Tree Hugger
While driving on the highway, I saw a tree. Our peculiar image of the week was spotted by Arnoud van den Heuvel using the Next Nature Spotter iPhone app.
What is Next Nature?
With our attempts to cultivate nature, humankind causes the rising of a next nature, which is wild and unpredictable as ever. Wild systems, genetic surprises, autonomous machinery and splendidly beautiful black flowers. Nature changes along with us.
Posts Tagged ‘On-the-Road’
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Drive in Wheel
The Drive in Wheel is an unique and spectacular giant wheel made especially for cars. The wheel is 100 feet high and takes four cars on one trip. City sightseeing has never been easier: you drive into the city center, into the wheel, view the city from above and drive out again – without ever leaving your car.
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Mad Cow Motorcycle
What do you get when you combine bike parts, an electric motor, and a cow skeleton? Our peculiar object of the week was created by artist Billie Grace Lynn.
Seen at Museum of Art & Design. Image NYTimes.
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Homemade Spacecraft
Cinematographer Luke Geissbühler made a homemade spacecraft with his 5-year-old son Max, and some of Luke’s friends. The spacecraft was made from a Thai food takeout container, an HD video camera and an iPhone for GPS tracking. They launched it into the upper stratosphere using a weather balloon. This most incredible ‘homevideo’ of the project soon went viral with millions of views.
The Brooklyn Space Program is a organization formed by a group of friends in New York City interested in scientific experiments, engineering, design and education. Visit them at brooklynspaceprogram.org to get the entire uncut voyage, buy a T-shirt and support the team.
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Car Skin
Our peculiar image of the week was created by artist Olaf Mooij. Seen at Discovery Festivals Cabinet of Curiosities.
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Follow the Leader
No birds or airliners where hurt in the making of our peculiar image of the week. The perceived mingling of the birds and the airplane is in fact an optical effect, masking the distance between them and resulting in a dreamlike image of birds and airplanes living in harmony. If only…
Photo by Darryl Morrell, via Airliners.net
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BMW’s Flexible Skin Concept GINA
This extraordinary concept model that came out of the batcave of BMW shows how textile might be the future of car design. By replacing metal bodywork with a strong but flexible skin the Beamer they call GINA can transform on the spot to suit your mood. Things like opening the bonnet or adjusting your headlights suddenly become something fluid and natural.
For the future it holds the promise that a car will adapt to you and your current needs. Do you have a party and need a sleek saloon or did you just do your groceries and need some more room in the trunk? With a flexible skin this is all possible within one vehicle.
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Who wants to Bike on Bamboo?
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Mercedes-Benz Was Here
In the older days, people had to cross natural barriers like mountains for survival purposes. Grains from one side of the mountain was traded with cloth from the other side, for example. Today, we trade images and visual information overload has taken the place of the the mountain.
One can imagine this trading trips our ancestors made could be tough endeavors. Dangerous slopes and treacherous wheather conditions can take their toll, up in the mountains. Not to speak of the physical challenge of to climbing a mountain, packed with trading goods. New technologies like tunnels, cars and helicopters made it possible to skip the long climbs that take a strain on your body and mountain climbing as a bare necessity died out, to make place for mountain climbing as a recreational activity.
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Artificial Shrub Observatories
Justin Shull investigates the born and the made by mixing them up in mobile installations like the “Terrestrial Shrub Rover” and the “Porta Hedge”. His designs consist of several eco-conscious design features including recycled Christmas trees on the exterior, wood finishing on the interior, and the relaxing sound of birdsong audio on the interior and exterior. These vehicles are made to observe and explore both terrestrial and social environments.
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Traffic Jam Celebration
On this day (Saturday May 29th 2010), the Dutch nation takes pride in celebrating their first real traffic jam. During the pentecost weekend in 1955, a mass exodus of a tribe of day visitors from the west of the country to the central dutch National Park, and a tribe of German tourists coming from the east, caused a clutter of over 50,000 cars. Next to excitement about this new phenomena, there was also a feeling of pride: The Netherlands had become a modern country.
Back in 1955, The Netherlands counted about 268,000 cars (1 car per 40,3 inhabitants). Today, that is 1 car for every 2.1 dutchman or -woman. The first real traffic jam in 1955 was a big attraction. Roadside tourism was very common in those days: park the car at the side of the road, or even: in the lane (which was allowed then), unfold your chair and watch the cars pass by with the whole family: the tourists become the tourist attraction.
Different lifestyles of different tribes have always fascinating. New technologies trigger ancient impulses and one of these impulses is: watching new technologies as a form of recreation!
(Adaptation of this article in the dutch Volkskrant)
A reflection on mobility by NL Architects -
Beehive Europe
Peculiar image of the week. Via Radarvirtuel, where you can see them fly in real time.
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Cuddly Scooters
Why do we grow attached to things? Patricia Piccinini captured it well in this peculiar work: The Stags – 2008 (Culture becomes nature)
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Robosaurus eats Cars for Breakfast
The Robosaurus is the only airplane eating, fire breathing robot on the planet. Pity the thing is merely build for entertainment purposes. Perhaps this thing could finally solve our traffic congestion problem? No seriously, there is truth in pop-culture.
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On the Road
Excuse me, I am lost. Can you point me to the information super highway?
Rendering by Chris Baker, photo Erik Pawasser. Via Wired. See also: Car Navigation – Follow the red cable, Need for Speed, Find brain, replace with GPS.
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Once you enter, you are the Car
Martin Heidegger and Marshall Mcluhan already described people’s tendency to extend their identities in the animate objects when interacting with them. When for instance, driving a car the vehicle seems to become an extension of our body. It absorbs our sense of identity and when two cars hits another in traffic, the driver of the vehicle being struck is more likely to say: “Hey! You hit me!”, than “You hit my car” or “Your car hit my car”, to be accurate.
I wonder what these thinkers would have made of the Hitachi’s vein authentication system, which identifies individuals based on the unique pattern of blood vessels inside their fingers. While providing an extra layer of security against car theft, Hitachi’s steering wheel finger vein authentication system also works to improve in-vehicle comfort when used with seats, mirrors and air conditioners that auto-adjust according to the preferences of the driver touching the wheel. Just another small step in the thinning of the border between people and products? Once you enter, you are the car.
Source: Hitachi Press release (japanese), Via Pink Tentacle.
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Highway Nomads
Whereas 40.000 years ago we used to roam the Savanna, today many people live the live of highway nomads. As an investigation of this lifestyle, artist Melle Smets and philosopher Bram Esser spent four continuous weeks on the highway.
Their journey brought them to tank stations, motels, gay-meeting spots, road-restaurants and industrial outskirts. The question they tried to answer is intriguingly simple: Is it possible to live on the highway? And what does it to people?
Website: Snelwegmuseum (Dutch). Related: Observing Next Nature, Waves of Asphalt, Magic Highway USA, Interchange, On the Road, Via Trendbeheer.
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Flu Collector
Rather than trying to delay or avoid a flue infection, why not plan it? The INFLU flu collector mask helps you to get sick when you want to.
The INFLU mask is outfitted with a battery driven micro-fan on the inhalation valve that increases the intake of viruses in ambient air through the respiratory system. Wear it to plan your sickness, develop antibodies for the flu and strengthen your immune system the natural way.
According to its creator, Michel Bussien, the comfortable and convenient mask can be worn in everyday situations – such as while commuting to and from work – and increases the prospect of getting the Swine flu (H1N1) as well as the regular seasonal flu with several hundred percent.
