture in Libya.

Improving Refuge focuses on the estimated 1.4 million Palestinians living in camps spread across Jordan, Gaza, the West Bank and Syria. These makeshift areas are among the most densely populated in the world. Living conditions, as we all know (but pretend to ignore), are abominable. Camps are a place of temporary-emergency refuge but they also need to be habitable. They hover between stillness and action. The Infrastructure and Camp Improvement Program launched by the UN attempts to introduce strong community-driven urban planning that would enable people living in the camp to go beyond the victim mentality.

I found the practice of Participatory Community Mapping particularly fascinating. ARC, the Arab Resource Collective, invited Palestinians living in several refugee camps in Lebanon to collectively draw maps of their respective camps from memory. The resulting maps chart live experiences rather than the usual landmarks. Political fault lines, social affiliations, and the loci of power manifest themselves from the bottom-up. No only do these maps undermine derogatory assumptions about unruly spatial configurations, they also expose the glaring injustices of the Lebanese government's policy regarding Palestinian refugees. The maps betray the absence of workplaces, except for grocery stores, mini-markets and pharmacies. In the writ of Lebanese regulations, Palestinian refugees are barred from performing dozens professions, including the practice of law, medicine, engineering, etc.

Map of Nahr el-Bared
Open City: Designing Coexistence of the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam is on view until 10 January in the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI).
Photo on the homepage via EU Australia online.
Related: Bas Princen, Mokattam Ridge (Garbage city).

OH MY GOD ! Dominic Michaelis + Alex Michaelis Energy Island

OH WOOOOW !!!!!
THIS IS SO EXTREMELY CLOSE TO WHAT WE ARE DEVELOPING in the Instinctive_Architecture and Nomadic_Ecosystem labs:

Our actual design :





and what I just found on the internet googling for "very large floating structures" !

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/energy_island.php

Architects: Dominic Michaelis + Alex Michaelis


Aerial view of Energy Island Module Centre, showing Otec Electric power and desalinated water production plant room, with base of pole of surface furnace receiving all radiation falling on roofs of factory / office / greenhouse buildings crowned by heliostat mirrors following the sun, aerogenerators on the platform deck.


Alternative to platform-mounted aerogenerators, where generators are placed at a suitable distance from an inhabited platform. These aerogenerators have a prolonged tubular shaft below sea level, the bottom part of which is ballasted, so that the aerogenerator, independently moored, can't be blown flat, since all pressure on the blades is resisted by the moment created by the shaft's displacement from the vertical.


Geotec: in this application, the energy island is placed above a geothermically active area, in this case, a visible volcanic linear eruption along a tectonic fault line. Octagonal turbogenerators are lowered by underwater rovs, containing enough air to make them buoyant, so that they can be anchored at a reasonable distance above the fault. They will be using water at 300C or more as the heat source, umbrellas along the line brining more hot water. The condensors use cold water at 5C drawn in by long buoyant tubes. Generated electricity is cabled up to the Energy Island.


Energy Island perspective view of a single hexagonal module showing different energy converter systems and overall functional disposition.


Energy Island perspective view, showing the floating platform hexagonal module surrounded on its wave front energy converters, in the lee of which is the protected island, and behind that, a harbour serving the island. To the left is a platform for staff housing, and at its left extremity, a geothermal drilling rig, to which rise two electric cables, one from the sea current turbines, another from a series of turbines lowered down to recover geothermal energy from geological fault lines resulting in very high water temperatures capable of efficient electricity generation.


2 Otec Energy Islands with additonal module for high energy industrial process factory, or for leisure combined with education facilities.


General view of Energy Island with overall functional diagram and open cycle Otec system diagram.

Images from Dominic Michaelis May 2008








View along axis of 8 Otec modules supplying 2000 MWe, the equivalent of a very large nuclear power station, and 2400 million litres of desalintaed water per day, sufficient for 8 million US households.


Aerial view of linear array of 8 x 250 MWe Energy Islands forming a 2000 MWe power plant, possibly electrolysed to hydrogen fuel, and a desalination plant of 2.4 million cubic meters per day capacity (total desalination capacity of the Kingdomof Saudi Arabia - 3 million cubic meters per day).


Sea level view of 8 Otec 250 MWe Energy Islands with 2000 MWe power output.


The Lilypad twin membrane wave energy converter consists of an upper floating flexible membrane following the wave motion, provided on its udnerside with load distributing flanges taking upward loads to a number of linearly disposed fixation points to which are attached arrays of hose pumps. Hose pumps operate on the principle that as they are elastically elongated from their original large diameter cylindrical shape, they gradually reduce in volume, pressurising the working fluid within them.
At their base, the hose pumps are fixed to load distribution cables which are in turn fixed to the bottom membrane, which is both weighted and valved, so that it will resists upward movement as it is pulled up by the passing wave, flexible flaps closing against a mesh below them.
After the wave has passed, the bottom weighted membrane sinks downards by gravity, the valves opening upwards, and returns to its initial position, ready for the next cycle.
The hose pumps extend as the wave passes, expelling working fluid, normally seawater, that runs to and along high pressure pipes to a hydraulic generator. Electricity is generated typically at 65% efficiency by a hydraulic trubogenerator. This mode prevails till the hose pump is partially or fully extended by the wave crest. As the wave passes, the upper membrane descends, gradually releasing pressure on the hose pump, which elastically returns to its shorter and larger cylindrical shape, drawing in seawater through a one way valve. This allows the lower membrane to descend to its original position, ready for the next upward stroke.
The membranes run perpendicularly to prevailing significant wave direction, the size and length of hose pumps being related to wave length and amplitude. Spacing of hose pumps and width of marine platform structure.



Sustainable Building News

Marine platform structures are designed to resist the impact of waves, which vary in intensity from location to location. They must be capable of resisting the strongest storms, and in some areas, rogue waves that can reach twice the height of the strongest normal waves of that location.

15 meter high waves are known to occur in many parts of the oceans, and the corresponding rogue wave, occurring where currents are strong, which may be a 1 in 1000 year chance, will reach 30 meters, the height of a 10-storey building. In other more fortunate areas, where there are no currents and no strong winds or cyclones, it might be 5, 10 tor 20 meters high.

A marine platform cannot be designed as a floating raft, because in very heavy seas, its inertia will be such that it will not have time to react to high wave onslaught, and risks being submerged.

The proposal presented is a minimal structure based on tetrahedral geometry occupying the space where the wave impact and its energy are deployed, the structure transferring to the platform the forces from the buoyancy tanks that are in “protected” waters, and insure the platform buoyancy, allowing the structure to rise or to descend according to the amount of air with which they are fully or partially filled.

The top of the buoyancy elements is shaped to resist the wave impact, allowing the tetrahedral structure to be reduced in height. The shape also makes it easier for the overall structure to rise if there is some unforeseen upward pressure on the underside of the deck.

This section through two flexibly jointed juxtaposed marine platforms illustrates the structural principle adopted, showing the upper tetrahedral structure designed to be “transparent” to oncoming waves, the buoyancy elements taking the point loads from the structure above, and transferring the forces they exert through the tetrahedral structure to the deck above. The buoyancy elements can be increased in depth according to the loads carried by the deck, the tetrahedral structure needing to be reinforced accordingly.

ENERGY ISLAND

“The sea, the sea, ever renewed...” Paul ValÈry

The Seas reveal many vast and diverse energy sources which are too often considered individually, for instance the energies of wind, wave, sea currents, tides, solar energy including marine photosynthesis, geothermal and ocean thermal differential energy. Also, some renewable energy sources, often converted on land, can be more efficiently sea based, wind energy being a typical example, where land features reduce its intensity and limit its locations. Land based wind farms have proved themselves to be visually unacceptable to many, whilst solar farms often occupy too much valuable land.

To best profit from the many renewable energy sources available at sea, the concept is to create an “Energy Island” which would take the form of a floating platform designed to harvest all usefully available energy sources available to it, none acting in isolation, but all being brought together so that each acts to complement the other, adding its contribution to the whole.

A typical “Energy Island” may be of hexagonal shape plan, of any size up to 500 meters along its shorter axis, having a surface area of 22 hectares, the hexagonal shape allowing islands to be joined in cluster or linear modes according to planning intents. Such an island is designed to provide a total of 250 MW, with 1/3 of the energy being contributed by ancillary sources and 2/3 by OTEC. It is designed to intercept the following:-

Wave Energy. On the winward sides, the island features linear wave energy converters, WECs, which can take the form of one of the many different systems invented, whether the oscillating water column, the “lagoon”, or another system, these converters playing two parts, firstly protecting the island from the heavy seas, and then providing hydraulic energy to the platform to induce fluid flows, or to generate electricity. One new departure is the all flexible “twin membrane” Lilypad WEC which Energy Island is promoting.

Wind Energy. Wind energy at sea is at its strongest, unaffected by land masses. The “Energy Island” module is provided with six large aerogenerators, three being at a lower level to intercept the sea hugging wind flow, whilst three are higher to capture the upper wind flows, the hydraulic masts being able to adjust the heights of the aerogenerators to best harvest the wind potential from different directions.
If they are unacceptable on the island because of electromagnetic radiation, they can be floating ballasted structures moored independently sufficiently far from the island.

Sea Currents. Sea currents are powerful energy sources and can be interceped by “nets” made up of linear arrays of cowled turbine units held up below the “Energy Island” by moored buoys between which they are stretched, each unit having its own separate flotation buoy, the array taking up a slight catenary curve under pressure from the current, the main moored buoys having the capacity to be relocated below the island to accomodate shifts in the current direction. The array is positioned at a depth where it is little affected by wave energy which is mostly expressed down to a depth equivalent to 1/6 ths of its wavelength.
Marine turbines can be fitted to the base of the support platform.

Solar Energy. Solar energy at sea level is at 950 Watts/sq.m, when the sun is directly overhead, and can be collected in many different ways. The hexagonal plan of the “Energy Island “ suggests the possible use of a centrally located “power tower” furnace onto which are focussed a field of orientable heliostats or mirrors, giving furnace temperatures around 900_C which allow relatively efficient electricity generation, with the possibility of waste heat recovery above the boiling point of water, which can be used and stored to assist thermal processes that are part of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion.

OTEC Electricity generation OTEC in tropical waters is the main electricity generation source, with a combination of closed and open cycle systems for efficiency at different temperatures combined with desirable sea water distillation for a number of on board activities. All waste heat from the solar farm is used to enhance a working fluid temperature, the surface water being channelled to the centrally located power plant along the six radial canals going to the outside apexes of the hexagon where floating dark membrane solar collectors optionally enhance the inlet temperatures. All warm and cold water pumping being carried out uses the ancillary energy sources deployed, these measures to increase Carnot efficiencies and to prevent OTEC from wasting the energy it is itself generating.

OTEC seawater desalination OTEC, in certain configurations, will produce vast amounts of desalinted water, often proportional to the electric power generation capacity. In the open cycle mode, OTEC will produce 1,2 million litres of desalinated water per MW. This effectively makes OTEC plants act as both power stations and desalination plants, effectively doubling their value.

Geothermal Energy The Energy Island can be purposefully located above geothermal energy resources. These can be tapped by drilling for hot aquifers or pumping water through fissured hot rocks . Alternately, hot volcanic flumes can produce water at 300_C that cannot boil because of the high pressure, but into which can be lowered turbogenerators using the cosiderable temerature difference from water drawn by arms reaching out for nearby cold water, unaffected by the flumes, thzat often follow linear tectonic faults.

Apart from its electric and desalinated water contributions, the “Energy Island” is designed also to produce :-

Hydrogen. Because of the fluctuation of renewable energy resources, an energy storage system is required. The “Energy Island” relies on a hydrolysis plant to produce stored hydrogen and oxygen, part of which can be used by fuel cell technology as necessary to balance the power output, matching it to requirements both external and internal, and part being used as a fuel that can , in some cases be tankered or pipelined to other destinations, when the electricity produced is not totally used by cable links to nearby destinations. The “Energy Island” will also produce a base for:-

Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) and Mariculture.
In tropical latitudes, greenhouses need to be protected from the sun, a role performed by the heliostats, and well ventilated or evaporatively cooled. The 22 hectare platform can therefore be used for CEA, using part of the distilled water from the open OTEC cycle for hydroponics. If the floor is trellissed, light can reach the seawater below, where pens can contain various forms of marine life below.

Harbours and Housing. On the leeward side of the island or islands, The “Energy Island” needs to provide housing for staff , social facilities, workshops and harbours. Cold wter at 5_C can be used for air conditioning.

Leisure and Tourism Energy Islands can be dedicated to energy self sufficient holiday destinations, where also fish, fruit and vegetables are produced “on board”, the islands having the advantage of being located as desired close to attractions that can be reached by boat, by helicopter, or by air, if a short landing strip is provided.

The “Energy Island”, intercepting many diverse renewable energy sources, brings their converted powers together in the most efficient way to provide electricity for the grid, and, by hydrolysis, hydrogen fuel for transport to nearby or distant population centres, where it can be used efficiently by fuel cell technology.

The “Energy Island” can become a major supplier of electricity and hydrogen fuel for a pollution free society, and liberate the world from the perils of nuclear power generation, and from its political, economic and polluting dependance on dwindling fossil fuels, providing vast amounts of desalinated water as a bonus.

The “Energy Island” constitutes a new departure, all the more necessary because of the visible and invisible, but predicted signs of universal pollution and global warming, and the frightening fact that world energy use is expanding exponentially, having doubled in the last thirty years.

Action is needed to bring about change, promote a new fuel and turn the tide.


http://www.biomarine.org/index.php/gb/content/download/1590/14458/version/1/file/Dominic+Michaelis.pdf 


http://www.solarenergyltd.net/


http://www.energyisland.com

Exhibition tip - Tomas Saraceno at MUDAM

http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/ original article

Tomas Saraceno's Galaxies Forming along Filaments, like Droplets along the Strands of a Spider's Web was the ultimate photo-magnet at this year's Venice Biennale. No doubt the work he's exhibiting at ReThink: Contemporary Art and Climate Change in Copenhagen is meeting with the same fascination from the audience. I've seen his artworks in numerous group exhibition. They are always striking of course but i never really took the time to sit down and watch his work with enough attention.

Tomas Saraceno, Galaxies Forming along Filaments, like Droplets along the Strands of a Spider's Web, 2009 (detail)

MUDAM gave me a great opportunity to do just that. The Luxembourg museum is currently dedicating one of its exhibitions to the Argentinian artist with videos, sketches, photo documentation of his experiments, prototypes of inflatable structures anchored to the floor of the galleries, etc.

View of the exhibition © Photo: Andres Lejona

The artist's suspended gardens and nomadic architecture follow the steps of the structures conceived by Peter Cook, Yona Friedman, Buckminster Fuller and the members of Ant Farm. Saraceno's vehicles are "lighter than air", they are powered by solar energy and made with materials such as aerogel, an extremely low-density solid derived from a gel in which the liquid component of the gel has been replaced with a gas.

Tomás Saraceno, Sharjah/Flying Garden/Air-Port-City (working title), 2007. © Photo: Andres Lejona

His Air-Port-City is an ongoing experiment that interconnects various living areas floating in the air through a system of modules. Saraceno's architecture is ethereal and delicate, it is poetical and utopian but because they are ruled by regulations similar to airport ones, his cities also challenge existing political, social, cultural and military boundaries. They are truly international. Inhabitants will survive eating the produces of the "Flying Gardens" made of plants that can survive the constant changes in spatial and temporal conditions. There will be 'airplants' for example. These plants, from the genus Tillandsia, feed on rain, dust, insect matter, dew and whatever nutrients the air brings to them.

Tomás Saraceno, Space Elevator II (working title), 2009. © Tomás Saraceno

The work of Tomas Saraceno is on view at MUDAM in Luxembourg until January, 3, 2010.

Previously at MUDAM: Mudam, the Museum of Modern Art in Luxembourg (part 1)and Mudam (part 2): RRRIPP!! Paper Fashion.

Related: Open Sailing, drifting lifestyle to cope with looming disasters.

Open_Sailing wins the Sustainable Art Award

Last night at an award ceremony in Bash! studios in Shoreditch, the Open_Sailing Crew proudly accepted the Sustainable Art Award 2009. Cesar Harada, Hiromi Ozaki, Nasser Moustakim and Ollie Palmer were at the event and received the prize, a trophy made from recycled materials.
They also left with a bottle of organic apple juice, promising not to drink it all at once.

Second prize was won by Fran Crowe, and third by Circus Kinetica. See the Flickr set for more pictures.
Thankyou to Bash! for the award!

The awards, and corresponding Respond! exhibition are an initiative co-founded by the Arts and Ecology centre at The Royal Society of The Arts and BASH Creations. Open_Sailing is displaying a DVD in the exhibition for the next two weeks. www.sustainableartawards.com

Junkraft

http://junkraft.blogspot.com/







A very impressive and quite similar project to Open_Sailing, the Junkraft, by Dr Marcus Eriksen, Joel Paschal and Anna Cummins. They sailed from California to Hawaii on a raft made with plastic bottle to raise awareness about the topic of the plastic sea, as the plastiki is doing now. How is it actually made? Do bottles resist that much long exposure to salty sea environment? Can we rely on these bottles?

N55 Fish farm

http://www.n55.dk/MANUALS/FISHFARM/FISHFARM.html

20090402_open-sailing-proto-ollie

container + bottles in nets



http://international-ocean-station.org/download/20090402_open-sailing-proto-ollie.skp

Sustainable Art Awards

YEAH !!!!
We got selected to compete for another award !

Congratulations!
I am very happy to inform you that your work has been selected to be exhibited as part of the Sustainable Art Awards.
Your pieces must be transported to our studios by Friday 12th of June 2009.

Location: BASH Studios, 65 - 71 Scrutton Street, London, EC2A 4PJ.

Just a few reminders:
- The set up will take place Saturday 13th of June at 11AM. Volunteers will be attending to set up your work if you can not attend.
- On the 16th of June we will host a opening party (invite enclosed) for the Sustainable Art Awards.
- The time and date of the exposition is from the 17th to the 28th of June.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate in contacting me.

All the best,
Gina Whitehead
Sustainable Art Awards coordinator
--
BASH STUDIO 65-71 Scrutton Street, London, EC2A 4PJ

Bash Creations Limited is a limited company registered in England and Wales. Reg. number: 6061744. Registered office: Lear House, 259 Cranbrook Road, Ilford, Essex IG1 4TG.

So, I know we already got a lot of work, but we have to organise ourselves to get this event done nicely.

As you know the RCA show is our priority, thousands and thousands of visitors are expected there, and the dates are overlapping :
- Sustainable awards : 17th to 28th of June
- RCA Show : 25th of June to 5 of July
So, some of the Bash exhibitions might get transfered during the exhibition.

Just as a reminder : we have the Area 10 event the 13th of June, we are showing the Open_Sailing_01 assembled for the first time.
Good news = More work ! What shall we show?

Open_Sailing Open Day

Press Release

Open_Sailing Open Day
13th June 2009 @ Area 10, Peckham SE15

Imagine a life at sea, not for a journey but as a permanent place to call home. Open_Sailing is an alternative vision of life at sea. Pioneering innovative architecture, navigation and sea farming techniques to create a life that's comfortable, sustainable and safe.

Open_Sailing and LuckyPDF invite you to Area10, Peckham Square, for a day long preview of Open_Sailing_01, the prototype craft that will carry the open sailing team from London to Rotterdam this July.

As well as being able to explore the craft and find out about the technologies that make Open_Sailing possible, the day will be packed with talks and activities for open sailors of all ages.

You will be able to learn about Instinctive Architecture, Swarm Theory, take a look at the craft's innovative self-righting and anti-sink mechanisms and find out about sustainable farming and energy production at sea.

Family Activities

The first part of the day be made up of activities that introduce young people to the principals of open sailing, through hands on workshops, working with the models on display and large scale maps to find out where in the world we could live at sea.

Workshops will be led by artist Sinta Tantra and designer Ollie Palmer, currently developing education workshops on Open_Sailing for the Barbican.

Actvities are designed for 8 to 12 year olds, but everyone is welcome. There's no need for life jackets, but you might get wet.

Talks and Displays

All around the prototype will be displays and models of different aspects of the Open_Sailing project. See how cluster architecture will work, learn about at-sea survival, sailing by kite and find out about the possibilities for farming at sea.

There will be talks on the technical aspects of the project. Artist, mathematician and programmer Hiromi Ozaki will talk about Swarm Theory and Open_Sailing's Swarm OS, while project coordinator Cesar Harada will explain the project's principles.

The will also be talks from special guests on the subjects of Sustainable Energy at sea and Instinctive Architecture.

Open_Barbecue

All afternoon there will be a barbecue with a special emphasis on the food that will be available on the Open_Sailing craft. Lots of fish, seaweed and maybe some seagull.

The event will run into the evening with more talks and activities and a chance to talk to members of the Open_Sailing project and how you can get involved.

Day Programme

All day

Exhibition of the Open_Sailing project and the prototype craft.

1300 - 1500

Family activities and talks from the Open_Sailing crew

1500 - 1700

Barbecue

1700 - 2000

Talks and demonstrations from some specially invited speakers.

Summary
What
Open_Sailing Open Day
A special preview of the Open_Sailing craft that will set sail this July. Fun-filled family day with hands-on activities, talks and a seafood barbecue.

When
13th June 2008
13.00 – 20.00

Where
Area 10, Peckham Square, London SE15 5JT
Buses: 12, 36, 37, 63, 78, 436, 345, 177, 312, 343
Train: Peckham Rye Station

Contact
Ollie Palmer
communications@international-ocean-station.org
+44 7886 031 028

=====================
Open_Sailing is supported by Area10's Workshop Platform
http://www.area10.info

Open_Sailing_01 wins the [THE NEXT IDEA] at ARS ELECTRONICA Festival, Austria

May 27th 2009
OPEN_SAILING PRESS RELEASE #01

english : http://www.aec.at/prix_history_en.php?year=2009
german : http://www.aec.at/prix_history_de.php?year=2009

CONTENT OVERVIEW

• Announcement: OPEN_SAILING wins [THE NEXT IDEA] at ARS ELECTRONICA
• Open_Sailing: Synthesis
• Summer Schedule
• Exhibiting at ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL
• Perspective
• How to keep in touch
• Our Partners

---

ANNOUNCEMENT
On May 27th 2009, OPEN_SAILING happily announces winning the PRIX ARS ELECTRONICA in the category NEXT IDEA.

This means we will be receiving the [NEXT IDEA] Art and Technology Grant, including a 3-month research residency at the ARS ELECTRONICA FUTURELAB.

We are honoured by this recognition of our work and will to seize this opportunity to empower the idea of OPEN_SAILING and to reach more and more people with our project.

---

OPEN_SAILING: SYNTHESIS
OPEN_SAILING is an interdisciplinary project embracing the realms of art, design and technology. We are pioneering an entirely new form of marine architecture, a series of socio-technical floating laboratories where we can explore, experiment, live and learn from our planet’s beautiful oceans.


Open_Sailing_01 in front of the ARS Electronica, on the Danube river

We are a constantly growing, international team of around 15 people led by Cesar Harada, advancing the project under the mentoring of numerous experts. Right now, we are designing and engineering the first sea-faring prototype. It is being built at AREA10 in London, UK. The Open_Sailing_01 will embark on its first drift across the Channel from London to Rotterdam on July 18th.


Open_Sailing_01 seen from the ARS Electronica

Open_Sailing is entering a new phase in its goal to become an interdisciplinary platform for future experiments in bio-architecture, maritime design, object oriented politics, economy, infrastructure and communication protocols.

Read more about our project and follow the progress of research on each research LAB here: http://opensailing.net

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SUMMER SCHEDULE 2009

June 13th, 14h00 : Press conference in London, organised by LuckyPDF.
Area10, Eagle Wharf, Peckham Hill Street, London, SE15 5JT
Press conference, Presentation of Open_Sailing_01 in the shipyard, workshop, maritime barbecue following.
Contact : Oliver Hogan, oliver@luckypdf.com, 00+447970123418

June 25th : Royal College of Art, organised by the Design Interaction department.
Kensington Gore, SW7 2EU, London, UK
Free entrance from 26 June to 5 July.
Contact : cesar.harada@opensailing.net, 00+447853286216

July 18th : Departure from London to Rotterdam.
Departure harbour to be confirmed.
Sailing and drifting for about 2 weeks across the north sea.
Contact : colet.castano@opensailing.net, 00+44 7500888120

September 5th : ARS Electronica opening
Ars Electronica Linz GmbH, Hauptstraße 2, 4040 Linz, Austria
In partnership with Stadtwerkstatt, Kirchengasse 4, A-4040 Linz, Austria
Presenting the Open_Sailing_01 with emphasis on the 1. Instinctive_Architecture, Energy_Animal, Swarm_OS, Life_Cable, Nomadic_ecosystem.
Contact : ollie.palmer@opensailing.net, 00 +44 7886 031 028

September 9th : ARS closing ceremony / Open_Sailing departure into the Danube, heading to the black sea.
Contact : ollie.palmer@opensailing.net, 00 +44 7853 286 216

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EXHIBITING AT ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL Sept. 5rd – 8th 2009 IN LINZ, AUSTRIA

For the length of the ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL, the Open_Sailing_01, our first seafaring prototype, will drop anchor on the Danube in front of the AEC museum just down from the ARS ELECTRONICA centre. There will be a bridge connecting the riverside to the Open_Sailing for visitors to cross.

The main shelter of the OPEN_SAILING_01, also serving as a temporary home for the crew during their stay in Linz, will be surrounded by floating gardens that are realized in close partnership with STATDTWERKSTATT (http://www.stwst.at/) and the Green Guerrilla movement in Linz.

During our 3-month residency at FUTURELAB prior to the festival, we’ll have further advanced the design and functionality of our LAB prototypes, such as the ENERGY_ANIMAL and SWARM_OPERATING_SYSTEM.

OPEN_SAILING profits fundamentally from social interaction and discourse. We thus invite visitors to come aboard the raft, where we’re showing the progress of research on all 7 OPEN_SAILING LABS in the form of video presentations and live demonstration.

The closing ceremony of the ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL on Sept. 9th 2009 will see the OPEN_SAILING depart from its anchor place to embark on a research trip down the Danube and into the Black Sea, across Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Ukraine.

This task is a challenge to the Open_Sailing project. Sure enough, a river is not an ocean and poses a different set of conditions. For one, instead of a multi-directional drift, we are confronted with the idea of a one-directional flow. In any case, the experience and knowledge gained from the technical and biological experiments we are conducting while travelling down the Danube will be an invaluable experience for the crew and be extremely helpful for upcoming ocean trips.

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PERSPECTIVE

We see ourselves as a laboratory for future lifestyle and technologies. Our goal is to provide experience and prototypes for open source hardware technologies which can form the base for a future INTERNATIONAL_OCEAN_STATION.

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KEEP IN TOUCH

Blog: Discuss and get involved
http://opensailing.net

Twitter: Follow our updates
http://www.twitter.com/opensailing

Facebook: Join our Group, Open_Sailing
http://www.facebook.com/

Flickr: Watch us build and make, feel free to use our photos, Creative Commons
www.flickr.com/groups/opensailing/

Instructables: Learn with us
http://www.instructables.com/group/2012hopes/

Construction Site Webcam: Watch us build and make – LIVE!
http://www.opensailing.net/webcam/
http://www.opensailing.net/timelapse/

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Contacts

Press ( English)
Contact : Ollie Palmer, ollie.palmer@opensailing.net, 00+447853286216

Press (German)
Nadine Freischlad, nadine.freischlad@opensailing.net

General Enquiries
Yoko Kasai : yoko.kasai@opensailing.net

Project Coordinator
Cesar Harada : cesar.harada@opensailing.net, 00+447853286216

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OUR PARTNERS

Our sincere gratitude goes out to our partners:

Royal College of Art, Design Interactions Department : http://www.interaction.rca.ac.uk/

The Center for the Study and Practice of Survival Technics : http://www.ceps-survie.com/

Area 10 : http://www.area10.info/

Pachube.com : http://www.pachube.com/

call me an optimist

In response to "Call me a pessimist, but" :





Love, exciting and new
Come Aboard. We're expecting you.
Love, life's sweetest reward.
Let it flow, it floats back to you.

Love Boat soon will be making another run
The Love Boat promises something for everyone
Set a course for adventure,
Your mind on a new romance.

Love won't hurt anymore
It's an open smile on a friendly shore.
Yes LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! It's LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! (hey-ah!)

Love Boat soon will be making another run
The Love Boat promises something for everyone
Set a course for adventure,
Your mind on a new romance.

Love won't hurt anymore
It's an open smile on a friendly shore.
It's LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! It's LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! It's
LOOOOOOOOOOOVE!
It's the Love Boat-ah! It's the Love Boat-ah!
 cesar>

Call me a pessimist, but....

<Ollie Palmer>

Remember Biosphere 2?

As a child my dream was to become an astronaut. Until it dawned on me that with my congenital heart defect plus being slightly claustrophobic this was not likely going to happen. What remained was a fascination for exploring outer space, the dream of one day being able to colonize distant planets and re-creating Earth under new (and hopefully improved) circumstances. I was sure that if I could, I would be one of the first ones to go.

"Aerial view of Biosphere 2 in the Arizona desert"


A project that truly awed me at that time was the Biosphere 2, a giant man-made enclosed ecosystem completely sealed off from its surroundings. Two "closed bubble" missions were carried out, the first lasting from 1991-93 with a crew of 8 people sealed inside; the second, starting in 1994, had to be broken off prematurely due to internal quarrels about the project's funding and the direction in which research was going. I remember seeing images of pale, thin scientists being ushered out of the gigantic complex by US Federal Marshals. All in all, Biospehere 2 was considered to be a tremendous flop. Both Missions had trouble regulating the oxygen levels inside the sealed structure. Animals died or failed to reproduce while one ant species which was accidentally locked in, became too dominant.

Now, more than 15 years later, the structure still stands, and is a research site under the management of the University of Arizona. Wired Science has recently launched some interesting articles, which sum up the problems and points out that there actually were valubale papers written and insights gained from this large scale, scientific, social and psychological experiment.

read more here: wired1, wired2, wikipedia

"inside Biosphere 2"


images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Biomodding - living sculpture combines computers, gaming culture& ecology

Hey, guys, check this out. It's a greenhouse sculpture powered by excess heat from a giant, overclocked computer.



Artist Angelo Vermeulen, drawing inspiration from the case-modding scene, came up with this idea of fusing art, ecology and technology. In the inside of the case are computer parts, plants and a system of pipes and tubes for water. The computer is a game server with individual game stations surrounding the case. In a collaborative effort, game enthusiasts have developed a multiplayer game which picks up biomodding themes and translates them into a game experience. This way, visitors can become part of the installation by interacting and affecting the ecosystem inside of the case.

But watch for yourself:



The fist version of the sculpture, called Biomodd [ATH¹] was built in Athens, Ohio. Soon more experiments are to follow in Manila, Singapore and Brazil!

Tacita Dean: Disappearance at Sea

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/explore/art/new-visions/tacita-dean-disappearance-at-sea

Often cited... Romantic, scary...
'Teignmouth Electron', Cayman Brac, 1999 (left)
Colour photographs
It is the Mercy, 1999 (right)
Carving in handrail around the Upper Deck

 

 Repro ID D9995

 

   

Repro ID E0110-7

 

In 1996 Tacita Dean began a series of art works collectively entitled Disappearance at Sea, all inspired by remarkable stories of personal encounters with the sea. A key figure in these works is Donald Crowhurst, a competitor in the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe Single-Handed Round-the-World Yacht Race. Within a few weeks of departing, Crowhurst realised that his boat, the Teignmouth Electron, was not up to sailing around the world. Rather than returning home, he began to issue false reports of his progress and position until he could bear the deceit no longer and retreated into an internal world, developing an obsession with time and his faulty chronometer. Two weeks before Crowhurst was due home to a hero’s welcome, Teignmouth Electron was found adrift and empty.

For many, Donald Crowhurst is just a cheat who abused the sacred unwrittens of good sportsmanship. But for some, it is more complicated than this and he is seen as much a victim of the Golden Globe as the pursuer of it. His story is about human failing, about pitching his sanity against the sea, where there is no human presence or support system on which to hang a tortured psychological state. His was a world of acute solitude, filled with the ramblings of a troubled mind.
Tacita Dean, 1997

Tacita Dean has created a number of works that respond to this story. A carving has been made in the wooden handrail of the balustrade around the Upper Deck of Neptune Court in the National Maritime Museum. The text: IT IS THE MERCY, is a phrase taken from one of the last entries in Crowhurt’s log-book. It is both ambiguous and unusual: it reminds us that any sailor or passenger who sets out to cross the sea, crosses it at its mercy.
The film, Disappearance at Sea I, is Dean’s first work referring to the story of Donald Crowhurst. This hypnotic film, made in anamorphic (wide-angle) format was created almost entirely on location at St Abb's lighthouse and focuses on the turning mirrors, prisms and filaments of the lighthouse optic. It is filmed at the moment when day becomes night, exploring the quality and movement of both artificial and natural light as the lamp lights and the sun sets. Filmed almost entirely within the safety of the lighthouse, the ghostly images of Crowhurst and Bas Jan Ader – both lost at sea – become symbolic of its unpredictability and dangers.
Continuing her investigation Dean travelled to Cayman Brac, a small island in the Caribbean where Crowhurst’s trimaran, the Teignmouth Electron, lies beached. It has been abandoned there for over 20 years after having been refitted as a tourist boat. The NMM commissioned Dean to photograph the vessel, which remains a sad yet still majestic reminder of these events.