The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia and HP are pleased to announce the 4th Advanced Architecture Contest, on the theme of CITY-SENSE: Shaping our environment with real-time data. Continue reading

Markus Kayser’s solar-powered 3D printer — Solar Sinter Project — is capable of producing complete glass objects from loose desert sand. [via]

“The Situationist Drawing Device is a backpack-sized mechanism for recording the experience of landscape. Designed by Ji Soo Han and Paul Ornsby, and operating by way of mirrors, the Device “records a journey taken in an altered state of perception through drawing.” It is an “intermediary and interpretative tool,” the designers add, one that stands between the human body and the landscape it exists within and explores.” [via]

Archis/Volume and VURB present the Internet of Things Workshop II: Builders at Play :: September 2-4, 2011 :: Waag Society, Amsterdam.

Calling on architects, coders, urban geographers, sociologists, and urban explorers interested in bettering the city through digital means. Following the May 7th Internet of Things Workshop at the Staalvilla, Archis/Volume, VURB, Caro van Dijk and Alexander Zeh will organize the second iteration with the explicit goal of creating prototypes observably eliminating the division of virtual/real. Join us for a three-day hands-on workshop where we will create viable and functional prototypes for the city.

The results of this workshop will then be presented at PICNIC 2011, which will take place between September 14-16 at the NDSM-werf in Amsterdam with the theme of Urban Futures. Continue reading

Systems, Actions and Processes. 1965–1975 :: until September 2011 :: Fundación Proa, Av. Pedro de Mendoza 1929, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Systems, Actions and Processes. 1965–1975 is an exhibition curated by Rodrigo Alonso with more than a hundred drawings, paintings, sculptures, videos, photographs, documents and records of performances and artistic actions from a key historical period characterized by explosive creativity, intense political fervor and a redefined role of art in society.

The exhibition addresses the wide and diverse range of artistic practices of that time. In words of the curator, the show explores the emergence of the notion of “system” and the way it took over the center of thought, Continue reading

Richard Garet: Espacios No-Euclídeos :: August 11 – October 30, 2011 :: Opening: August 11; 6:00 – 9:00 pm :: EAC – Espacio Arte Contemporáneo, Arenal Grande 1930, Montevideo, Uruguay. Continue reading

Physicist Geoffrey West has found that simple, mathematical laws govern the properties of cities — that wealth, crime rate, walking speed and many other aspects of a city can be deduced from a single number: the city’s population. In this mind-bending talk he shows how it works and how similar laws hold for organisms and corporations.

Föhnseher (Seer of Warm Winds) by Julian Oliver — Modified Sanyo television, software, hardware (2011):

Föhnseher rises from the scrap heap of analog TV. Unlike other televisions, Föhnseher captures and displays images downloaded by people on surrounding local wireless networks.

Other people’s phones, laptops and tablet computers all become broadcast stations for this device, replacing the forgotten television towers of old.

The name föhnseher derives from fernseher, the German word for television, and the föhn, a strange warm wind known to the south of Germany. The words have a very similar pronunciation. Continue reading

From July 31 – August 7, Information Department contributor Jacob Wick will be driving along the indirect route from Asheville, NC to San Francisco, CA. Along the way, he will be performing a participatory score entitled what news.

Send him a text, he’ll send you a postcard.

To participate: Send a text to Information Department at 575-446-3676 in the following format: what news [a name] [an address]. If you are comfortable with Wick taking a photograph of your postcard and posting it on his Tumblr, please also include a “Y” (please note: if your postcard is photographed, your name & address will be visible). Continue reading

Nicholas O’Brien wrote: “Andrew Norman Wilson and I had a chance to flesh out some of the strategies that he employs in a webinar video conference that spanned several weeks of intensive workshopping on ideas circulating around digital/ virtual labor, how to stabilize and exist in permanent transience, and how to make actual the metaphoric states that usually occur in online environments. Through our conversation and networking session, we highlighted some key issues concerning how one works within network space can reveal variable points of access and distribution to creative cultural practices.” More here.