XDesign

xdesign Environmental Health Clinic

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:35:43 -0500

Please see new websites: environmentalhealthclinic.net ; xdesignproject.net

June 15/16 Extreme Streaming/Silent Observers

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 14:17:36 -0500

Silent Observers: Visual Observations & Streaming Media Practices Eyebeam in association with Silent Observers exhibition at CALIT2, 4th Screen Cell Phone Video festival, and the NYU Environmental Health Clinic presents: [t0] Time Series: a streaming discussion on realtime media practices and promises Friday June 15: 5PM-8:30 PM New York/Eyebeam 2PM-5:30 PM San Diego/CALIT2 Fri/Sat June 15 / 16: 11PM-2:30AM Venice; Amsterdam; Stockholm; Kassel; Brussels In the face of environmental and political crises we demand not just more information but more immediate information. We are witnessing an explosion in the forms of realtime monitoring and reporting: air quality data to your cell phones; incessant blogs; streaming images of war zones and conflicts from which we might prefer to be historically removed. A consortium centered at CALIT is launching the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) developing cyber-infrastructure that will allow extensive realtime monitoring and event detection. Is this a perverse cultural impulse that sidesteps considered interpretive processes and analysis, or does this urgency seize attention and generate diverse sense-making, with its own immediate interpretive demands? Alternatively, might it allow sustained attention to issues that are otherwise under-represented or unrepresented? How do we collectively manage these data streams? Are they an opportunity for changing who attends, and how we respond? Can this allow higher standards of evidence in political and environmental crisis? The time at which one witnesses something—not just the places and events witnessed—has tremendous implications for how and if we can respond. With realtime or near realtime data, intervention, response or participation become possible – or impossible. This time series discussion includes two-and-a-half streaming panel discussions across six cities in realtime to survey projects that address the issues surrounding realtime representations. t0 x0 locations: San Diego; New York; Stockholm; Venice; Kassel; Amsterdam. Can realtime media challenge our borders, change environmental accounts, and restructure participation, accountability or responsibility in civil society? What is real about realtime?

the 411

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:57:49 -0500

Sparrows deliver the morning news at intersection of W.4th and W. 11th Streets in NYC http://www.nyu.edu/projects/xdesign/junglestream/20070601 051307.wav

Wind Study

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 19:06:00 -0500

A wind study for the San Francisco World's Fair of 2007.

OOZ: Goose Interactions in Sweden

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 17:39:31 -0500

The robotic goose visits Stockholm for the show at Mejan Labs.

OOZ: for the birds opens in Mejan Labs, Stockholm

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 17:54:22 -0500

Instruction for the Birds: * land on perch-> trigger sound file-> wait for human response (they are a little slow) * try a different perch-> it might work better Instructions for People: * Pretend you are a bird-> see above

Release Notes on Floating Clinic; getting wet feet; tying down and floating off

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 09:53:42 -0500

In retrospect I realize that all testing and sizing of the floating clinic was done with women:. Caroline, my beautiful assistant is over 6 ft. The compact desk and seating accommodated her easily but I had not accounted for the male body mass. The first man to have an appointment on the floating clinic, Christian Croft, was almost catastrophic. Moreover ....

It floats--it almost hovers!

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 10:51:23 -0500

Special effects: weather.

Launching Grand Rounds

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 18:09:55 -0500

The NYU environmental health clinic Grand Rounds is a series presenting and podcasting design interventions that change or improve the envrionmental performance of local urban systems. Modeled on the Grand Rounds of hospitals and medical schools, Grand Rounds of Environmental Health covers direct actions, remediation projects, public experiments and other material tactics. The invited speakers present evidence-driven interventions, action based research projects and heroic engineering that have demonstrable environmental effects, and yet have not lost something of the wonderful, fantastical, surprising and/or suggestive. Unlike medical schools, whose grand rounds are typically not-so-grand powerpoint presentations, these rounds will take us out and about in the urban ecosytems, examining ills and discussing the effectiveness of hands-on remediatory actions.

solar powered

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 13:07:59 -0500

Lana Bernberg works between clouds off of solar arrays in the jungle http://www.nyu.edu/projects/xdesign/junglestream/solar.mov

forest floor to finished furniture

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 12:14:44 -0500

Lana Bernberg's work in progress video of building at the source of the materials, in this case, the wood used to build furniture for a botanist's lab and residence in Belize http://www.nyu.edu/projects/xdesign/junglestream/forestfloortofinishedfurniture.mov

Lana Proposed Banana Project

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 17:23:36 -0500

So this is where you might post your initial plan and contact and dates so that I know where you are.... just for trail.... and you put up an image check out this http://www.nyu.edu/projects/xdesign/blogin

Specs for building bird houses

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 06:42:54 -0500

Link 1 - with assembly instructions. Link 2 - just a table of specs. Link 3 - with information about putting wood chips in boxes, and where to locate the boxes.

Bird food system - permissable projections

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 14:58:58 -0500

For a flag pole: "Flagpoles that are supported entirely from the building may be constructed to project not more than eighteen feet beyond the street line, but not closer than two feet to the curb line, provided that no part of the flagpole is less than fifteen feet above the ground or sidewalk level.

On signs: "Wall signs may be constructed to project not more than twelve inches beyond the street line when conforming to the requirements of subchapter seven of this chapter. . . . Projecting signs may be constructed to project not more than ten feet beyond the street line, but not closer than two feet to the curb line, when conforming to the requirements of subchapter seven of this chapter, and provided that no part of the sign is less than ten feet above the ground or sidewalk level."

From the NYC Building Code.

An article in the New York Times discusses the code for flag poles, and the process involved in approval.

Attracting birds

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 12:58:05 -0500

Here are several resources for landscaping to attract birds: How to Attract Birds has a nice summary, which amounts to providing food, water and shelter, resources which are often scarce in suburban areas. Providing variety in your plantings, especially providing year-round food, is especially useful. It dicusses the importance of planting native species, which native birds are already familiar with and adapted to, and organic gardening (using pesticides hurts the birds that eat insects). When providing water, keep the water shallow - no more than 2-3" deep - as songbirds cannot swim, and will be very wary of entering deeper water. A rough and gradually sloping bottom, perhaps with some stones added for smaller birds to land on, will also help. A water source should be in a clearing, so that drinking and bathing birds can keep an eye out for predators. Depending on whether hawks or cats are a more likely threat will determine what sorts of plantings need to be near the water. Cornell has several pages, including one on seven important plant groups: