Michael Mandiberg's blog

AfterSherrieLevine.com in Mischief & Malice

Sun, 05/18/2008 - 22:00 — Michael Mandiberg

AfterSherrieLevine.com is included in the exhibition Mischief & Malice.

Mischief & Malice: Crime in the Museum investigates acts of theft, vandalism, and forgery. Overarching themes of authority, ownership, and law frame ethical debates surrounding the ambiguity of these criminal acts. Using both straightforward examples of unlawful activity in museums and cases that occupy the grey areas between inappropriate and acceptable behaviour, Mischief & Malice challenges your expectations of the subject.

Riverwired covers Eyebeam Sustainability

Thu, 05/15/2008 - 16:09 — Michael Mandiberg

Riverwired covers the Eyebeam Sustainability Research Group, featuring interviews with Amanda McDonald Crowley and myself (Michael Mandiberg.)

weaponized oil statistics

Wed, 05/14/2008 - 20:27 — Michael Mandiberg

Business Week has an article analyzing the statistical underpining of the unpredictability of the oil futures market. In particular they place blame on China and Russia for their dirty data. China is secretive, and Russia is clumsy, or so they want us to believe. I love this quote: "Russia produces "awful data" "

It interests me that the business press has an expectation that one would *have* to produce reliable data. That the chinese/russian inscrutability is their *fault.* And not a tool of economic warfare.

Its like the British cursing the American colonists for not just coming out onto the battlefield and fighting like men!

(tx Marisa)

Staring at the sea

Tue, 05/13/2008 - 17:30 — Michael Mandiberg

I paid David Horvitz $30 to watch the ocean for 30 minutes. See all the things he will do in exchange for dollars: davidhorvitz.com/if/index.html

I have a soft spot for fluxus business art.

Pay What You Want - Mini Swap Meet

Tue, 05/13/2008 - 13:13 — Michael Mandiberg

My dear roommate Peter is moving to SFO on Wednesday, and a lot of cleaning out has been happening around my apt.

We have collectively identified many things we don't need that are below the threshold of worth-putting-on-craigslist, but above the threshold of throwing away.

As an experiment, I am going to put the ones relevant to Eyebeamers (and anyone who might read this blog post) in a box on the corner of the shelf above my desk. They will be there for a week.

Pay what you want. Just leave the $ in the my desk drawer. And if you want it, but think its not even worth paying for, then don't: just take it!

You be the judge.

Its an honor system, and you are all honorable.

Plus its an experiment. Consider this social-sculptural research. I'll post the executive summary of the research report next week (LOL)

if anyone wants to join in on the game, go for it.

michael

*Things that will be in a box on my desk*

JK Audio Cell Tap, a pro-grade adapter for getting a line out of your cell phone. I used it for http://www.turbulence.org/Works/innetwork

Apple Airport Extreme Card

An Apple Powerbook G4 power supply, and a plethora of related cables (the long ones and the really short plug pieces)

Buddha Machine (http://www.fm3buddhamachine.com)

1 GB SD Card

Griffin iTalk voice recorder for iPod

Laminated streetmaps of Brooklyn (x2), Queens, Bronx.

A bunch of AA and AAA batteries (still w/in expiration date, but I don't seem to use any). Yes, I'm offering up some POWER!!!

iPod power supply (firewire, no cable)

Firewire 6 to 4 pin adapter

Several DC wall warts (e.g AC to DC power convertors) that I saved for use in some electronics stuff, but never used.

Several CFL bulbs that were too big to fit in my ceiling lamps (one is a fancy daylight bulb i had to mail-order, but couldn't use :-( )

Chinese ink for brush painting

Silver press-type sheets

some other stuff...

Extinction is Forever

Wed, 02/06/2008 - 18:32 — Michael Mandiberg

Incredible T-Shirt worn by young woman in Union Square NYC. When asked where she bought it, she replied "Urban Outfitters" with a mixed bag of pride at being cool, and shame at knowing that 'Urban' is always a bit too (self-desctructively) ironic, totally unapologetic in the way they rip shit off to make a buck, and ultimately only a few notches above Hot Topic...

Displaced Fake Estates, revisions

Mon, 02/04/2008 - 17:34 — Michael Mandiberg

The sheet metal I put up 10? days ago has bowed under its own weight. I have added horizontal braces for reinforcements, and an extra vertical brace. It seems to be stiffer, and it seems also to follow a nice parabolic bend (or maybe a catenary?)

The smaller sheet metal had no reinforcement, and got its ass kicked. It was almost like a sail, catching the wind, blowing around, and making a racket. It is much stiffer now, and will hopefully hold up. I moved it from one window to the other, as I realized that the person on the fourth floor is throwing their garbage out the window onto the mirror. I discovered this because peanut shells fell on my head as I was making modifications to it while it was attached to the grate. I looked up to see more peanut shells sailing out of the fourth story window. Brooklyn... I will have to go ask them to not throw their trash out their window. I hope it goes well.

Greener Gadgets: Greenwashing, Green Marketing, and Planned Obsolescence

Mon, 02/04/2008 - 14:31 — Michael Mandiberg

Some thoughts and reports from the Greener Gadgets conference, on Greenwashing, Green Marketing, and the One Laptop Per Child engineering.

Chris Jordan showed some of his photographs of consumer waste. He ended, by making a plea for cool green gadgets.

"There is a hesitation right now. There is a problem with the green movement. It is having trouble reaching critical mass. Everyone is waiting for everyone else to do it. Its frightening to see. This is the time when it has to happen. It cant wait another generation. Its not happening because it isn't cool yet. The leaders of the green movement, like all Al Gore and Bill McKibben: I love them to death, but they're not cool ... The electronics industry is cool. The new cell phones are twice as cool. The electronics industry is so cool, it has been given a free pass. The environmentalists all drive around their Priuses, are vegetarian, and carry around their water bottles, but we all buy the bitchenist new cellphones, like that!"

I'm not convinced this is entirely true, and however uplifting this is (and how much he is clearly aware of the problem of buying and disposing), it kind of set the tone for the day: we need to buy new things, and these things will be cooler and better, but we will buy them.

Mary Lou Jepson of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) gave a brilliant overview of the technical innovations behind the OLPC that make it energy efficient. The three key energy innovations are that the OLPC is really low power, built for a five year lifespan, and easily repairable. The key components are the combination of a screen that stays on without power going to it, and a hardware architecture that turns off the motherboard when it is not in use. As she said of the Apple laptop at the podium, "What is the motherboard doing on? There are no pixels moving. The motherboard has no reason to be on!" Mary Lou Jepson also spoke about green marketing, saying "people are trying to make a buck off of green. Green is actually cheaper. Green isn't about (sigh) buying more stuff." She was also the only person who spoke about extending lifecycles, proposing to the industry reps in the audience: "Let's add the life of the unit to the environmental specs of the unit."

Jepson also spoke about the need for the change to come from engineers making hardware platforms, saying "If we rely on industrial designers to lead the green revolution in electronics and gadgets ... we will fail." While she clearly proved that, as an engineer, she can do things that designers cannot do (make systems consume less power from the inside,) she should not be so designer-phobic: I played with one of her laptops in the Eyebeam R&D lab, and didn't get what the big deal was. I understood that it was small because it was for smaller people with smaller kid fingers, but i had trouble with the interface -- It felt badly designed; intuitive enough, but could have been better, in the hands of a better designer...

During the lifecycle analysis panel, greenwashing is the bogeyman in the room. Everyone is talking around the edges of it. Afraid they are doing it. Implying that others are doing it (but not them.)

Andrew Dent from Materials Connexion suggested leasing products, so that companies are responsible, and the companies are knowledgeable about the materials so they can recycle. Renee St. Denis from HP responds, this is normal at the Enterprise levels, but more education is needed at the consumer level to make this happen (leasing is planned obsolescence, right?).

Andrew Dent commented offhand, "Who keeps their phone for more than a couple of years?" What no one wants to address, or seems to be able to address is the fact that the electronics industry, (and our consumer economy as a whole,) is built off of planned obsolescence. Jeff Omelchuck from EPEAT got the closest to addressing this problem when he talked about the fact that software gets bigger to drive the need for faster hardware, and that any push to cut that down, shakes the foundations of the whole industry and thus the software and hardware industry is very resistant to any change in this process. As Douglas Smith from Sony said, "Our products are a lifestyle project. No one needs an HD TV. Your old TV works just fine. But when you see an HD TV, you just want it."

Colin aka No Impact Man got the mic and asked the question that was being begged to be asked (to paraphrase): Why are all the industry people advocating buying new products and continuing the cycle of planned obsolescence. He was given a rousing round of applause (the only applause given to a question all day). Predictably, no one could answer the question...

Displaced Fake Estates, Sheet Metal tests

Wed, 01/23/2008 - 14:59 — Michael Mandiberg

Shots of the sheet metal tests of the Displaced Fake Estates. I got a roll of 20" (the widest they stock) sheet metal from Home Depot, and pieced two pieces together with zip-ties. The larger one was reinforced with a 1.5inch by 36inch piece of metal along the length. I need to add reinforcement across the width too, as it bows too much.

The smaller one, without any reinforcement bends and bows like crazy. It looks (and acts) like a sail. But they increase the light!

I did some tests with actual mirrors, which were much heavier, and kind of broke the foam core that the tinfoil was mounted on. The mirrors are reflecting different parts of the building. It looks like I can get away with one foot of mirror that does not see building, but the other two (top and bottom) will show the buildings.

So maybe those two are angled parabolically? This image shows too much parabolic angling. But theoretically, the parabola would work...

Open Source Sustainability Critique on January 26th from 4-6.

Tue, 01/22/2008 - 16:55 — Michael Mandiberg

Eyebeam’s Beyond Light Bulbs programming series is in full swing, with a preview of the upcoming Feedback exhibition on display in our galleries, featuring projects by Sustainability Research Group members Brooke Singer, Michael Mandiberg and Ben Engebreth, alongside those of Eco-Vis Challenge winners. We are displaying the winners and honorable mentions in January at Eyebeam, with a closing Open Source Sustainability Critique on January 26th from 4-6.

We have awarded prizes for the Eco-Vis Design Challenge. The winners are Oz Etzioni, for his Unrecyclable icon (attached below), and The Studio for Urban Projects, for their In Popular Terms, the Evolving Language of Ecology. The winners each were awarded a $2000 prize. You can see images of all of the winning + honorably mentioned works here.

Full on the Eyebeam website.

Images available here.

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