watts up

By leo | Published: October 22, 2008

Saul Griffith has just released WattzOn, a personal footprint calculator that allows you to account for everything in your life – including taxes and the embodied energy of the products you own. You can then compare your impact with other people in the world and start to understand how much alternative energy is needed to compensate for your energy footprint. The site has a number of unique features, primarily the use of a single measure – watts – to account for environmental impact. There is also the ability to calculate the impact of specific (even custom) products and these lovely visualizations, such as the windmill you need to neutralize your consumption.

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wash me please

By leo | Published: October 21, 2008

The Greenwashing Index is a mashup of advertisements submitted by users and ranked on how much they lie about the sustainability of products. Watching ads through a critical lens has a very different impact than their broadcasting on television or in print; the only problem is that they tend to disappear from the web once they are embedded on this site. Remember the eco-shape bottle? There are sexy coal miners, zero-emission SUVs, and benevolent petro-giants:

Posted in blogogracy, energy, environment, marketing | Comments closed

magical things

By leo | Published: October 20, 2008

Goro Motai pointed me to the work of Camille Scherer, an interaction designer who has the most elegant vision for augmented reality I’ve ever seen. Instead of designing objects for machines to read, she imbues meaningful things with added information in a harmonious way – giving you the feeling that the things around you all have the potential to contain secret messages. Her thesis produced this haunted book (video below) where graceful two-dimensional animations are overlaid on an already beautiful manuscript when viewed through a magic desk lamp and laptop computer:

I also enjoyed her vision of projected ambient information presented in ‘the cake party’:

While you’re at it, check out her personal propaganda poster generator>

Posted in 2d, animation, art, augmented reality | Comments closed

farm map 3

By leo | Published: October 17, 2008

I recently met with Season to Taste Catering Chef Robert Harris, who told me about Chicago-based Green caterer Greg Christian. He has published a number of tools and started several initiatives to promote eating locally and sustainably through his website. Among them: a map (above) of the farms he uses to source food in the Chicago area; a Corporate Social Responsibility plan (available for download here) and an online reality-style television show, the Green Catering Challenge (current episode below):

Posted in blogogracy, food, futurecraft, marketing, traceability | Comments closed

bad fences

By leo | Published: October 16, 2008

Norman McLaren’s 1952 animation ‘Neighbours’ (Voisins) won the Academy Award for best short documentary – despite its violence and crude animation. He intended it as a statement against war and violence, although the entire film could not be shown whole until anti-Vietnam War sentiment created an atmosphere where it could be shown as above. Interestingly, the film is not a true animation – most of it is filmed and played at different speeds. Nevertheless the scenes when the characters seem to float or slide on the grass are animated with a technique McLaren invented and coined the term for: ‘pixillation.’

Neighbours on Wikipedia

Posted in animation, art, conviviality | Comments closed

slow death

By leo | Published: October 15, 2008

Sam Taylor-Wood’s 2001 ‘still life’ (above) and 2002 ‘a little death’ (below) are stunning examples of time-lapse animation composed as seventeenth-century paintings of plenty. The rotting fruit and flesh represent the excesses of excess in an excessively beautiful grotesque. I am very happy that they finally exist on Youtube for us all to see.

Posted in animation, food, livingbreathing, supply chain | Comments closed

code maker

By leo | Published: October 14, 2008

Kaywa offers a QR code generator and a reader you can download to your cell phone so that you too can begin authoring and spectating in the internet of things.

Posted in 2d, blogogracy, traceability | Comments closed

farm map 2

By leo | Published: October 13, 2008

With the growing interest in eating local and community-supported agriculture there is a real demand for enabling technology to let small producers and community markets advertise their ever-changing menu. Otoyk (Kyoto backwards) is the newest entry in this field; it allows users to submit links to community farms and markets, and visitors can find directions to their nearby local food resources or get directions. The site has a lot of potential for helping small businesses achieve find sustainable solutions: otoyk even offers links to local energy producers, recycling facilities, and campgrounds. It’s a step on the way to a bottom-up approach to manufacturing and distribution that will allow enough of those who care to easily find and buy alternatives to mass-produced commodities.

via

Posted in blogogracy, conviviality, energy, environment, food, futurecraft, marketing, supply chain | Comments closed