Articles published by: Nickname

„The Cophenhagen Wheel” is project realized for Kobenhavns Kommune and financed by Ministry for the Environment in Denmark. Controlled through your smart phone, a bicycle wheel becomes a natural extension of your everyday life. You can use your phone to unlock and lock your bike, change gears and select how much the motor assists you. As you cycle, the wheel’s sensing unit is also capturing your effort level and information about your surroundings. Access this data through your phone or the web and use it to plan healthier bike routes, to achieve your exercise goals or to meet up with friends on the go. You can also share your data with friends, or with your city – anonymously  if you wish – thereby contributing to a fine-grained database of environmental information from which we can all benefit.    

As already indicated in the previous number of our magazine, we will continue to present the events we took part in during the BMW Guggenheim Lab programme in Berlin. On 27 July, the MIT SENSEable City Lab team led by Carlo Ratti organized a workshop in Alexanderplatz which took several hours and was dedicated to the smart monitoring of public space. According to the information presented by the team members in the introduction to the event, the monitoring is part of the cognitive mapping culture of urban space based on the research of Kevin Lynch, a town-planner from the ‘50-‘60s (essential for the academic tradition of MIT).

CITE – Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation is built in New Mexico, USA, reproducing at a scale of 1/1 a whole human settlement, but without its inhabitants.

The urban life exploration lab has moved from America to Europe, proving to be a model of public dialogue and active participation.

After the BMW Guggenheim Lab New York cultural project was launched in New York last summer, the mobile lab came to Berlin where it ran from 15 June to 29 July. The open-air pavilion designed by Atelier Bow-Wow (which was presented in Zeppelin #98) is hosted in one of the inner courtyards of a former 19th century beer factory: the Pfefferberg complex in the Prenzlauer Berg district (Schönhauser Allee 176).

Aldayjover’s scheme is a brilliant example of integrating traffic concepts, a vision at city scale, public space and object design.

Text: Iñaki Alday, Margarita Jover / Photos: José Hevia, Aldayjover

The main ingredients of this project are a mythical and ambitious metropolis – London; one event – the Olympic Games; a dynamic and ambitious mayor  – Boris Johnson; a very powerful corporation – ArcelorMittal and its Chair – Lakshmi Mital; a cooperation between an exceptional artist (and always appealing to a broad audience) – Anish Kapoor and a visionary engineer – Cecil Balmond.

If the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao also works as a museum, and the “Bird’s Nest” in Beijing truly hosts competitions, then Orbit has no means but itself. It is a work of art – the tallest sculpture in the UK, and the only function is to offer platforms (quite large, that’s true) to view the panorama.

The success to the public cannot be assessed yet; it’s worth talking though, I think, about the reasons and the mechanisms of such an action and why the cities need these kind of gestures as well.

Stefan Tuchila climbed over 80 buildings and took several thousand photographs of Bucharest: another kind of urban research, a methodical and spectacular urban mapping. And a support for the recollection of a city that is constantly reinventing itself.

Introduction: Stefan Tuchila

Light partions and the insertion of new organs shape the strategu for the recovery of the the Fabra & Coats Factorya as a centre for creative industries.

Intro: a videopresentation screened at Zeppelin Evenings #43 – with Manuel Ruisanchez as a special guest (29 oct. 2012 – Central University Library ”Carol I”, Bucharest)

Between 11th of October – 11th of November, META Cultural Foundation organises in Bucharest the Biennial of Young Artists. The title of this year’s edition is Overlapping Biennial and its concept emerged from a project of contextual art. The Biennial furthers an innovative way of shaping the interaction between the audience and art. Mostly, Overlapping Biennial is a virtual event. The connection between the virtual world and reality is achived through QR codes – a type of barcode – which generate content after being scaned with a telephone/tablet/PDA.

Invited by Ruxandra Balaci

Thursday 4.10.2012, h18.30 / MNAC Auditorium, et. 4

Pirkko Siitari, Director of Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki and Ruxandra Balaci, Artistic Director of MNAC Bucharest, in conversation about the strategy of the museums in recession, a introduction about KIASMA and some comments about the subREAL retrospective.