Software Structures: fun with Casey Reas et al (Jared Tarbell, Robert Hodgin & William Ngan).

a couple of years ago i wrote an article titled ”The Future of Wearables” for Rhizome. in my article i profiled designer Elise Co and her fantastic work. from a very early start elise has been ahead of the curve, working on challenging ideas which remain relevant in this quickly moving area. (previous blog posts mentioning elise can be found here.) one of her projects, Perforation (1999) struck me as especially poetic and beautiful. challenging the physicality of the body “through transparency", a mass of fiber optic cables transfers light from one side of the body to the other.

Elise Co’s “Perforation”

	in (2001) we see the concept of a “hole in the body” re-appear in IDEO’s award winning e-fashion concepts. in a design team led by Naoto Fukasawa a video camera is used to take images from the front of the body and display them on an LCD screen on the back.
	IDEO’s e-fashion concepts

	and this year, at ISEA 2004, we see a piece by Diana Burgoyne which transfers light from a flashlight from the back of the body to the front. this makes me think of Erkki Huhtamo’s talk at ISEA on Media Archaeology… and the recurring “topoi” of the immaterial body.
	Diana Burgoyne and model at the ISEA 2004 fashion show in Tallinn, Estonia

Reuters - Iran's moral crackdown has widened its focus from stylishly dressed women to curvaceous shop-window mannequins, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Reuters - Australia's election campaign took a wacky turn on Tuesday with claims the Greens party wanted to allow the sale of "party" drugs, state funding for sex changes and laws to make people ride bicycles and eat less meat.

"Surfin' U.S.A." For those newly-energized politically, and impatient, frustrated and disgusted with the starvation rations of the commercial U.S. media, here are a very few online, radio and print suggestions, delivered in no particular order. Of course each of...

Korean authorities are talking about u-City (Ubiquitous City) reports RFID Japan.

"Ubiquitous City is an intelligent next-generation city based on u-IT (Ubiquitous Information Technology.)

Examples of u-IT include RFID and wireless internet technologies. One of the first efforts to build u-Cities is the development of the convention center district in the Korean city of ChanWon.

In a u-City, RFID would be used in the following ways:

- Automated parking system
- Vehicle identification
- House keys
- In-store services: product information, tailor-made clothes, fashion news
- Automated checkout in retail stores
- Attach RFID tags to sewer pipes to manage waste water
- Track locations of vehicles, children and pets.

Significant structural differences in male and female brains may result from selective cell death orchestrated by just one gene

A researcher's claim to have cloned human-cow hybrid embryos from dead people is met with scepticism and revulsion

awesome

Cory Doctorow: ScreenGoo is a paint-on movie screen compound that can turn any wall into a screen:

Screen Goo is a specially formatted, highly reflective acrylic paint, designed specifically for the video projection industry. Screen Goo acrylic paint allows one to transform any smooth paintable surface into a high performance projection screen.

Link (via Red Ferret Journal)

PainStation was first completed in 2001 by Volker Morawe and Tilman Reiff while studying at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.
The concept of Pain Station is that mistakes while playing result in real pain.

Two players face off in front of the machine, which comes equipped with ominous-sounding pain execution units and pain amplification units. The damage comes in 3 forms: an electric shock, a blast of heat, or a rotating wire whip. The first player to pull his or her non-playing hand from the pain loses.

The idea met success and the demand for a durable version of the machine rose. Now, more than 2 1/2 years after the first installation, the durable Pain Station is finally nearing completion.

Via The Third Place Gallery.

But nothing could be worse than this father who sold on e-Bay his son's Play Station as a punishment.

I love you, mum: you never tried to confiscate my plastic Smurfs!

impressive, but it's no match for dad's kidneys [via] 

Torrent: http://66.90.75.92/suprnova//torrents/2508/Eternal.Sunshine.Of.The.Spotless.Mind.DVDR-BooZerS.torrent
Size: 4565 Mb
Quality: DVD
Submitter: ABCtorrents
Info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338013/

We're at NYU assembling our interactive cameras and wearable computers for tonights Konscious Convention broadcast. We'll have four crews in the field, one in Madison Square Garden. Also, three of us from Unmediated will be at Manhattan Neighborhood Networks monitoring the four cameras in the field, and chatting with participants that want to ask convention attendees and protesters questions. You can watch and participate tonight at 7PM EST by going to www.Konscious.tv. You can watch a stream of the live broadcast over at MNN from 7 PM to 7:30 PM EST. If you live in the New York City Area, you can tune into MNN and watch the live broadcast on Time Warner channel 34 or 78, RCN Channel 110 and digital cable channel 107. For more info on the system we're using, developed by Shawn Van Every, click here
.

strutting and projecting his stuff

AUDIO PEACOCK is the most recent performance by Benoit Maubrey (2003). These wearable electronic instruments are constructed from polycarbonat plexigalss material shaped into a peacock's fan-like plumage. The plexiglass surface is equipped with 16 loudspeakers (150 watts power), amplifiers, and rechargeable 12 volt batteries. The "audio-plumage" is highly directional and functions like an electroacoustic radar dish--esthetically it has much in common with the way a peacock parades itself in front of the pea-hen (the audience). An Audio Peacock can either amplify its own electronic instrument and voice or receive sounds from outside sources via transmitter/receiver and disseminate them in a space by orienting his high-tech "plumage." Four Audio Peacock units can be acoustically choreographed as a mobile quadrophonic loudspeaker system.

VIDEO PEACOCK: An Audio Peacock costume (constructed from white polycarbonat-plexiglass) is used as a mobile projection screen. This is a solo audio-visual concert where the electro-acoustic quality of an Audio Peacock is visually enhanced via a video beamer: moving images (both live and recorded) can be projected directly onto the performer's costume. A story is told "live" by a figurant who simultaneously samples his own amplified voice, manipulating the sound (loop and pitch): the performer dubs his own hallucogenic dream. View video (33.4 MB, Quicktime)

See a brief history with images of Maubrey's work.

As the RNC kicks off in NYC, another mass protest is getting underway across the city. The unemployment line is a symbolic line of people representing job loss in the US consisting of “more than 5,000 citizens, each holding a pink slip, who will form a line stretching from the corner of Broadway and Wall St., up to 31st St. and then west along 31st St to 7th Ave. - right across from Madison Square Garden and the site of the Republican National Convention.” A bit like the 1980s “Hands Across America", but much more focused and with a seemingly greater impact. The purpose is simple: ”..to bring attention to current disastrous economic policies, not to create confrontations or hazards. Because the unemployment line will run single file along the sidewalk and will not block pedestrians or intersections, no permit is required; the NYPD has given their okay.” The NYPD are “okay” with this? I thought the NYPD were against free speech? Anyways, I hope this works out - I’m sure it will be a big success.

The net and video games are becoming essential tools for political activists.

Resources in case you are arrested, searched, detained while exercising your first amendement rights.

FashMobs and WiFi-SM

I came across this post on boing boing today: it suggests the possible fascist undertones of flash mobs, "depending of course on who organizes the particular gathering, their motivation..." It then refers to Christophe Bruno who has created a net art work called Global Artists. Bruno asks "Imagine that the history of the world was turned upside-down and that the historical characters who left their mark in our schoolbooks, were reincarnated as... artists. What works of art would they produce?" One example he gives is FashMobs by A.Hitler:

"I created a website where people can leave their mobile phone number. The idea is that when the number of people is large enough, a SMS instruction is sent to all of them simultaneously by the server. When they receive it, people have to perform the instructions. The instructions are simple ones, like raising an arm, but the effect is amplified by the fact that many people do it in the same place, at the same time, as in a symphonic orchestra."

Similarly disturbing is another work by Bruno.

"You have the impression that the disasters of the world do not touch you anymore? You feel vaguely sorry for other people's misfortunes but you don't feel the inner urge which used to make you help your neighbour? WiFi-SM is the solution!"

Bruno reminds us that, as always, technologies can be abused and/or produce the opposite effects for which they were orginally intended. Or, is this what they were orginally intended to do?

Interview with joybubbles the first well known phone phreaker. It is a really interesting interview that took place on the Off the Hook" radio show from 1991

The WYSIWYG Talent Show

Curated by Andy Horwitz
with Dan Rhatigan

Moderated by Jeff Jarvis (buzzmachine.com)

Panelists:
John Aravosis (americablog.blogspot.com)

John Perry Barlow (barlow.typepad.com)

Cam Barrett (camworld.com)

Jen Chung (gothamist.com)

Douglas Rushkoff (rushkoff.com/blog.php)

Julian Sanchez (reason.com/hitandrun)

This event is presented as part of the Imagine Festival of Arts, Issues & Ideas, a citywide cultural festival designed to inspire, instigate and support civic engagement. From August 28 - September 2 the Imagine Festival will present over 100 cultural events in 6 days including concerts, performances, forums, town meetings, exhibits, screenings, and other issue-based artworks.

tracking of a small meme through social groups [via] 

The Vodafone Future Site presents the 'near future' communication devices designed to enhance entertaining, working, belonging, and caring.

They have imagined a series of scenarios.

In one of them, the "visual bracelet" with a bendable and foldable screen works in synergy with a "communicator", defined as a "context aware agent", which mediates messages and calls based on the situation of the user and his/her contacts (are they available, in a bad mood, in a meeting, traveling, etc.) helping the wearer to set a tone for the conversation.

In other situations, the bracelet becomes a "sensor bracelet" recording the physical and emotional state of its wearer.

Vodafone also came up with an ePaper that can be become an up-to the minute information magazine or be overlaid with an IM-like buddy list--showing a map of the city with the physical location of each of the buddies and information about the bars and clubs they were in.

Start-up HotSpot Amsterdam plans to make their city the first European capital where laptops can hook up anywhere to the Web.

The first seven base stations are already connecting historic areas, while the entire city center will be covered within three months.

"We'll go on to cover all of Amsterdam with 125 base stations. The idea is to prove to the big boys that it can be done, and that consumers can live with a mobile phone and mobile Internet. The landline is dead," said HotSpot Amsterdam founder Carl Harper.

HotSpot Amsterdam charges 4.95 euros a day or 14.95 euros a month for a connection of 256 kilobits per second, while 24.95 euros a month will buy a connection twice that fast.

Mantsala, in Finland, has an 11 square-kilometer WiFi network, available to the public and schools, while New York plans to build a city-wide WiFi network.

The Port of Amsterdam installed a WiFi network three months ago, covering its 30 square kilometers, but that network is not for public use.

From Reuters.

The UMBRELLA.net website is now updated and looks much better! It features an events page that lists all of the upcoming events where the project will be showcased in the coming months! If you are near or attending any of these events, please stop by and try out the project! More to come!

On August 2nd, Elevator:2010 invited universities, industries and enthusiast groups to compete in engineering and build beam-powered climbers, serving as prototypes to real Space Elevator vehicles. The 200-feet vertical race will last about 1 minute, and the first prize is $50,000.

The Space Elevator is a thin ribbon, extending from a ship-borne anchor to a counterweight well beyond geo-synchronous orbit. Made out of Carbon Nanotube Composite, it is 62,000 miles long, about 3 feet wide, and is thinner than a sheet of paper.
The ribbon is kept taut due to the rotation of the earth.

Electric vehicles, called climbers, travel at a steady 200 miles per hour and ascend the ribbon using electricity generated by solar panels and a ground based booster light beam.

The competition will take place in the May-June 2005 timeframe in a San Francisco bay area location.

There's even a blog: Dangling Participle.
Via Nanoblog.
Related entry: NASA's Millennium-Two Space Elevator.

Peffisaur is a free, multiuser MMS weblog, but it also offers its readers to take part in some kind of collaborative art.

Pictures posted on Peffis are randomly distributed over time from several users all over the world. Peffis makes what it calls "a cloud" which melts down these images into an increasingly chaotic single one.

The meltdown, where new images are added to the old image, is done once every hour so the image seen on top of the page is constantly changing as people add images to the site.

A copy of the current cloud is also saved every month on day one.

From Picturephoning < Slashdot.

A mock-up of a glove-type concept camera from Fuji Photo Film Co. was shown Sunday at the Future Creation Fair in Tokyo. The camera enables users to shoot still and moving images with finger signs.

Couldn't find more details. Frustrating!

From Japan Times.

Open Government Information Awareness

this is why academia isn't for me

The BBC reports that the United Nations's "International Open Source Network (IOSN) helped promote the first annual Software Freedom Day on 28 August,giving out CDs and booklets about the technology.Events took place in countries like India, Bangladesh, Malaysia,Philippines, Sri Lanka...

ruckus.org is coordinating "breaking news and logistical updates from the streets of New York City during the Republic National Convention 2004." [Link] Also check out Upoc's RNC page for text alerts....

A man has invented a car alarm system that he thinks could save some of the children who die after being shut inside cars on warm days.

R.N.C. Protest Moblog...

now hopefully he just won't get arrested for providing network access

cartography from the 18th and 19th centuries

www.free103point9.org

Sunday 08.29.04- Thursday 09.02.04

LIVE AROUND THE CLOCK COVERAGE OF THE PROTESTS
SURROUNDING THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION

free103point9 Online Radio is partnering with
the August Sound Coalition to provide coverage of
events during the convention.

Tune in at www.free103point9.org

The History of the Interface in Interactive Art

The Great Backlash began with the coming together of two very different political factions: traditional business Republicans...with their faith in the free market; and working-class "Middle Americans"...who signed on to preserve family values.

For the former group, the conservative revival that resulted has been fantastically rewarding...After all, they are wealthier as a class today than ever before in their lifetimes. But for the latter group, the aggrieved "Middle Americans," the experience has been a bummer all around. All they have to show for their Republican loyalty are lower wages, more dangerous jobs, dirtier air, a new overlord class that comports itself like King Farouk--and, of course, a crap culture whose moral free fall continues...

Thomas Frank
What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America

After a hard day at the office I often enter the house, grab a beer if I'm in a "red state" of mind or a glass of Chardonnay if I'm feeling "blue" and sit down to hours of entertainment watching QVC. Yes, this home shopping network is the best way to decompress after hours of project management and endless meetings. I never buy anything, but my family questions my sanity nonetheless. I watch with amazement....

Glowlab is participating in the DISSENSION CONVENTION, organized by Furtherfield and Postmasters. We're jamming with Moport --check us out Sunday, August 29, 7-10pm [EDT/GMT-4].

Torrent: http://66.90.75.92/suprnova//torrents/2496/[TLC]%20Hackers%20-%20Outlaws%20And%20Angels%20[DivX5-AC3]-avi.torrent
Size: 316 Mb
Quality: VHS-rip
Submitter: Renderfarm

[info: http://tlc.discovery.com/convergence/hackers/hackers.html --BT]

The Sensor Shoe

by John Paradiso

Ordinarily dancers dance to music. With the Sensor Shoe the dancer makes the music.

Electronic sensors are built into this ordinary shoe to pick up foot movement and changes in pressure. The short antenna at the back of the shoe transmits data from each sensor to a nearby computer. The computer is programmed with a set of rules that map the data to particular sounds. A digital music synthesizer produces the sounds, which are then heard through speakers.

See NY dancer Mark Haim dance in the sensor shoes (2001)

After sending thousands of soldiers to war and failing to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Mr Bush and Mr Blair have been put forward to receive the Nobel peace prize....

via cnn LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- As part of a drive to attract more women into the male-dominated video game industry, a program for aspiring game developers at Southern Methodist University will offer a women-only scholarship, organizers said Thursday....

After centuries of guesswork, architects have a high-tech way to hear the acoustics of buildings they haven't yet built.

Jeff Knowlton and Naomi Spellman are doing a residency at The Media Centre in Huddersfield. Here's their description of what they are up to:

http://www.druh.co.uk/residencies.html

The work we are developing is an urban exploration shaped from the immediate environment and from online databases. It unfolds in realtime, through space, as the visitor makes her way through the city. The Interpretive Engine creates an audio and visual narrative, relying on the visitors' location and direction as well as on access to wireless internet connections along the way. The Interpretive engine is a computer-based work, which can be experienced singly or in small groups, either from a visitor's own laptop, or from equipment checked out to visitors. It requires no input from the visitor, other than her natural progression through a loosely delineated space. The project takes into account local surroundings, events, and available telecommunications infrastructure.

Server side data will be parsed in real time from a variety of predetermined online resources, including a news source, a national or metropolitan historic database, a weather source, a local directory, most-wanted international criminal directory, etc. The project will parse and interpret this data, and integrate it into a site specific narrative. Key to this project is a shift in consciousness of the listener, through an exposure of something that is already always present: the [invisible] wireless network. We will encourage visitors to question how informational databases are accessed and controlled in an era of increasingly pervasive corporate and governmental control.

This is the image which accompanies the lead story on the CNN site at this moment. The headline on the front page? "New York stands guard." I see it as, "Republican Guards hold up New York." We are an occupied city tonight, as I listen to the sirens wailing up and down the avenues and helicopters scanning with high-powered searchlights as they whop, whop, whop overhead.

I'm punching this post into my blog as we're listening to a remarkable webstream reporting tonight's ongoing, historical Critical Mass through the streets of Manhattan, including live accounts by the cyclist participants. There are reports that scores of people have been arrested already - for bicycling while smiling. The police are funnelling them into police vans and buses, chasing away the public and prohibiting photographs.

In the end, 50,000 cops in one city are going to find something to keep them amused.

Bloomberg and Kelly are doing Bush's work. Nothing could be more effective in radicalizing and provoking orderly protests than this outrageous over-reaction.

UPDATE: The Washington Post reports that nearly 250 bicyclists were arrested. This is insane!

By executive order, President Bush grants more powers to the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, one of the many recommendations of the 9-11 Commission. The president's action is seen as a stop-gap measure until his administration and Congress agree on the role of the proposed National Intelligence Director. Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL), outgoing chair of the House Intelligence Committee, has been nominated to serve as the next CIA director. NPR's Mary-Louise Kelly talks about the significance of these developments.

WiFi.ArtCache is a platform for experimenting with location and proximity based digital art media.

By simply coding to a provided ActionScript 2.0 API, Flash artists are able to create an interactive experience that changes based on how many people have downloaded their work, how many people are currently interacting with their art object, or whether it is currently in range of the WiFi.ArtCache.

The WiFi.ArtCache, developed by Julian Bleecker with support from Eyebeam Atelier, is a server containing a WiFi access point. When exhibited at the Spectropolis event at New York City Hall Park (October 1-4, 2004.), the WiFi.ArtCache will contain a storehouse of art objects. Visitors to the event can download these art objects onto their 802.11 equipped laptops and experience the artists' interpretation of location and proximity effects.

WiFi.ArtCache is looking for art-technologists willing to contribute during Spectropolis. Deadline for submissions is September 26th.

Submissions, questions and inquiries should be sent to wifiartcache at
techkwondo dot com.

Additionally, the WiFi.ArtCache will contain a generic storehouse of digital
ephemera that visitors can upload and download to the server. Scratchy
audio, yellowed digital documents, discolored image files and spoiled emails
can all be found and dropped off at the WiFi.ArtCache.

From Locative.

Breaking news! Josh Kinberg was arrested while being interviewed about his Road Writer bicycle. This news comes after I personally road in Critical Mass last night and a person in our riding group was arrested.

HERE IS THE EMAIL about Josh word for word:

"...about 40 minutes ago Josh was doing an interview with Ron Reagan and in the middle of it the police pulled up. 20 minutes later a captain came down to the scene (all still while on camera with Ron reagan) and after some time arrested Josh. they took the bike too. Josh is OK. We were all shocked that it would happened like that. a crowd had formed and many journalist wondered into it. Josh was little shocked but, it was all peaceful and calm just very very frustrating and absurd." - YURY GITMAN

theodp writes "Siemens AG anticipates additional costs from a software problem with new mobile phones that has led retailers to suspend sales. Five models of its new 65 series can emit a piercing melody into users' ears if the battery fails during a call, causing hearing damage in extreme cases, according to a statement."

Cory Doctorow: Worth 1000's nightmare-themed photoshopping contest has yielded some genuinely scary images. Link (via ftrain)

Cory Doctorow: Alice Taylor, who is researching games at the BBC, has a great blog post pondering the question of why our society values play but disdains games ("...this paradox of 'play' being seen as a fundamental good, and of high value, and 'games' as frivolous and time-wasting, therefore of low value"). She half-seriously proposes a nutrition-facts label for games to describe their constructive value. Link

Cory Doctorow: Great collage of old UK "Piracy is Theft" anti-software-piracy ads. Link (via Waxy)

Super cool video of a trip through Manhattan on a bicycle, from the first person perspective. It has an IMAX quality for producing a feeling like you are there on the bike. Lucas Brunelle mounts large hand-held cameras to his helmet: "Lipstick, Pen, & Cigar cameras that require extra batteries and wires aren't worth the hassle - and the quality sucks."

Operation Urban Terrain (OUT) is a one-night live-action intervention of online military games played out in public spaces by art activists using high tech gear, strategy, and humor. The work will be presented in New York on August 28, on the eve of the Republican National Convention. See the CREATIVE TIME site for details.

Programmers and artists from ROAM-NET are bringing a mutant art car, and a public terminal kiosk for this year's Burning Man festival in the Nevada Black Rock Desert.

DOOM, their telecommunicative vehicle is equipped with a wireless public terminal, a GPS system, and two webcams.

All along Burning Man (from the 30th through the 6th), they will be uploading photos to the igargoyle website of interesting technology from the festival and blog the event on the ROAM-NET newsfeed.

The goal of this project is to establish a roaming platform for signalling to, and interacting with event participants, be it through event publishing, blogging, photo sharing, or signalling to your friends where you are.

It is about communication, cartography, and tech art in the most remote of places in North America, and one of their long term goals is to build programs and projects to teach children about emerging technology and cartography.

The CTO of XID Technologies, a biometric security company based in Singapore, has been nominated for this year's World Technology Awards (WTA) for the development of an adaptive face recognition technology involving face synthesis. The technology, marketed under the name XID SmartID, permits for example to compare the biometric data embedded on a passport and the live data of a person at an immigration counter or passport verification booth.

This face synthesis technology is currently used in Singapore, SmartID has been deployed at the Immigrant Workers Dormitory in Kaki Bukit to provide access clearance for about 6,000 workers day or night across 16 channels of entry. This summary contains more details and a picture showing how the technology is used to grant access to a building for instance.

Smartmobs.com readers may be familiar with Steve Mann's concept of "sousveillance".

Cryptome has an example of Sousveillance in action contained in an article about many of the potential NYC RNC terror/security/safety threats that are seemingly being ignored. Cryptome theorizes that:

"...it is likely that corporations are lax on security not only to save money but also because the Terrorism Insurance Law enacted after 9/11 generously underwrites losses due to terrorism. Las Vegas is not alone in wanting to avoid liability by remaining ignorant of terrorist threats and failing to institute protective measures.

There is a very big gap between what is being promised for domestic security and what is actually being done. The intent appears to be like that before 9/11: issue regular warnings, fake security, wait for a disaster to shock the public into even greater funding for false security -- a legacy of the Cold War resurrected by the governments worldwide for an endless war on terrorism. Ho hum, business is saying, not our problem, only an opportunity to offload costs and collateral damage to the unwitting, frightened, tax-whacked public. "

i'm just bummed out i can't be there to witness everyone being annoyed by tourists

In blog land a ping is the signal that one blog sends to another blog, or to another server, to indicate that a post has been made. A blog may ping a central service to indicate that an update has been posted, or it may ping an individual blog to indicate that one blog post has made a comment about another blog post. So pings have proved extremely useful to help build connections between blogs. Well, Andreas Haugstrup and Jay Dedman via http://www.videoblogging.info, have established a site where you can ping when your videoblog is updated. When you post, ping:

http://www.videoblogging.info/ping

and your videoblog will be recognised within www.videoblogging.info

If you need help working out how to ping from your blog, visit http://www.videoblogging.info for help.

News.Box.Walk
Friday, August 27, 2004, 7 8pm
Union Square Park
$:free

NEWS.BOX.WALK is a way to wander the city using newsboxes as a guide. It s a game whose prize is the pleasure of exploring the city as you never have before, your path choreographed by the colors and combinations of these street-corner fixtures we barely notice.

On Friday, August 27, meet Glowlab in Union Square Park for our first News.Box.Walk. We ll gather at the south end of the park under the horse-riding-George Washington statue at 7pm to hand out scorecards and offer some brief instructions. We invite you to walk alone, or play against friends; keep score, or just wander the city by color. We ll meet back at the park at 8pm to compare scores.

[Note: With all the activity surrounding the RNC protests, Union Square will probably be packed -- we'll wait there until 7:15. This is a great time to come out and participate in the crazy energy of the city...]

Yesterday, I read that researchers from University of Leeds found out that sunflower oil could prove a handy source for the cleanest fuel of all, pure hydrogen.*

Now it seems that Australian scientists have created an electricity generator fuelled by decomposing bananas, and are currently working on plans for a full-scale, fruit-fired power station.

They let the bananas decompose in sealed vats and uses the methane from the rotting fruit to power an electricity turbine.

Bill Clarke from University of Queensland said he would know by February next year whether bananas were a viable energy source. If they are, the banana industry will consider building a banana-fuelled power plant capable of powering about 500 homes.

However, the technology's application is limited as it took 60kg of bananas to power a household appliance such as a fan heater for 30 hours.

From IOL.
*From The Guardian, via Kurzweil AI.

As most of these exhibitions demonstrate, the Conceptual Art movement, which was in part propelled by opposition to the Vietnam War, continues to expand art's means, meanings and reach with considerable help lately from the Web. This is most strikingly evident at the Luxe Gallery on 57th Street, where in its commercial gallery debut the Experimental Party has created a total-immersion parallel universe of virtual government and media.

Roberta Smith reviews artists' reactions to the upcoming Republican National Convention.

Artist Natalie Jeremijenko is unleashing a series of unique works at the Republican National Convention that combine art, engineering and old-fashioned protesting. Noah Shachtman reports from New York.

Computer viruses aren't just for wreaking havoc on global networks. They're also an art form. That's the take of an upcoming exhibit that focuses on malicious scripts, hacker films and the aesthetic charms of programming code. By Michelle Delio.

Reuters - A cleaner at London's Tate Britain modern art gallery threw out a bag of garbage which formed part of an artwork because it was thought to be trash, British newspapers reported Friday.
[regine refers us to photo from BBC --BT]

Reuters - The good citizens of Amsterdam may now take counsel of talking toilets that expound on the perils of smoking or the futility of war and berate them on hygiene and cleanliness.

Xeni Jardin: Look closely at the third photo from the bottom on this realtor's website promoting a home for sale. Either the snapshot-taker failed to notice two dogs humping sur l'herbe, or this is an example of highly sophisticated subliminal advertising strategies in the real estate industry. Link (Thanks, Manero)