Tag: planet

11/05/2015

Circadian clock

I created a light and night clock (the needle has a 360 degree rotation during sunlight and another revolution during nighttime), seeking to encourage a wider environmental awareness and to reshape everyday behaviours. It emphasises that we are part of nature with a natural cycle and that we don’t listen anymore in the modern way of living. This project aims to coordinate ourselves in a more adequate way, weaving ‘human time’ with ‘environmental time’, particularly important in the current context of environmental and social crisis.

I created two different face of the clock, one in plywood for indoor public places and mirror acrylic one for outdoor.

From the study “Time Flies” I found that there is little chance to interfere in private life or modify routine. By using public spaces and in-between places I can engage stakeholders. Urban installations exhibiting objective data have the potential to elicit reflection, change or action, playing a critical role in the construction and reflection of social behaviour (Claes & Vande Moere, 2013; Galloway, 2004).

The image engraved on the clocks are drawings of lace lichen. They are one of the most documented bio-indicators. Usually growing on Oak tree, their diversity correlates directly with air quality and human health. It is view as the symbol of wisdom of time, an evolving barometer of climatic change, a biological indicator (Bardell, Bucknum, & Howe, 2012).

The clock is composed of a stepper motor of 200 steps, an Arduino YUN, a motor shield, a battery pack and a NeoPixel Ring. It is connected to the WIFI and will be able to geo-localise itself in the future. For now the location is given to the program, then from this information, it gets the time of sunrise, sunset and the actual clock time from the online data base. The rate of each step is calculated depending of the length of day light or night, allowing the needle to do 360 degrees in day time and the same in night time. The user will be able to see when looking at the clock if there is more or less of the day remaining with light in comparison with what already passed.

Sources:

Bardell, F., Bucknum, B., & Howe, B. (2012). Wired Wilderness. Retrieved 25/03/15, from https://climateclock.wordpress.com/residency-finalists/wired-wilderness/

Claes, S., & Vande Moere, A. (2013). Street infographics: raising awareness of local issues through a situated urban visualization. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Symposium on Pervasive Displays.

10/03/2015

PlanetGuard

I conducted a quick study on the job of Lifeguard. As previously said, I know this job particularly well as it was my student job for 8 years. In the mind of people, it is easy you just spend your days waiting. It is true for the last part, you wait a lot but it is not easy. Your body is in pause, but you have to fight to not put your mind in pause too, as you have to constantly be alert to detect if someone need help; the noise is also very tiring. Moreover, most of the interventions are preventives. It is like ‘Minority report’ you alert or even punish before something happen, trying to visualise what could happen in the future, preventing potential accident to happen.

As the Lifeguard do, should we all keep an eye, not on people swimming, but on the planet and prevent disaster ? Could we all become PLANETguard. The question is how to get people to watch and prevent the disaster ?

First experimentation

What I have done so far is ask my college in France to answer 10 open questions, like I would have done in an interview, but by sending a form it allow me for a first stage to get more answer from more people, with taking little of their time instead of 1 hour. I managed to get 5 answers. The results are in french and anonymous.

Results

The questions are around the way they invigilate the swimming pool, how they manage to stay focussed, if they choose to prevent or wait for a problem to happen, and how they detect that something bad could happen. Finally I ask if they needed a tool or an invention to help them to do a better job. In the answers I had, they insist a lot on the prevention, someone even say that it is a bit like being a voyeur. Concentration comes with experience because you can detect problem before they arrive, they develop a 6th sense. One person told me that first she use prevention but if the person doesn’t care she wait for the problem to happen so the public take consciousness of the risk. To do the job well they recommend to move, be in action, fight agains monotony, and prevention is the key word. The would suggest camera under the water, give a better education to the people, and a good one is create bionics ears to detect calls for help.

Conclusion

From the answers, I should find something to educate / create a detector of danger / an alert system / a way to see under the planet, listen to it more carefully / foster mobility.

Second experimentation

I ask them to attach a camera to the chair from where they work to film their face. I wanted to analyse the face and the method form another point of view (not my internal one). Thanks to Jean Michel and Simon for doing it. I got two video, from a quite swimming pool in my home town Le Mans. They could not instal it in one of the busy swimming pool for security and privacy policy purpose. I only have 2 persons, and you feel that there is no one to look after. At first I thought I would not be able tu use the videos at all. But After looking at it few times, even if there is not a lot of people to look after, they have their eyes almost constantly on the pool. They seems relax at first but when you zoom on the eyes you can detect the concentration. it should be like it for everyone towards the planet: live your life: be relax, but have constantly an eye on it, without even have consciousness of it.

From these reflection I made this little clip.

04/02/2015

First thought for a new project

Initial project

Scope: empathy, encouraging not to be selfish/ egocentric
– borders between people
– fear of difference
– zone of comfort
– blind / ignorance of what is happening around you
Outcome: reflect on our place within our society, mankind and environment
– break physical and psychological borders
– open to others
– break the feeling of ultra-powerfulness : we can’t see it all

Next project: widening scope / look at another aspect

I push people to reflect on personal questions (borders in mind, or where a single persons is allowed to go…) Now reflection on the fact we are part of a whole (Analogy with childhood/teenage hood when you gradually increase you awareness of the world around you)
– consequences of our actions/inaction/behaviour
– butterfly effect, long term consequences
– looking a bigger picture
– larger scale
– longer term

I came across this idea after looking at a new TED talk by Matthieu Ricard (see dedicated post and video)
He is saying that we are on “the edge of the planet” and this edge is the boundaries of the planet

My context would be his video, to raise awareness of our right, duty and power as an individual to act for a greater good and a better future:

We are at a turning point / point of no return of what the earth can provide
– We have a choice and duty to educate ourselves to act and behave in a more sustainable manner.
– Encouraging people to feel the harmony of our ideal sustainable relationship with earth and the disharmony of our current relationship with it.
– Break the borders we constructed between us and the planet

Proposal

Create an instillation of turntables representing the different continents, one turntable=one continent. On each a vinyl playing instrument(s) symbol of this continent. They all turn at different speed: speed = energy consumption of the continent (if we were all living like we do in Europe, we would need 2.5 planets to sustain, it would be worth in US… so for us the speed will be x2.5). Then you would have cursor to answer simple question to calculate how many planet we would need if the rest of the world population was living like ourself. It would modify the speed of these disc. The goal would be to try to make the planet be in harmony (all the disc turning at the same speed to hear the music).

Tutorial notes

Should look at

Sahra Sharma / re-calibration
nuclear clock
Tom Schoflieldart.com / neurotic armagedon indicator
entretags – timebots – family clock
Miyajima tatsuo – work with time
Sophie Calle – work with memories

The first proposal might be too consensual. We all will never have the same right, same way of living. Do we want a homogene society, like we all are clones ? But in the same time it is not right that some have the ability to consume in 1 hour what other will in a month or more ? How can we find a balance between equality (the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities) and equity (the quality of being fair and impartial: equity of treatment.)

Equity, as we have seen, involves trying to understand and give people what they need to enjoy full, healthy lives. Equality, in contrast, aims to ensure that everyone gets the same things in order to enjoy full, healthy lives. Like equity, equality aims to promote fairness and justice, but it can only work if everyone starts from the same place and needs the same things.

It is worth looking at this video of Hans Rosling about energy consumption and the inequality in the world.

We all live with different temporality as well.

Is fast wrong ? (slow food ≠ fast food)

harmony is difficult to define – it is not only fast and slow

Time and territory
When you look linear you miss direction and possibilities
Always in a narrative structure
How to find synchronicity
Try to find a moment where it is possible to detect synchronicity – can be very brief – loss of a moment = tension

I should look at some granularity – detail – personal detail – build a personal reflection

Think about the setting of my research:

empirical knowledge
interrogate the system
give to an test group something to study them
think about ethic
provocation ?