Hasta La Ideas

A grassroots art campaign takes an exhibit of hidden America on the road

In an effort to highlight artists from five U.S. cities not typically considered artistic hotbeds, the People’s Biennial features the work of 36 artists from Portland, OR; Rapid City, SD; Winston-Salem, NC; Scottsdale, AZ and Haverford, PA. Presented by non-profit organization Independent Curators International and curated by Harrell Fletcher (of Learning to Love You More fame) and Jens Hoffmann, the traveling exhibition unites overlooked and undiscovered artists alike for a realistic portrait of creativity in America.

The grassroots art campaign features an array of works spanning photographic documentation of military life in the heartland, video installations of biological activity in urban ecosystems to complex marble-like statues created out of soap bars. Artists were selected through the democratic process of open-calls and events during the past year, where the curators hand-selected the body of work currently on display.

The exhibit will travel through each of the five communities, stopping first in Portland, OR where it will reside at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art until 17 Oct 2010. From there, the exhibit will continue to travel around the U.S. through 2 March 2012.

For more information including the exhibition schedule, visit the People’s Biennial website.

viae-flux

The next floating, more efficient step in wind turbine technology

by Gregory Stefano

Wind energy in itself isn’t a novel concept, but the MARS Turbine (Maggen Air Rotor System) puts a new spin on conventional wind turbines with its Goodyear Blimp otherworldliness and innovative operating system.

Designer Fred Ferguson created MARS as an energy source in remote areas—like scientific expeditions to the Arctic—that need consistent power but lack resources to build a 200-foot tall wind turbine. Essentially a blimp covered in fins, Ferguson’s turbine flies 1,000 feet high, connecting to the ground with a tether that doubles as an energy conductor.

Like conventional wind turbines, MARS uses magnetic induction to produce energy, but the difference comes with increased altitude. Catching wind 800 feet higher than its traditional counterparts, there’s much less resistance and greater wind speed, ultimately allowing the MARS access to a superior crop of wind. Another advantage, the turbine can produce energy in winds as low as seven mph and as high as 63 mph whereas contemporary turbines shut down around 35 mph and with little or no wind, they become useless.

This innovative solution solves a lot of the existing problems with mining wind energy, avoiding the hazardous carbon footprint standard turbines leave behind when built initially, producing more energy and universally being more versatile. The MARS Turbine will be commercially available early 2011, and they are also currently working on a backpack-sized version for charging your iPad on your next Yosemite backcountry adventure.

via Stuff You Should Know

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pAmy Ricketts from a href=”http://moregood.co.uk/Amy/D–I-Y/”MoreGood/a, a design collaboration based in London, has recently launched a free open source graphic design ‘service’ called a href=”http://www.moregood.co.uk/diy/”D-I Y/a that allows users to generate unique design solutions for anything that can be printed onto an A4 sheet./p

pBased on a number of randomly selected stylesheets; the D-I Y design process asks the user to enter their information (none of which is stored by the service) and experiment with layout and typography with the aid of a background grid. A random image is sourced from Flickr and each print out has a unique number acting as an edition serial number./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/moregoods_opensource_d-i_y_unique_poster_service_17502.asp”(more…)/a
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pFirst day at the Valencia Design Week 2010 today. First on the list was “Uniendo Puntos”mdash;meaning “Connecting the Dots”mdash;an exhibition intended to showcase craft and design talent from across the Spanish speaking world, with contributors from Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and El Salvador./p

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pThe exhibition, curated by local designera href=”http://www.luiseslava.com/” Luis Eslava/a, will be on show at the Sala Estudio General. La Nau, Valencia until October 24th./p

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p”Marks”mdash;stickers for the ultra-anal by Ivan Exposito./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/events/valencia_design_week_2010_connecting_the_dots_exhibition_17500.asp”(more…)/a
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