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High-Speed Horizons is another of my favourite works exhibited at the graduation show of the Royal College of Art earlier this month.
In this project, Design Interactions graduate Tim Clark plays with the language and history of aviation, offering us a trip into critical and speculative visions of alternative energies.
Aviation, says the designer, has always been viewed as a test bed for radical new ideas and visions to reshape culture, politics and economics on Earth and far beyond it. Some of these dreams of alternative futures became reality and even transformed other areas of life (especially in military or space exploration contexts), while others were aborted because of political, economic or environmental pressures.
Tim Clark tapped into this fascination for unrestricted innovation to design a series of airplanes that investigate the possibility to ditch environmentally damaging fossil fuels in favour of sonic booms and nuclear power.
The most experimental and speculative aircraft research is often classified. An example of this is the American X-Plane. Started after WW2 and still in operation today, the program conceived a series of experimental planes and helicopters and used them to test new technologies and aerodynamic concepts.
The first of American X-Plane model, the Bell X-1, was the first aircraft to break the sound barrier in level flight in 1947. This breakthrough opened up a new field of supersonic research and led to experimentation in aerodynamics and new propulsive systems.
Supersonic speed travel is accompanied by an explosive 'bang' sound called sonic boom. These sonic booms also generate enormous amounts of energy. In theory they could thus power planes with an efficient, green and sustainable energy source.
But sonic booms are one of the main reasons why supersonic airplanes never became more commonplace. In several countries, the law prevents aircrafts from flying above Mach 1 due to the shock wave's auditory and vibrational disturbance.
Limiting the impact of sonic booms is a current concern of the aviation industry as many are dreaming of a new supersonic age. But if it is to be more successful than the last one (the Concorde required high quantities of fuel), a supersonic plane would need an energy source free from the influence of global affairs, politics and planet scarring infrastructure. Something that we can quickly produce and have complete control over -- like sonic booms.
The X-1SB, aka the "Sonic Sundae", is Clark's counterhistorical research aircraft designed to test the feasibility of this sonic boom propulsion. Its cone shape design is the combination of a .50 caliber bullet (an object know to be stable while breaching the sound barrier) just like the design of its predecessor the X-1 aircraft, and the shape of the shock wave created by an object traveling faster than sound.
The front of the aircraft features a housing for an interchangeable triangular spike used to test how different shapes could create potentially optimized shock waves to use for propulsion.
And because Clark's work is counter historical, Sonic Sundae and Boomjet (more about that one below) were to have existed before any of the anti-noise laws were to have been instituted.
He told me: I am suggesting that in a sonic boom powered world those laws would not exist because the ability to travel with that type of greener propulsion would probably be more beneficially economically than instituting the flight restrictions. In this case the benefit of the disturbance would outweigh the desire to limit the noise.
Anyway if we were to live in true supersonic age these restrictions would need to be changed/relaxed anyway sonic booms or not. The big research in limiting the sonic boom now is finding a way to make a wing design that will create little to no noise when it breaks the sound barrier so it does not disturb people below the plane. Amazingly this question was answered over a decade (1935) before we even broke the sound barrier (1947) by Adolf Busemann who suggested a supersonic biplane design where the two wings would be used to cancel the other wave out.
It's crazy to think a supersonic jet would resemble a biplane from the 1920s but it would probably be the best solution and it was theorized way before it ever would be seen as a problem which is amazing. MIT just did some research into it in the last year or so and it would totally work and might be quite viable.
Because of its large rear circumference, the X-1SB cannot fit under the fuselage or wing of a larger aircraft for taxiing and takeoff. The B-29 Duo "Double Mama" has thus been designed to be its carrier aircraft of choice.
Another of Clark's designs, the Boomjet is a sonic boom-powered commercial transport that sustains its flight by driving 47 propellers from the pressure energy released by the aircraft as it travels faster than the speed of sound. The sonic boom transport vehicle stores excess energy for use during takeoff which can be vertically or from water depending on location.
Clarks then looked at another source of energy that could disentangle aviation from its dangerous relationship with fossil fuels: nuclear energy.
During the cold war both the USSR and the USA had an experimental nuclear aircraft program. While the risk was high, nuclear power promised an aircraft with theoretically unlimited range capable of constant flight.
Only two known nuclear aircraft that have been fully built and tested. The NB-36H was America's nuclear-powered aircraft. Refitted for this new propulsion system after it was damaged in a storm and deemed unfit for combat, the aircraft featured a direct phone line to the President of the United States that was to only be used in the event of an incident. The NB-36H completed 47 test flights between 1955 and 1957 over New Mexico and Texas. It was scrapped in 1958 when the Nuclear Aircraft Program was abandoned.
The Soviet Union's aircraft, the Tu-95L, was based on the Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bomber and missile platform. First flown in 1952, the plane is still in operation today and Russia sometimes flies it in close proximity of the airspace of other European countries in order to affirm its military presence.
The nuclear variant of the TU-95 flew from 1961 to 1965.
Both the USA and the Soviet Union had ambitious plans for their second nuclear-powered aircraft but due to environmental concerns, political pressures, and rumors that the other side called off their research both projects were shelved.
While the risk of a nuclear accident is deemed too high in aviation, we have nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, submarines and 11% of all the world's electricity being based on nuclear power.
Clark proposes to update to our times a technology that looked promising at the height of the Cold War. And the ones willing to bankroll the experiment might not be countries but technology companies which are already at the forefront of some ambitious innovative projects (Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic for example.) Because these tech companies are increasingly under governmental scrutiny so that they don't get out of control, they might also take to the sky to further innovation free from the restriction of regulation, utilizing the energy source historically clouded by politics to sustain continuous flight and prove that anything is indeed possible through innovation. An inspiration for the idea is Blueseed. This "start-up community on a ship" proposes to gather hundreds of immigrant entrepreneurs on a floating startup city in international waters off the coast of San Francisco and have them live and work undisturbed by the burden of national boundaries and government regulations.
Clark's mini Silicon Valley on air is called Air Laissez-Faire. A nuclear power plant on board of this self-piloting aircraft would provide virtually limitless amounts of continuous propulsion, while a crew made of nuclear physicist, chemical engineer, radiation consultant, and other figures would ensure safety on board. The mega plane presents satellite and radar communication equipment for remote business meetings, all necessary business facilities as well as a landing space on its rear wings that allow small 'commuter aircrafts' to whisk entrepreneurs from and back to major business centers.
Third (and last) project from the graduation show of The interactive Architecture Lab, a Bartlett School of Architecture research group and Masters Programme headed by Ruairi Glynn, Christopher Leung and William Bondin...
With CRAF, Eizo Ishikawa and Tamon Sawangdee looked at how machines can be deployed to organize spectacles and engage people into performances and new forms of social protests. CRAF turns into paper planes messages of protests that people exchange on social media. Comments and reactions sent to @aerocraf are printed on paper, folded into little projectiles and thrown over passersby by a 6 meter high paper plane-folding machine.
Quick discussion with Tamon Sawangdee:
Hi Tamon! Why did you call the work CRAF? Is it an acronym?
CRAF has many meanings for our project. It came from our first paper plane folding machine project, which was called "AEROCRAFT". We chose the word "CRAFT" to signify its folding activity and transportation ability. After we have been working on our project for a while, we develop ourselves and our machines into an agency that is called CRAF. Having our ideas rooted from people protesting and looking for ways to express their ideas or feelings, we created CRAF to be the agent that works with people and can act for them. It is an acronym from Cultural Restoration and Acting Facilities.
You tested CRAF on Gordon Square. Can you tell us about the experience? How did people react?
The experience from testing CRAF in Gordon Square was really amazing. We have been working on it for a long time and it was the first time that we got to see it fully equipped and elevated up to 6 metres in the park. The weather was nice and sunny on that day so we got a lot of audience from the people who came in to have lunch, as well as, the ones who were just passing by. Some would come to talk to us about how it worked and what it was, while, most of the people sat around and waited to see the performance. One of the noticeable reaction that we got was the group of people who sat down and asked each other "What is that?" pointing to our machine. People were talking about our project and they were surprised about it being in the center of what was usually very quiet park. We were satisfied about the test in Gordon Square because a lot people showed a lot of interest. It was nice to see people enjoying what we were doing.
Is there any reason why you selected the colours red white and blue for the ribbons hanging from the machine?
Our theme for CRAF was #FLYFORPEACE, it is a civilian service. Our concerns, are about the political, socio-economical and cultural sustainability aspect of the community. We chose the colour red, white and blue for our prototype because we wanted to give it an appearance of stability, freedom, with a touch of revolution and justice. We wanted our machine to be amicable but not too whimsical, though, at the same time representing the topics of the conversations that we were trying to create. At that time, our machine was representing the Scottish Independence Referendum, if our machine was to perform to represent another message, the colours of the ribbons could change to match that theme.
How does it work? How does the paper get fold into airplanes?
If you tweet to the machines twitter account @aerocraf. The printer would print the message onto the paper plane. When the paper comes out of the printer, it gets fed into the paper plane folding machine, that's when the folding starts to happen. There are 3 steps of folding. The paper travels through the machine by the use of rollers controlled by motors, chains and sprockets. The machine folds the paper in to a plane by folding the tip of the paper plane first, and then the side wings, the centre of the plane gets fold half until it comes out of the machine. Then, it is ready to launch!
And does the machine send the planes in random directions?
The machine can rotate 180 degrees. The rotational movement can vary depending on the site and installation strategies. The print outs and the instructions of how to use the machine comes out in random directions when there are many people. We want the paper planes to be received by the citizens, so, ideally it would have a behavior that looks for people and decide its projectile direction.
What was the biggest challenge you encountered while developing the work?
One of the biggest challenge while developing the work was how to get people to realise that the paper planes that we were flying was containing a message. In order for our project to work smoothly, we needed to get people from the public to work with us. We had a lot of trouble trying to get people to behave accordingly to how we expected, which was to pick up our papers and investigate them and respond our paper planes. Different people in different places would react differently, we had to do many experiments to find our way of delivering the paper airplanes, its flying ability, and what it looks like and how the messages communicate to the people. We also had to design our installation strategy and opening performance to grab the interest from the crowd.
The text of the catalogue says "CRAF can be a network of communication platforms along the city by having machine carriers traveling along the existing bike routes of London." Could you explain how that would work?
CRAF was created to be a communication platform that was initially inspired from the contemporary social crisis and the expressions of dissent happening around our world. We wanted it to be able to serve as a novel communication tactic that people can use to express themselves freely about their ideologies or simply talk to each other via the aid of social media in the hope that it would create a stronger and more culturally sustainable community.
When we were developing CRAF, we were looking for strategies to disseminate our messages and get people involved with the performances. We studied street performances and theatrical machines. We got inspired by how they were able to attract or engage people into live events. Because of that, the idea of using bicycles as a mode for transporting our machines came to our minds -- however, we were not limited to just bicycles but tend to see CRAF working rather more of something like a vehicle or a machine integrated within a vehicle. Our machines were designed to be able to travel around and interact with people or get people to interact with each other along its path. In that sense, we think that CRAF can be developed into a system of multiple machines that can be moved or carried around the city.
Making use of social media and the rapid spread of its content via the internet and social networks, we wanted CRAF to become an agency that can be installed into different nodes like the public spaces of London. The communication network coming out from CRAF is imagined to work similar to that of online social network from social media. Instead of only having people interacting in the online space, we wanted to bring people from the online communities out to enjoy the physical environment. When CRAF physicalised online messages into public space, we can have a real human to human interaction. In a way, CRAF is meant to encourage physical social networks happening from the systems machines traveling and sending out messages around its routes.
What is next for CRAF? Are you planning other performances?
At the moment we haven't been planning any performances.
Eizo is back in Japan and I am now in Thailand. We are both doing different things.
Thanks Tamon!
Also from the same Bartlett course: The Eye Catcher and Furl: Soft Pneumatic Pavilion.
Furl: Soft Pneumatic Pavilion is another* project i discovered at the graduation show of The interactive Architecture Lab, a Bartlett School of Architecture research group and Masters Programme headed by Ruairi Glynn, Christopher Leung and William Bondin.
Bijing Zhang and Francois Mangion explored the field of soft robotics and its future applications to create an adaptive architecture that responds to the human body:
"Furl" combines Electroencephalography (EEG) with advances in soft silicone casting of "air muscles". The introduction of soft robotics replaces the mechanical principles in interactive architecture through a biological paradigm. EEG allows sensing of human brain functioning so that our environments begin moving and responding to our very thoughts. The designed components have a wide palette of deformation patterns of inflation. Through combination of soft and hard architectural elements, "Furl" creates a new platform for a kinetic responsive architecture which can let space interact with users needs and adapt itself to environmental conditions.
Quick conversation with one of the creators of Furl:
Hi François! I hope I'm not going to shock you but I find that Furl is very fascinating but also a bit repulsive. It's a bit of an upsetting creature. It's mechanical but it also looks like it has some flesh that moves and 'lives' and that makes me uncomfortable. So why didn't you decide to make a cute little soft robot?
It is not a shock at all, in the Interactive Architecture Lab, people often attach some kind of a distinct behavioural character to their work and Furl is no exception. We always thought about Furl as a curious 'creature' of polarities, soft responsive moving components in contrast with the stiff sharp structure.
The description text in the catalogue mentions applications of soft robotics in architecture. Where do you see these applications happening? What would a 'soft responsive architecture' be able to do for us?
There's a lot of interest in robotics in Architecture right now. Mostly in fabrication but increasingly thinking about how buildings and space as whole can be kinetic in their response to inhabitation. The problem is that robotics and mechanisms are typically rigid, sometimes dangerous, and generally incompatible with close proximate behavior to people. Soft robotics creates a new platform for architecture, to interact much more sensitively and directly to the human body. These physical properties of soft materials offer a potential to create 'soft' architectural structures or components which can shift shape, rotate, bend unlike anything we've seen in architecture to date. It might be sometime before such techniques are commonplace but we think it opens up new horizons in biologically inspired architecture, an interdisciplinary approach that could potentially lead to a revolution towards a 'soft responsive architecture'.
Could you briefly tell us how the soft part works? In particular, what makes it inflate?
The soft responsive components forming Furl are "air muscles". Made of two layers of silicone with different degrees of elasticity and with air channels cast within them. This difference in mechanical properties and the arrangement of the air channels makes the muscle transform in different ways. You can essentially programme the behaviour of the air muscles by varying moulds for casting the soft material so that it can produce different 'gestures' based on geometries (such as thickness, ratio, depiction) of the solid part the air muscles and air channels. A lot of material experimentation was lead by Bijing Zhang based on work by previous members of IAL including Ben Haworth and Rom Khampanya.
Can you explain me the part about Electroencephalography: "EEG allows sensing of human brain functioning so that our environments begin moving and responding to our very thoughts." How does it work? What can EEG sense exactly? And how does Furl respond?
Our approach to brain sensing was developed in collaboration with DSI (Data Science Institute) at the Imperial College. Using their brain sensors we were able to get raw data about levels of alpha (α), beta (β), delta (δ), and theta (Θ) brain waves. The EEG signal is closely related to the level of concentration of the person. As the activity increases, the EEG shifts to higher dominating type of brain wave frequency and lower amplitude. If people concentrated it alters the theta brain waves frequency and this would active the muscles to inflate. This was actually quite a simple response to what is actually much more powerful data that harnessed with pattern recognition and learning algorithms could spell the end of needing to touch or speak to devices or environments to control them.
Since we're exploring the softness of material, we felt that brain sensing in some way, was the equivalent in soft control. Even more powerful to simple control would be buildings able to take the data and predict and anticipate our needs even before we do. Its an exciting and equally terrifying area of research we're starting to explore and this was just a prototype of that idea.
What was the biggest challenge(s) you encountered while developing the work?
The biggest challenge we had to deal with was to acquire the knowledge of the material's physical properties and develop full understanding of the change in the dynamic behaviour of the air muscles with respect to the specific internal air channels. Through a series of design and fabricated tests we were continuously exploring the capability of mimicking a more natural behaviour and interaction.
Are you planning to push this research into soft robotics any further?
Yes, definitely there are still a lot of challenges we have to deal with and the scaling up to architectural scale at this stage is something that we have to explore. On the other hand we also want to investigate the possibility of prototyping a one functional component with embedded hard materials for structural, interactive and dynamic capabilities. We also look forward in developing further the brain sensor control aiming towards full-scale soft responsive architecture.
Thanks François!
* see also The Eye Catcher.
Previous works referenced in this project: Slow Furl and HygroSkin-Meteorosensitive Pavilion.
A few weeks ago, i went to the graduation show of the Interactive Architecture Studio - Research Cluster 3 at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL. The unit, headed by Ruairi Glynn and Ollie Palmer, focuses on kinetic and interactive design looking at the latest robotics, material and responsive systems while at the same time borrowing from a long history of performative machines and performing arts. As you can guess, i was quite enthusiastic about many of the works developed over this one-year postgraduate course.
One of the most interesting for me was William Bondin's research project which explores the gap between digital simulation and physical prototyping in the performance of dynamic architectural systems.
Bondin's proposal involves a colony of self autonomous creature-like structures, called Morphs, which very slowly navigate public parks. Their moves are not just dictated by a set of pre-programmed rules, they also rely on their physical and social environment.
Morphs exist and wander freely as individual nuclei but they can also join together and adopt certain geometries according to their needs and circumstances.
This is still very much a work in progress but a very promising one.
Simulations for tetrahedron and octahedron nuclei were carried out. In addition, one tetrahedron nucleus was fabricated as a proof of concept in order to understand the limitations of the technology employed.
Video documenting the whole research:
The morph performing one step:
I contacted the young architect for a quick interview:
Hi William! If i understood correctly, your self autonomous creature-like structures are inspired by a species of brainless slime mould. Can you tell us what you found interesting about that type of slime and how this translated into the Morphs?
The interesting thing about slime mould, in particular Physarum polycephalum, is that its cognitive processes occurs within its environment rather than a centralised brain. It is an example of an organism which has developed a clever way of exploiting its surroundings in order to perform navigational tasks and memory-related processes. For instance, when foraging for food it deposits slime in areas which have already been explored, and then avoids the same slime so that it will not re-explore the same area twice. This simple feedback technique inspired me to develop a form of mobile architecture which, analogously to slime mould, deposits digital data into its environment in order to off load its computational processes such as path finding and spatial memory. In fact, Morphs are very low-level creatures in terms of computational abilities and their complex trajectories are a result of the complex environments in which they are placed.
Could you describe the behaviour of the Morphs?
Morphs, which stands for MObile Reconfigurable PolyHedra, have a behaviour which is dictated by the sites in which they are located and their physical morphology. They are attracted to areas with high pedestrian traffic which ensures a higher probability of engagement with the public, and they stay clear of vehicular roads due to their very slow movements. Therefore, characteristics which are embodied within a site become highly influential to their "desired" locations. Similarly, their physical composition dictates the way they perceive their environment and consequently the way they behave. For example, due to their solar powered circuitry, they avoid shaded areas and do not travel during night time or overcast weather. They are also terrified of water and do not operate in wet conditions, in order to protect their electronics. These are their basic low-level behaviours which, similarly to our primary instincts, ensure their own protection and survival in complex environments. Therefore as an end result, you have these creatures which are very playful and gather in areas where people are likely to meet, but they get scared easily and become very introvert when threatened.
Because Morphs move so fluidly and elegantly, i couldn't help but think of Strandbeests. But they have nothing to do with Theo Jansen's creatures, right?
I really enjoy Jansen's work and appreciate it in its context; as beautiful objects which occupy and travel across landscapes. However, as an architect, I'm not only interested in the spaces which man-made creatures inhabit but also in the spaces which they create. Morphs have the ability of joining together into complex formations to create spaces which can be occupied by people, and respond to these temporal inhabitants. Additionally, Theo Jansen's creatures are automatons which are unaware of their surroundings and the people within their "personal space". Morphs, on the other hand, are responsive spatial structures which communicate between them and their users in order to perform collective tasks. If you threaten one Morph you might send a whole community into hiding, while if one of them enjoys learning a new dance routine it might teach it to others and perform it in groups.
The Morphs move super super slowly. Can't you make them move faster? Why?
All buildings move. They do so over a very prolonged timescale, and it can take centuries for a building to move a couple of millimetres. So if we had to speculate on how buildings view time, because after-all Morphs are architectural creatures, we have to acknowledge the fact that architecture operates on a very different timescale than its users. Morphs operate on a mediated timescale, because although we perceive them as very slow movers they are lightning fast compared to their 'static' counterparts. In terms of time, they exist somewhere in between. This also gives us practical benefits, such as very low power consumption and risk mitigation.
The "Morphs rely on environmental cues and human participation in order to attain purposeful behaviour." Which kind of environmental cues and human participation are you talking about?
Morphs continuously assess light intensity and water presence in order to take informed decisions about their next steps. This ensures that they will not get trapped in ponds or under trees, and helps them to locate themselves in sunny and dry areas. However, Morphs are not completely self autonomous.
There are four classes, or sub-species, of Morphs and each of them has different purposes and degrees of control. The music-enabled units, which are finished in bright orange, are very slow and rarely change their location. They allow musicians to play music within their enclosure, and transmit the sounds they pick up via wi-fi, as a sort of a free-for-all radio station. The purple ones, which relate to dance, are very fast movers and they respond to push-pull action by their choreographers. They are able to store unique geometries in sequence and play them back when instructed to. The architectural ones, identified by their blue colour, are very slow movers but they can carry a significant amount of load. They are ideal for assembling large configurations and can be attached to different coloured units to create complex spaces. An additional class of these polyhedrons is also envisioned to cater for open-source development, whereby users can design and build bespoke components which can be plugged into existing units.
Do the machines learn in the course of their 'life'?
It is envisioned that over time these machines start to learn about their environment, participants and even themselves. This will give them the ability to take better informed decisions about their future actions. For example, if a tetrahedron breaks one of its edges it will then have to learn a new way how to roll over without using that side. In addition, it might ask for collective help from its peers to help it travel or become permanently bonded to another Morph for successful locomotion. Another suggested form of learning is the ability to predict participants' preference and behaviour. This will ensure that the right amount of units are present at the right location when needed.
However, in practice machine learning is a very complex area of research. So far we have been exploring this field in simulation, with limited degrees of success. The intention is to collaborate with robotics engineers and computer scientists in order to actualise these processes into the next generation prototypes.
Do you see applications for the Morphs? In architecture, robotics or other areas?
Morphs started out as a research project into adaptive behavioural architecture. Over the course of a year, it has developed into a semi-speculative project which brings together robotics, computer science, public art, landscape architecture and urban design.
What is next for the Morphs?
Morphs are planned to be unleashed by the end of 2015 as an autonomous but sociable reconfigurable architecture. Prototyping of a tetrahedron nucleus started in March 2013 and has resulted in one functional unit. Current research involves the programming of these nuclei, development of their digital communication and the simulation of their social behaviour. The next fully mobile, untethered, Morph is aimed to be completed by the end of 2013 before larger assembles are explored through 2014.
Thanks William!
Elastic Reality is an exhibition about the internet, about its ubiquity and ability to permeate physical space, it's about the way permanent connectedness has added layers and complexity to the notion of 'reality'. Elastic Reality is not just reality, nor is it simply virtual reality or augmented reality, it is an expanding, ever-morphing reality.
This ever more complex environment blends the virtual and the real, the dataflow with the landscape. Whereas new terms are regularly coined to describe this state of things, none truly encapsulate the multi layered realm we inhabit. Hence, comes the notion of elastic reality, which was inspired by the works on display in this exhibition. The participating artists not only play with these distortions of the "real", but also pioneer new ways to interact with their work. The formal exploration of new interfaces is as much part of their preoccupation, as is the content of their work, and the kind of commentary on the current state of reality we live in.
Elastic Reality was co-produced with Le Fresnoy, Studio des Arts Contemporains, a post-graduate art school and audio-visual research and production centre, where young artists are invited to produce new work under the mentorship of guest artist-professors. The exhibition is a selection of the works produced in the course of last academic year (ending in June 2012.)
Some of the works are openly political, others are of the 'move around and interact' kind, some invite to introspection, others are made to dazzle. There were good surprises (notably Tarnac, Chaos and Grace.) and a few fresh ideas but I must say that half of the description texts drove me CRA-ZY. Do french-speaking people really have to write in such a convoluted way? Does being arcane equal being smart?
Anyway, here's a couple of works i found particularly interesting:
The Tempo Scaduto game is set in the Palermo of the 1980s, when magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino began a campaign of arrests, trials and convictions of members of the Cosa Nostra.
The Mafia's retaliation was brutal. Bombings, murders, attacks on touristic spots and other demonstrations of violence. Vincent Ciciliato grew up against that background and the game he has developed unfolds in six different locations in Palermo, some of which are the stage of a murder. Players have to re-enact the murders and fire at moving targets inspired by real murders but they don't actually know if the person is an innocent passerby or the specific person who has to be eliminated. The identity of the victim is revealed only after they have been shot (to kill people, players have to do the well-known gesture of holding a handgun up and then aiming and firing with the finger.) The executor becomes the witness when the shot is followed by a series of archives documents that reveal the murder that took place at that exact spot some 30 years ago.
Zahra Poonawala's Tutti installation made me think of Futurist composer Luigi Russolo's magnificent Intonarumori but the reference was actually the acousmonium or loudspeaker orchestra, a set of 80 loudspeakers of various sizes and shapes designed by Francois Bayle for tape playback.
Tutti invites visitors to a dynamic experience of listening by walking around the components of the orchestra. The characters each have their own volume, register and a different personality. In front of this background the soloists stand out, isolated loudspeakers that are mobile because they react to the movement of the spectator who is incited to move to make them react. The different layers of sound intensify this spatial organisation. From a fundamentally complex chord which forms a base, the reaction to the spectators' movements determines the changes of intensity, ignites solos which stand out from the sound mass.
Ryoichi Kurokawa was one of the mentors of the students at Le Fresnoy in 2012 and as such, he was invited to develop his own work during his stay in Northern France. As can be expected from the über-talented artist, the result is jaw-dropping.
Dead End is a charismatic metallic sculpture inspired by abandoned industrial monuments and futurist constructions, the start of fantastic progress of the edification of a modernist mirage; hybrid architecture striving to rise up but also to deconstruct, to gradually deteriorate.
"The void of distance is nowhere else."
Véronique Béland's installation attempts to listen to radio waves that civilizations living on other planets might broadcast. This is exactly what the SETI program has been doing with very little success since the beginning of the 1960s as part of its mission to find intelligent extraterrestrial life.
The young artist, however, proposes to capture «non intelligent» radio broadcasts and process it through an automatic generator of random texts. The data is captured by radio-telescopes from the Paris Observatory, the algorithm turns it into a text and a synthesized voice articulates it in the exhibition space in real time.
More descriptions, details and essays in the press kit.
Previously: Tarnac, Chaos and Grace.
Elastic Reality. Beyond the Exhibition: New Interfaces for Contemporary Art in Europe was curated by Benjamin Weil. The exhibition remains open at LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial (Art and Industrial Creation Centre) in Gijón, Spain, until 8 September 2013.
If i were a man i'd want to be either Idris Elba or Garnet Hertz. You know Elba, he was gangster Stringer Bell in The Wire and a detective in Luther. Now Garnet Hertz is neither of that (to my knowledge) but he's the guy everybody wants to talk to at media art, tech or design conferences because his works play with several levels of engagement: from instant entertainment to deep reflection on DIY culture, design processes and technological progress. Hertz makes robots controlled by cockroaches, video game systems that you can literally drive around, he gives talks about Zombie Media and has just crafted a magazine about critical technical practice and critically-engaged maker culture that puts us all (us being media people) to shame.
And now for a more rigorous bio of the artist:
Doctor Garnet Hertz is a Fulbright Scholar and contemporary artist whose work explores themes of technological progress, innovation, do-it-yourself culture and interdisciplinarity. His work often involves building real-world technologies that are designed to take his audience into a speculative future gone humorously astray. In the process, Hertz's work inverts the idea that technology needs to be faster, more efficient or higher resolution: innovation is born out of human emotion, historical tradition, and creative obsession.
Hertz is Co-Director of the Values in Design Lab at UC Irvine, is Artist in Residence / Research Scientist in Informatics at UC Irvine and is Faculty in the Media Design Program at Art Center College of Design.
Hi Garnet! I'm very intrigued by Videodome. Can you explain us what the experience of using it will be like? Can the person whose head is inside the big helmet move around? What will he or she perceive and how? And is what they see broadcast in any way to a broader audience?
Videodome is a project that I'm developing that explores different types of virtual reality without the use of a computer. Instead of a computer, I'm using a large number of miniature "spy" videocameras connected to many televisions. At this point, the project has two main physical structures: a helmet-like globe containing the cameras and a two meter diameter geodesic dome covered in televisions. These two components will be configured in different ways -with inner-and-outer facing cameras and screens, for example- to creatively explore the process of mediated sensation, perception and reality.
The initial configuration simulates being inside of someone else's head. To do this, I've constructed a wearable panopticon-style helmet - a clear plastic globe with a diameter of 45cm that has 48 cameras that face inward toward the person's head. Each camera is connected with cables to a flat panel television, and the group of televisions are arranged in a dome with screens facing inward. The screens form a low-tech VR-style cave that show the person's face turned inside-out.
At this point, this project is local and live with no transmission or recording - it's goal is to be analog. If I was going to do recordings of the camera array, it might be fun to try to do it with a mountain of VHS VCRs.
A major theme in my work is the exploration of inefficiencies and intentionally doing things the wrong way, and I have a recurring interest in poking fun at virtual reality. I love graceful kludges, rural folk machinery, and chindogu, and building Videodome is like trying to build a realtime immersive imaging system with parts that don't cost more than $10.
From a technical perspective, the project is a RAID - a redundant array of inexpensive devices - and is easy to reconfigure. It's just a $10 camera, a cable, and an old television multiplied many times. The cameras can be positioned to face outward on the helmet, or the camera cluster can be put on a dog or a tree - or the televisions can be arranged on a floor, in different shapes or on the side of a building. For me, it's a return to the spirit of video installation artists like Dan Graham or Nam June Paik when the format of video still had a sense of technological magic.
When my sons (aged 7 and 9) first played with a typewriter, their perception of it is that it was a very fast computer that instantly printed letters as fast as you typed them. And - if you think about it from the perspective of the time it takes between hitting a keystroke and when the letter is rendered on paper - the typewriter beats a supercomputer every time. In a similar way, an analog video camera is like a streaming video server with zero lag - typewriters, analog video cameras and other devices from media history are still very high performance and interactive devices in their own limited ways. The project is aimed at exploiting the high performance component of an old technology - it's a bit of a novelty at a time where digital cameras are thickly layered in technical infrastructure. You just plug an analog camera and it's instantly streaming video, although your network is only as long as your video cable.
The project is influenced by a few projects, especially Michael Maranda's Sphereorama (1991), Kenji Kawakami's 360' Panorama Camera (1995), and Hyungkoo Lee's Objectuals (2002) - and the idea to use a mountain of cheap cameras initially came from my friend Jason Torchinsky. It's scheduled to premiere in San Jose at an exhibition that Madeline Schwartzman is curating related to her book "See Yourself Sensing". The piece is not in the book, but I'm very happy the project is included in the show - in my opinion her book is the most brilliant contemporary art books I've seen in a long time.
Judging by the reaction the project OutRun received in gaming, gadget, vehicle blogs and magazines, have you ever thought of modifying the work and giving it a commercial existence, making it something that rich kids could buy?
The original car is actually for sale, but it's priced at $100,000 - so it would take a very rich kid to purchase it. I've floated the idea of purchasing the original car to a few obscenely rich people like Jay Leno but as of right now it's still for sale. There was a glimmer of hope when the billionaire owner of Lego, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, drove the original project in Denmark. He clearly had a lot of fun driving the project - and he had the money to pay to replace anything he crashed into - but I don't think he thought I was serious when I proposed to trade him for one of his Ferraris.
I generally don't pursue the monetization or commercialization of my projects - I tend to enjoy focusing on research and the exploratory prototyping phases of technological development. At this point I'm comfortably paid to do my artwork, so I'd rather spend my time focusing on building new projects.
That said, if anybody is interested in the original vehicle or working on porting the concept into a more commercially viable platform, I'm open to ideas.
And more generally, have you ever been tempted to work more closely with the gaming industry or any other industry? Surely they'd welcome creative people like you?
I used to work in the design industry through advertising agencies, film production houses, and by doing product prototyping, and at that time my slogan for much that work was "Making Your Shitty Idea a Reality". There were a few exceptions of situations where you have a blank slate and a blank check that I found enjoyable, but for the most part I've found it uninspiring.
There are significant exceptions to this - I think of Julian Bleecker at Nokia for example - I think there's a lot of room in research positions that might be rewarding. It also may be that most of my experience in industry was in the 1990s when I had a thinner portfolio and CV; maybe there are a lot of places that would be a good fit.
I generally like the quirks of the art world and academia; I usually find my colleagues in these environments to be interesting, intelligent and strange in a fun way. Both of my current appointments - full time at UC Irvine in Informatics and part time at Art Center in Media Design - are great because of the people and the projects they're working on. Paul Dourish, Gillian Hayes, Don Patterson, Geof Bowker, Anne Burdick, Tim Durfee, Ben Hooker, Chris Csikszentmihalyi and everybody else I work with - they're all brilliant and fun to be around. And for now I generally get to do whatever I want, so I can't complain.
You wrote in your statement page: "I believe that industry and academia often draw false distinctions between experts and amateurs, hardware and software, mind and body, and science and creativity, and my goal is to meld these polarities in the projects I develop. Many of our greatest social challenges and technological opportunities now lie in these connection points." How can experts / amateurs connection lead to technological opportunities? Also what can experts learn from amateurs?
I'm interested in leveraging DIY, hackerspace and amateur cultures for a number of reasons. I believe that innovation and breakthroughs happen when individuals go beyond their standard frames of reference and discipline to learn new skills on their own: breakthroughs often require us to become amateurs in a new field, in other words. During the process of learning new things, we often cobble together materials, figure things out informally, and explore things on our own. For this reason, DIY culture and doing things in nonstandard or non-expert ways are useful models for how innovation is done.
I've also seen a significant cultural surge toward DIY electronics, physical computing, and hands-on "making" over the last decade. The turn toward physical making is partly due to people being tired of mass produced consumer Walmart culture - they're tired of having disposable, spiritless and generic junk. DIY electronics is also partially in response against the trend of conceiving information and knowledge as virtual things. Platforms like the Arduino - which started out filling a niche within the physical computing community - has grown to be quite widely implemented in multiple fields of design.
I also think that higher education has become increasingly detached from physical objects. I think that this is a mistake: I believe that innovation and education needs to be engaged with the real world, get dirt under its fingernails, and learn the skill of working hard at problems that are often ambiguous. Universities needs to combine hands-on construction and skill with advanced knowledge and concepts in order to effectively innovate in research - and for workforce development.
If i understood correctly, the hand-made zine on critically-engaged making were printed in only 300 copies and given out for free. i do suspect that far more than 300 people would love to get their hands on it. Most would even be happy to pay for it. The content is brilliant, so is the format. Are you planning to change the distribution model?
Yes - the project is called Critical Making and I the documentation for the project is at http://conceptlab.com/criticalmaking/. There's been an outpouring of interest in expanding this project and there are clearly a lot of people involved in DIY or maker communities that don't fit into the "family-friendly kit-based weekend-project" focus of Make Magazine. The initial idea was to do an actual photocopied zine with a bunch of people I admire and to give it away for free - although this has become a much bigger project with almost 350 pages of content from about 60 contributors. It's nicely grown into a pack of zines, a little like Ginko Press's "McLuhan Unbound" project.
I'm still going to give the 300 copies away for free - and I'm making a special edition for the contributors - but I haven't yet determined what to do after my initial run. I'm currently talking to some different people and presses, and I'm open to ideas.
At this point, I'm not inclined to just slap an open source license on the content and put a PDF of it online. I'd ideally like the project as only available as a photocopied object that somebody hand produced - but I realize that this may not be practical. I'd consider an academic or art press, distributing it through the contributors, or returning to a zine model of people sending cash in an envelope to an address.
There's an interesting push against electronic books happening - instead of the format of physical books dying, there's a fresh crop of bookmaking work that fetishizes the physical page. I wouldn't term it as a "zombification" of books, but a useful opportunity to rethink what physical components of a book are valuable.
For my Critical Making project, if people want copies or are interested in this as a publishing/distribution project, let me know. I'll send you a copy too, Régine - but the contents of this collection of zines is a whole other conversation... we should talk about it after I've shipped them off.
One of my favourite projects on your homepage must be the customized taco (food) truck that would go around communities and give D.I.Y. laboratory for circuit bending. Is it going to happen soon?
This project, with an official title of Repurposing Obsolescence: Teaching DIY Science, Technology and Engineering Practices to Adolescents in Underserved Communities, will design, develop and test Do-It-Yourself (DIY) hands-on workshops to introduce and teach middle school kids in underserved communities technology and design by customizing and repurposing e-waste technology, like old electronic toys. Right now the major outcome of the project will be the creation of a workshop kit that covers the processes of learning DIY electronics for distribution to after school programs and other informal educational venues.
My team has implemented a number of pilot projects over the last three years that demonstrate the ability of hands-on DIY electronics curricula to motivate and encourage students and to enable them to acquire a deeper understanding of core engineering, mathematics and science concepts by introducing creative and artistic use of circuit bending,ì the creative short circuiting of electronic devices that make sound.
I'm interested in extending maker culture into different environments, and I think the approach is useful in getting kids interested in learning about how things work. In this project, I'm particularly interested in reaching out to communities that normally wouldn't have the resources in their schools to explore art or electronics. Sadly, California has a growing list of schools that have slashed art or any items that aren't part of the standardized test structure. Hands-on education - with shop, woodworking and art classes - have been removed from most schools. This is doing an incredible disservice to kids, and it's especially bad in communities that don't have a lot of resources. It's not teaching people how to think, be creative or holistic problem solving - it's teaching people how to memorize things to get a high score on a test.
I think circuit bending is a great antithesis to a standardized test. It doesn't have one right answer. It uses your hands. It makes noise and can be dangerous. It can be very simple or incredibly complicated. It involves genuine exploration and discovery. In a nutshell, I think it's a better model for how life works than a test on paper, and I think the United States would be a better place and have a more skilled and creative workforce (and more interesting artwork) if more kids were taught things like circuit bending at an early age. The scientific hypothesis of the project is that this approach will lower barriers to experimenting with custom-built electronic instruments and lead to greater participation and success of people pursuing secondary education.
So, my challenge in this project is to develop hands-on workshops, kits and curriculum that work within the educational system of the United States, or at least Southern California. I also want it to work for people with English as a second language, and as a result have translated prototypes of the curriculum into Spanish, Chinese, Korean and French - but within Southern California, Spanish is my main focus.
My vision is to extend this work through the development of a mobile D.I.Y. laboratory to more easily bring our specialized infrastructure to underserved communities. In other words, have a vehicle that acts as a "bookmobile" to bring specialized resources to groups and communities that lack educational infrastructure. The initial idea for this "makermobile" would be to have it in the form of a customized taco (food) truck, a common component of Los Angeles and Orange County culture. This vehicle would transport workshop mentors and specialized tools and would serve as a public platform to disseminate the workshop materials. I've envisioned that the vehicle would need to be really cool - with lowrider hydraulic suspension, nice rims, and a cool paint job - as a form of propaganda to get kids excited.
I've recently got funding to develop the curriculum and hardware component of this project, but I don't yet have funding to buy a vehicle. As it turns out, purchasing a vehicle through a university or research funds is usually problematic - it doesn't fit into the standard categories of research equipment, especially a pimped out lowrider taco truck.
Do you think schools, and education in general, isn't doing enough to make young people 'techno-literate'?
I think kids generally get quite a bit of informal education around technology using computers, mobile phones or iPads at home. What they're missing is the opportunities to open up and learn about the mechanics of what's inside of the black boxes of technology, to go beyond a consumer of the technology. I want kids to move beyond downloading a game off of the Apple App Store - that's not technical literacy, it's just another format of consumption.
You are Co-Director of the Values in Design Lab at UC Irvine with Geof Bowker, Cory Knobel and Judith Gregory. The objective of the lab is to blend "rich social theory with design practice in order to produce information systems and technology imbued with strong social and ethical values." Which kind of works are you developing in the Lab? Do you have some examples of projects that represent particularly well what the students are working on there?
Actually, within the last couple weeks this lab name has changed to "EVOKE" - Emerging Values, Ontologies, and Knowledge Expression - we're working on a number of different things, including a Values in Design workshop for doctoral students.
At this point we're still getting the lab set up, but we're interested in infrastructure, ontologies, values, big data, making, and how knowledge is formed and communicated. It's an intentionally big mix of topics that doesn't neatly fit into the format of something like a TED talk. I see the lab like a research group or design initiative, perhaps like a smaller version of the MIT Media Lab, that work on investigating complex issues, building prototypes and solving problems built on a foundation of serious social theory.
We have a lot of projects going on, including researching new forms of scholarship that move beyond linear texts, design by youth, and work that encompasses biomedical informatics. The first project that we completed at UC Irvine during summer 2012 was a design workshop for doctoral students, titled "Values in Design". Our mission in this project was to train researchers in a broad range of disciplines - including Informatics, Computer Science, Design and Science and Technology Studies - to produce new forms of information systems and technologies which express strong social and ethical values. It ran over the course of a week, and the format was a little bit like Project Runway - with teams designing technology prototypes - and an academic conference with guest speakers lecturing on design-oriented topics. It was a lot of fun.
Within the different projects through EVOKE, I'm primarily interested in making physical prototypes of complex concepts: I'm focused on what art can do to actually extend and add to research and science.
I hope you won't mind if i say this but you're an established artist. You're also teaching and holding academic positions. Could you point us to young, emerging artists whose work we should be paying more attention to? Either students or yours or just people whose work you stumbled upon online or at a Dorkbot meeting?
I have some student work that I'm very proud of, especially my graduate students coming out of Media Design Practices at Art Center. My favorite projects over the last little while are:
- Chiao Wei Ho, Slow Letter (2012). "The design of Slow Letter is based on the concept of Process-based Interaction which focuses on the process instead of the task itself. It is my challenge to the instantaneous interaction of user-centered design. It questions the essentiality of instantaneity and convenience in current digital service. What would the interaction be like when time and space are being elongated? We all have experienced the satisfaction of these digital devices around us, it can take us from point A to point B within no time. However, Slow Letter tends to discover alternative values outside of task-orientated interactions. The project reevaluates the weight of our words in the digital communication by elongates the process between point A to point B. It transforms instantaneity into emotional values and inject unconventional perspectives into the numbed daily routine."
- Alex Braidwood: Noisolation Headphones (2011). You've written about these at http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2011/10/the-noisolation-headphones.php - since you wrote that article an updated video of the project is here:
- Hyun Ju Yang: Measurement of Existence (2010). "This hypothetical device informs your quantum state within innumerable versions of our universe in the quantum state of the universe. The main idea is inspired by an equation, the measurement of existence from the relative quantum mechanics created by physicist, Everett who invented Many-World theory."
Thanks Garnet!


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St Louis ribs are very great!! BBQ beans are also good! Try BBQ baked potato loaded. Haven't tried anything that wasn't good.
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St Louis ribs are very great!! BBQ beans are also good! Try BBQ baked potato loaded. Haven't tried anything that wasn't good.
We've been going to Rib Tickler (when owned by Ted and Sylvia) for over 20 years, and still pick up a stuffed potato, or a chopped beef sandwich, and some Texas Sheet cake, but the brisket is under smoked, and dry. They trim ALL the fat off it, so it may be calorie friendly, but fairly tasteless. I do love... More
St Louis ribs are very great!! BBQ beans are also good! Try BBQ baked potato loaded. Haven't tried anything that wasn't good.
As a former BBQ restauranteur and current tour guide, I've tasted a lot of BBQ and the Rib Tickler is WAY near the top of my list. Quick, DELICIOUS, friendly, clean...it's got it all. From the meats to the desserts, everything is top notch. Ted, the owner, is always so happy to see us, consistently going above and beyond to... More
Ted and his wife have taken the restaurant back over and it has taken us some time to get back to the Rib. Good food is plentiful since he has reopened and got the place back. He was the original owner and he and his family know how to run a restaurant. We also saw someone eating fried catfish filets... More
Always happy people working, great food. Price can't be beat. Much better than other chain joints nearby.
The Rib Tickler has some of the best ribs I have ever tasted.. And the fried shrimp is great too, better than I've had in some seafood restaurants.
I hadn't been to the Rib Tickler in years only because I don't travel that way too often but I was not disappointed going through the drive through to get a rib dinner with baked potato! At my destination I could have eaten it all at once it was sooo good! Great value! And the woman at the window gave... More
My husband gets the barbecue while I get their fish and shrimp, grilled salmon or their fried fish with a delicious queso sauce..
The Rib Tickler's BBQ is excellent and good quality! One of our family's favorites! If someone wants something other than BBQ they also have a great menu with lots of variety to choose from.
You may have heard stories that the original owners were not running the Rib Tickler any more. Yes for a short time they weren't, and it showed. They have been back now for several; years and the food is better than ever. Good thing because I live in Tomball now. They have all the "standard" BBQ items, all of which... More
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About Tulum
Tulum is a quaint town just off the Caribbean coastline. The town has many cool shops, restaurants, and all of the amenities you would expect to find such as a large supermarket and several banks.
The most famous thing about Tulum are the Mayan ruins. You can take a taxi, which has a set tariff to get to places; if you are on your own, it is cheaper to take the collectivo vans that run up and down the road between Playa Del Carmen and Tulum. You can also take these collectivos to places like Akumal, to snorkel with the turtles and sting rays, or to the cenotes around the area. The most popular of the cenotes is Dos Ojos and the Gran Cenote. You can snorkel or dive both of them and there are multiple companies through the town that run tours out to the cenotes for diving and snorkeling.
El Paraiso is one of the most popular beaches within the area and it's postcard perfect. You can hire one of the many bikes from around the town to get there or take a taxi. The beach is absolutely pristine and not to be missed.
Hostels in Tulum are scattered from one end of the main strip to the other and some of them are toward the beach. Do your research on hostels in Tulum, as some are way better deals for your money than others. Some include free bicycles for the day and other offers, which will help keep your costs down during your stay in Tulum.
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Lobo Inn
"If you are looking for a cheap and basic accommodation and would also like a sweet breakfast included and a great location close to the Mayan ruins, you should consider Lobo Inn in Tulum. The Location Lobo Inn is located outside Tulum and very close to the famous Mayan ruins. The town itself is around three kilometers away and can be reached easily with the free bikes of the hostel (the same goes for the beach). The beach is next to...
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Mayan Hostel Tulum
Boca Paila
"Fantastic - In a good location, close to town for shopping and services (about ten minutes' walk). On the main drag to the beach. We walked to the beach each day it takes about forty-five minutes to
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Casa Del Sol Mexico
"Casa Del Sol Mexico has a really cool look to it and a really social vibe, but discomfort with the rooms and the beds is a big letdown. The Location The hostel is at the far end of the village of Tulum from the roads to the ruins and the main beach. The cost of a taxi or collectivo to these locations is the same from anywhere in the Central District. Rooms and Bathrooms There are three dorms here and they smell like mould and...
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Calm Cabins Tulum
"…We are not a big hostel so in low season you may be our only guest No Parking, NO Computers. No A/C We have some cats in this property please consider this if you have some asthma problems We
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Hostal Chalupa
"Overall very happy - We stayed for 3 nights at Hostel Chalupa; the staff were exceptionally helpful and informative. The only suggestion I have is that we were missing a sheet on the bed. We had a sh
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Mama's Home
"Mama's Home is a small hostel close to everything. Its size and the friendliness of the staff create a personal and welcoming environment that would make Mama proud. The Location Two blocks awa
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La Cigana
"Fantastic atmosphere - I stayed a few nights at this hostel in one of the dorm rooms. I liked the circular hut layout of the dorms; they were spacious and not too crammed together like some hostels i
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Casa Del Sol
"Good price and good location - We were there on Christmas and it was full so I guess some of these problems don't happen too often. The cleanliness was average in the kitchen and in the bathrooms. There's only four bathrooms for everyone in the hostel so you may have to queue for the shower. The breakfast starts only at 8h30 (or more) and again you have to wait your turn to eat so it's not very practical if you want to leave early. The staff...
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El Jardin de Frida
"Calm, comfortable hostel. - I liked this hostel because I meet so many nice people here. The workers here are all nice and have helped me with every thing I asked of them. They have a lot of patience
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El Punto
"Hostel / hotel with 10 private rooms and two shared rooms with private bathrooms. Rooms offer: air conditioning safe mini bar We are surrounded by a tropical garden decorated with sculptures from around the world. We provide the traveler with comfort, calm and safety. Please note: Cancellation Policy: 2 days before arrival Check In: please contact us about your arrival time! Method of Payment upon the arrival: Cash...
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El Punto Hostal/hotel
"Hostal/hotel "El Punto" is located in a quiet area off the main highway between the city of Tulum and the beach region. Due to its proximity to the main highway, bus and collective stops are only a s
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Hostel Sheck
"Hostel Sheck is a good place to base yourself for trips to the nearby Tulum ruins and public beaches. It has a social vibe, and a big common area with several hammocks, great for chilling out after spending a day walking around the ruins with a thousand other tourists. The Location The hostel is located just off the main street in the town of Tulum, only about a ten-minute walk from the ADO bus terminal. The Tulum ruins and the public...
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Mango Tulum Hotel
"Amazing place! - This is the best hostal i've ever stayed at. Nice owner, great and helpful staff, beautiful garden, nice pool. 4-bed dorm was clean and comfy. I was here at low season (early october
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TuboTulum Hostel
"What a great stay! - I booked this for the novelty of getting to stay in a tube, but was pleasantly surprised by how nice it was. Each tube has its own A/C unit and power outlets. The screen door and windows had curtains for privacy, but since they were of light material, the breeze and sunlight were still able to get in. Very much a plus in my book. The open breakfast included eggs, toast, cereal, orange juice, and coffee -- again very nice....
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Quintana Roots
"Welcome to Quintana Roots! We are located at the heart of Tulum, on the crossroads to downtown, the beach, historic Mayan ruins & breathtaking cenotes. Everything is within a 10 minute bike ride fro
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Chill Inn Hostel
"… and outdoor areas are great spots to mingle, kick up your feet and chillax. In addition we will treat you to a great breakfast to kick-start your day and free WiFi to stay in touch with your loved ones or just browse. Chill Inn Hostel Policies and Conditions: Check in from 14:00 to 23:00 . Check out before 11:00 . Cancellation policy: 48 hours before arrival. Payment upon arrival by cash. Taxes included. Breakfast included....
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La Gran Mosca Verde Hostal
"…La Gran Mosca Verde Hostal, located in the center of Tulum, 3 blocks from the main street and 4 km from the beach. We provide night surveillance and during the day our staff is ready and absolutely
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Una noche mas en Tulum
"…The hostel is a 4-floor building, located in a quiet neighborhood, very close to the main avenue, where you can find leisure places like restaurants, shops and supermarkets. We are 2 minutes walking
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DayTripper Hostel
"…Cancellation policy: 24 hours before arrival. Payment upon arrival by cash. Taxes included. Breakfast not included. No curfew. Person under 13 years old are not allowed If this consign
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Hostal Tulum Naa
"Hostal Tulum Naa is a basic but fully functional and budget hostel in Tulum. The Location The hostel has a quiet location, off the main street, toward the end of the village in the direction
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Weary Traveler Hostel
"Weary Traveler Hostel is probably the main hub of activity for backpackers in sleepy Tulum and is a great place to meet people. It's friendly, reasonably comfortable, and clean, so it's a solid choice for the area. Sand seekers be warned -- it is a fairly long way from the beach. The Location Weary Traveler is in the somewhat uneventful "town" part of Tulum, about six kilometers from the beach and ruins, with a smattering of places to...
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Campsites & Camping Bungalows
Cenote Encantado-1320
"… are many beautiful places in the sorroundings, we can help you with information about all the places you can visit. Camping village: This is an experimental project we´ve been working on with lot´s of love and patience. What unites us is the willingness and power to share our concept with those that show the same inclination to this way of life.. Our challenges are your challenges and we can take care of this sacred place...
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Turquesa Tulum Jungle Camping
"… in the palmgarden . In Turquesa Tulum you have the option to be very active. We have a Temazcal (Mayan steam bath with typical ritual ) which we heat up weekly and by appointment . You can also get into deep relaxation with a massage . We offer yoga and Pilates as single training or in a group . We also can give you the possibility to attend a cooking class ( max 4.Persons ). Here you get in touch with the Mexican cuisine and when you...
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"… beautiful, comfortable accommodations that operate up to our high environmental standards. Raised on platforms to allow ecological and hydrological processes to continue, the spacious tents come fully furnished. Shared bathrooms are always clean and also have stunning views over water. Our tent platforms, raised above the ground on stilts, enable our guests to enjoy the sea breeze ventilation and stunning views while eliminating impact on...
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Cenote Encantado
"… spirit of our beautiful location. With feminine and moon energies it is our gateway to nature and mysticism. Having the opportunity to swim, snorkel or row your boat in the magical clear water creates an experience of peace, beauty and being. You can contact the spiritual portal of the Cenote with Mother Nature all around, in daytime or at night with the entire universe above. OUR TENTS Many tents are available equipped with beds,...
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El zapote tulum
"…Sista Mayela who is Mexican is the enigmatic and quirky stories chronicler few Zapote Tulum owner, has 20 years in the Caribbean filing, which provides information services on the tourist corridor f
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"…In case of a late cancellation or No Show, you will be charged the first night of your stay. Payment upon arrival by cash. Taxes included. Breakfast not included. No curfew. General:
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Casa Balam
"… after a nice day around our beautiful area. We have a great location as we are at only 7 streets from main avenue. Alos, the city center is reacheable in just only 8 minutes walk. Casa Balam Policies and Conditions: Cancellation policy: 48 hours before arrival. Check in from 13:00 to 21:00. Check out before 11:00. Payment upon arrival by cash. Taxes included. Breakfast not included. General: No curfew. This property...
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Casa los Amigos
"… hot water, A/C, washing machine, full kitchen. 2 Bikes included available. It is equipped with 3 Full bathrooms. 1 downstairs with the living area as well as in each bedroom. The 2 large bedrooms are each private and located on the top level. Each has a full bath, queen size bed, beautiful garden view, and balcony. Downstairs will have a sofa bed to sleep an additional 1/2 people (6 total). Please note: Cancellation Policy:...
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Posada Malix Pek
"… garden with tropical plants. The area is quiet, not very crowded, and at walking distance, a few meters away, you can find all kinds of restaurants, nightlife venues, supermarkets, drugstores, banks, and stores with local crafts. Among other things, the Hostal is also a few steps away from the ADO bus station, from where buses depart every hour to the most famous and interesting spots in the Mayan Riviera, and also to Playa del...
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Posada los Mapaches
"… across from the entrance Tulum Ruins;, if you like the nature contact come.. relax.. and enjoy this beautiful place and all the great locations around.. ...Ruins, beach, cenotes and more.... You will love it! Private rooms up stairs or ground floor with 1 double bed or 2 beds** Garden areas Fans Electricity 24 hrs. Hot water 24 hrs. Shared bathroom Wi-Fi FREE No children or minors 18 years old (maximum full property...
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Secret Garden Tulum
"Absolutely Magnificent - Really lovely little place, an oasis of calm. Stayed here for 2 nights last weekend with my GF. Owners were lovely and the room is well priced and nicely decorated. If you n
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Maison Tulum
"…Our seven spacious rooms and friendly service make our charming hotel one of the best bargains in Tulum. All rooms come equipped with AC, safe, mini-bar, coffee maker, hairdryer, iron and ironing bo
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Hotel Posada Las Tres Palmas
"Las habitaciones son concebidas como departamentos aptos para satisfacer las exigencias de nuestros clientes. Rooms are designed as apartments apt to satisfy the demands of our customers. Todas L
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Palms Tulum Luxury Hotel
"… furthermore each room has: - Master Bedroom with King size bed - Contemporary furnished - Separate lounge area with sofa bed - Dining table for 4 - Private bathroom with premium bidet and walk-in shower - Vanity mirror - Luxurious amenities Lord & Mayfair collection. - Fully equipped kitchenette with 2 door refrigerator, gas cooktop, microwave, coffee maker, blender, toaster, crockery, cutlery, etc. - iPod docking station - Alarm clock...
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Amansala Pueblo
"…The property also offers free parking. that offers free Wi-Fi access and bicycle rentals. Guests will be able to explore the variety of restaurants available at central Tulum, mostly offering typic
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Pacha Tulum
"…Payment upon arrival by cash, credit cards, debit cards.This property may pre-authorise your card before arrival Cancellation policy: 72 h before arrival. At the time of booking, the hotel will
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Hotel Vera Sol
"…Vera sol Hotel Tulum is located a few kilometers from the beaches and major attractions, including the stunning archaeological site of Tulum and the National Park. Hotel Vera Sol Policies and Con
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Tulum Cabañas Xbalamqué
"…a beautiful tropical environment in Tulum. We want to develop our organic vermicompost box, and also create a garden for planting as well, as all of our food is vegetarian. You will be enchant
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Hotel Latino
"… dive shops, bars, etc., book local tours to Chichen Itza, Coba etc, car rentals, and show you the best places to snorkel. The main bus station in tulum called the ADO terminal and is only a short five to ten minute walk to the hotel. We also provide: * Free WiFi in the common areas * Filtered water, Coffee and Herbal teas are available 24/7 * A large fridge for guests use in the coffee area * Bike Rentals available on site for...
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Baby born on the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway
Chantelle Legrand and Gregory Mars, of Jamaica, were on their way to Plainview hospital early Thursday morning. Legrand was in labor when the couple realized they were going the wrong way. The baby who had started coming was delivered by a police officer in an ambulance on the shoulder of the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway. The baby is named Alanai Evelyn and weighed in at 8 lbs and 20 inches. Videojournalist: Chris Ware (March 14, 2013)
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Hydroponics help reduce SBU's carbon footprint LIRR sees delays after person was struck by train Kidsday meets Pharrell Williams West Islip homecoming king and queen competition Fugitive Wuilmer Mendosa caught after 13 years Port Jeff students learn about chainsaw art LI's first Chick-fil-A opens to big crowd Under the helmet: Inside LI football helmets FDR's son's home for sale in Woodbury State Ed. Commissioner: 'What can we do to help?' 3 injured in police patrol car crash Mets GM: 'This was an unbelievable ride'


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Saturday Night Live's 41st season premieres this Saturday with Miley Cyrus holding down joint duties as host and musical guest. (Joint, get it? Because Miley loves weed? Trust me, she'd find it funny.) Although Cyrus has graced the SNL stage before, the next two musical guests, the Weeknd and Demi Lovato, are making their first… More »
Look, we gotta observe protocol over here. Everybody knows that new Pope track is fire, but it dropped too late to be eligible for this week's list. Sorry! We can get into that one next week. This week, though, this is what ya got. More »
The relationship between Future and Drake goes back about four years, to the moment when Drake rapped about passing out Valium and how only older women understand him on the remix of "Tony Montana," Future's breakout solo hit. Over the years, they've toured together and briefly publicly bickered with one another, and they've recorded a… More »


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KidsFall Story Times | Fun at the Gunn | Summer Reading Program | New AWE Computers | Suitcase Adventures | Nooks for Kids | Scholastic BookFlix | Email Notification | Family Passes | Fun Links
Welcome to the Junior Library!For more information on programs, to confirm times or register, please call us at 860-868-2310 or email us. If you're not familiar with offerings in the junior library, check out the tour.
My Account lets you log in to view your library status: books out, due dates, fines, holds, etc.
Fall Story TimesTime to sign up! Please pre-register so we have adequate supplies. Thank you!
- Two's Time Story Hour Friday mornings, 10:30 to 11:15, October 2 to November 20.
Littlest ones and caregivers participate in simple stories, finger play, music, flannel board activities and crafts.
- 3 & 4 Year-Old Book Buddies Friday afternoons, 2:15 to 3:00, October 2 to November 20.
Children and caregivers enjoy lively stories, games, songs and more.
- K & 1st Grade* Tuesdays, 3:30 to 4:15, from October 6 to November 17.
Fun-filled stories, games & crafts designed around seasonal themes, new books, and classic children's literature. Snack provided.
- 2nd & 3rd Graders* Thursdays, 3:30 to 4:15, from October 1 to November 19.
A variety of science topics and activities will be presented by guests from the community! Snack provided.
*Students must provide written permission to WPS to take Bus #9 to the Library. Please pre-register so we can watch and welcome your youngster. The library follows the Region 12 calendar so there will be no after school Story Craft on days WPS is closed or has early dismissal.
Saturday Fun at the GunnThe cooler days of fall signal the beginning of some great indoor activities and fun at Gunn Memorial Junior Library.
- Saturday, October 3 at 1:00 Harvest Time
Fall crafts and activities using seeds and vegetables, vines and husks, pits and acorns. Children can decorate a simple grapevine wreath and make a creation out of different parts of plants and vegetables that are plentiful during the harvest time. Join in the blindfold touch and feel - and veggie tasting!
- Saturday, October 10 at 1:00 Picture Frame Craft & Photo Booth
Decorate a frame with fall decorations for a favorite picture or gift. Get silly in our dress up photo booth for snapshots. Props provided. Parents may bring a camera to capture the fun.
- Saturday, October 17 at 1:00 Rain Forest Adventure
What lives in a rain forest? Explore the environment and creatures through activities and crafts. Make a mini rain forest to take home complete with plastic jungle critters.
- Saturday, October 24, drop in 10:00 to 2:00 Pumpkin Decorating
BRING YOUR OWN PUMPKIN to decorate using paint, stickers, foam shapes, glitter paint and more. Paint and decorating supplies provided. Dress for mess!
- Saturday, October 31 at 1:00 Annual Halloween Costume Party & Parade
The perfect time to dress up the little ones in costume and start the holiday. Our falls right on Halloween. There will be games and crafts, followed by a Trick or Treat Parade through the library. PLEASE REGISTER.
Attention Collectors!Do you have something unique or unusual? Something you collect that you would like to share by showing? Sign up in the Gunn Junior Library to exhibit your collection in one of our display cases.
Summer Reading Program
This year's exciting summer reading program, "Every Hero Has a Story" explored many types of heroes. From the youngest child to the strongest, mightiest crusader, each and every hero has a story to tell. We had fun learning about super powers, super heroes, and our local heroes human and animal. Children were inspired to discover the hero within themselves. The reading program itself encouraged children to keep up their reading skills by participating in our incentive program. They earned prizes, as well as chances to win some wonderful items donated by local businesses, simply by keeping track of time spent reading or being read to. Children received a book bag filled with goodies and a reading log. The program ended on Saturday, August 15th with raffle drawings, prizes. an ice cream socail and BINGO!
Congratulations to all our heroic readers!!!
AWE-some Computer Stations!Librarians from the Northwest Corner recently gathered at the Junior Library for a first-hand experience with an early childhood digital learning solution called the Early Literacy Station. Manufactured by AWE, the Early Literacy Station is a touch-screen computer designed specifically for children ages 2 through 8, featuring more than 70 educational software programs spanning seven curricular areas. Because it does not require an Internet connection, it is a safe and secure educational computer solution for children in the library.
The colorful keyboard and engaging graphics entice young patrons to try the machines. Children are frequently found working at the stations in pairs, which fosters collaborative and interactive learning opportunities. Parents and caregivers also enjoy sitting with very young children as they begin to develop early computer skills through experimental play.
The Gunn Junior Library has three Early Literacy Stations, all purchased with funds from a generous donor. Subjects include reading, math, drawing, geography, science, music, typing, and other activities. Many of the programs are available in bilingual Spanish and bilingual French as well as English.
"We were glad to help librarians from other Connecticut towns learn about these digital learning tools, which are much easier to maintain for users at this level than traditional computers" said Jean Chapin, Executive Director. "Many local parents have discovered how much fun their children have with our AWE computers, and we welcome children from neighboring towns to come try them too." Learn more about it here: www.awelearning.com
BookFlix Attracts Young Readers
An engaging, online video literacy program from Scholastic is available to patrons of the Junior Library. BookFlix allows children to listen to recorded stories and watch colorful animations true to the book's original illustrations, while following along with the text page by page on screen; or they may choose to read the text on their own. More than 100 fiction video storybooks are paired with non-fiction titles. After reading or listening to the fictional story Bear Has a Story to Tell, in which a young bear wants to tell his friends a story before they go to sleep for the winter, BookFlix presents the related non-fiction book How Do You Know It's Winter? introducing young readers to climate and the behavior of animals and people in the winter.
This pairing of fiction with non-fiction reinforces reading skills and develops real-world knowledge and understanding. Activities such as vocabulary games and interviews with book authors are also available. The curriculum supports Connecticut grade level expectations and preparation for the Connecticut Mastery Test.
"We always look for new ways to help children learn to love reading," said Jean Chapin, GML's Executive Director. "BookFlix integrates engaging technology while supporting parents, teachers and other adults in a child's life in their efforts to encourage active reading. We love introducing BookFlix to children who enjoy using computers when they visit the library."
Directions for adults provide suggested activities to reinforce what was learned in the video and book. The BookFlix topics are categorized according to nine themes: Animals and Nature, Earth and Sky, Family and Community, People and Places, Music and Rhyme, ABC's and 1, 2, 3's, Adventure, Imagination, and Celebrations.
For home access, go to Scholastic BookFlix Online and enter your 14-digit library card number. Access to BookFlix is available in the Library to all visitors. For more information, contact Gunn Junior Librarian Linda Morse at 860-868-2310.
Suitcase Adventures
Have you visited a foreign country lately?
Travel on a "suitcase adventure" to a favorite country. Suitcases include: Both fiction and non-fiction books, currency, child's size clothing, music, musical instruments, authentic souvenirs, maps, postcards, menus, and more.
Left: Departing from the Gunn Junior Library are Clare Moore & Owen Kent of Washington, CT.
For more information call 860-868-2310 or email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Nooks for Kids!Check out a new Nook Simple Touch or Nook Color Tablet from the Junior Library! Childrens classics come to life using one of our new e-book readerss. Read stories to your kids or let the Nook read to them! Some selections are interactive for even more fun. Chapter books are available for independent readers too. The devices are loaned for 7 days.
Email Notification ServiceWould you like to be notified by email about upcoming events, Saturday programs and storytimes being held in the Junior Library? We have an email list to inform parents and caregivers of upcoming events by email. If you would like to be included, please contact the library either by email, phone or in person in the Junior Library.
Family PassesAre you looking for something fun to do? The Junior Library has "Family Passes" to the following local museums and nature centers. Passes may be checked out for three days.
- Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport
We have one pass valid for a $5 discount admission per person for up to 6 guests. Limited to 1 family per day.
- Connecticut Science Center in Hartford
Discount coupons good for 20% off general admission for up to 4 people.
- CT State Parks & Forests Day Pass
Two passes cover parking and/or entrance fees for two at all parks and forests where there is an established charge.
- Earthplace, the Nature Discovery Center in Westport
Free passes for a family of four to Natureplace and the live animal hall and native plant courtyard.
- Institute for American Indian Studies in Washington
General admission for a family of four, plus a 10% discount in the gift shop.
- Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk
$2 Discount on Combination Ticket (Aquarium & IMAX) for up to 6 people. 4 passes available.
- Mystic Aquarium in Mystic
$6 Discount for Adults and $4 Discount for Children (ages 3-17) to Aquarium. 2 passes available.
- Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford
The ARTpass offers free general admission for up to two adults and two children (ages 6-17).
Fun & Educational Web SitesIf you have found a site you like, please e-mail us and we'll include it here.
- Best Children's Books
- B.J. Pinchbeck's Homework Helper
- Coolmath.com
- Disney Games
- Enchanted Learning
- Exploratorium
- Fact Monster
- Fun Brain
- How Stuff Works
- Internet Public Library
- Jump Start
- Learning Planet
- LibrarySpot
- Lil Fingers Storybooks
- Literacy Websites for Preschoolers
- Magic School Bus
- Make Me Genius
- MightyBook
- NASA Kids
- National Geographic Kids
- PBS Kids
- Sprout
- Starfall.com
Home | What's Up | Index | About Us | Catalog & Links | Kids | Blogs | Museum | Contact Us


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Added February 24, 2012 5:04 PM
'Save Our Neighborhoods' Against Walmart
Category: Development
The future of a third Sioux Falls Walmart store remains up in the air.Read Full Story
Share your Photos, Videos, and Stories on uShare! Click here to get started.
Added February 24, 2012 5:04 PM
Category: Development


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