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Next month Lapka Electronics is set to release Lapka, its much anticipated new environmental monitoring device and app for the iPhone. Once you download the free app you can plug in one of four lead-free, PVC-free, water resistant sensors to track radiation, organic matter, EMF (electromagnetic fields) and humidity in your immediate environment (from right to left in the image above). The radiation sensor is professional grade, counting every particle and then translating that data into how it might be affecting you. The organic sensor uses a stainless steel probe to detect significant amounts of nitrates in raw foods and drinking water caused by residues or synthetic fertilizers. Try it out at your local farmers market to see if those high-priced organic peaches are really and truly organic. The EMF sensor detects the electromagnetic pollution caused by electronics, telecommunication transmitters and power lines. You might use it to locate the least electromagnetically polluted area in your home for your bed or your child’s room. The last sensor for humidity compares generally accepted comfort standards with the temperature and humidity in your immediate environment. (While we don’t need an app to tell us that August in New York ranks in at miserable on the comfort index, it’s nice to know when our frizzy hair, shiny faces and sweat-soaked shirts are scientifically unacceptable.)

On a more practical level, we can see the app’s ability to translate data into easy-to-read values (which it puts into context with global standards, averages and suggested tolerance ranges) being especially useful not just at home or in the office, but in public spaces like parks, airplanes, hospitals or your child’s school. You can take environmental ‘snapshots’ throughout the day to create a personalized ‘comfort diary’ that you can share with a global community of users. If enough people get involved it means that we’ll be able to view accurate, real-time environmental data from locations around the world and record and track the data to analyze changes over time. That’s not only fun and helpful for the curious everyday user, but it’s a potentially significant source of information for medical researchers looking at how environmental factors impact health and the regional spread of infection and disease. And if your goal is to make your home a less toxic environment, you can get precise feedback on changes you make to your space.

Lapka is expected to be available in December 2012 for $220.

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Artist Bryan Lewis Saunders conducted a bizarre experiment. For several weeks, he took a different drug every day and made a portrait of himself under the influence. Check it out. 

Spraying a wall with water creates graffiti with tiny points of light instead of paint in this installation by French artist Antonin Forneau (+ movie).

Water Light Graffiti is made of thousands of LED lights that light up when they come into contact with water.

Participants can use paintbrushes, sponges, fingers or spray cans to sketch out words and pictures.

The project was unveiled in Poitiers, France, between 22 and 24 July this year while Forneau was in residence at the DigitalArti Artlab.

Other projects involving water we’ve featured recently include a sprinkler that paints rainbows and a series of fountains with added furniture.

Photographs are by Quentin Chevrier at DigitalArti Artlab.

Here’s some more information about the project:

Water Light Graffiti is a surface made of thousands of LEDs illuminated by the contact of water. You can use a paintbrush, a water atomizer, your fingers or anything damp to sketch a brightness message or just to draw.

Water Light Graffiti is a wall for ephemeral messages in the urban space without deterioration. A wall to communicate and share magically in the city. For a few weeks, Antonin Fourneau has been working in residence at Digitalarti Artlab on the Water Light Graffiti project.

After several tries, prototypes and material improvements, Water Light Graffiti was finally ready to take place for a few days in a public space, which happened to be Poitiers. From July 22nd to 24th, Poitiers inhabitants could discover and try Water Light Graffiti with the artist, the Digitalarti Artlab team and Painthouse, a graffiti collective, invited for demonstrations.

Water Light Graffiti is a project by Antonin Fourneau.
Engineer: Jordan McRae
Design Structure: Guillaume Stagnaro
Graffiti performance: Collectif Painthouse
Assistant team: Clement Ducerf and all the ArtLab volunteers
ArtLab Manager: Jason Cook
Filming: Sarah Taurinya & Quentin Chevrier
Photographs: Quentin Chevrier
Music: Jankenpopp
Editing and titles: Formidable Studio and Maïa Bompoutou
Support: Ville de Poitiers and Centre Culturel Saint Exupéry

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