Reading Loop “occursus”

This week’s Reading Loop postponed!

June 7, 2011 by PlastiCités Leave a Comment

Due to unforeseen circumstances, Reading Loop will *not* be taking place this week.

Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause!

We’ll reconvene to look at the texts by Richard Sennett and Rasheed Araeen on Wednesday June 15th, 6pm, Site Gallery Canteen.

You may like to take a look at Eve and Christos’ blog (https://dialoguetechnologies.wordpress.com) ahead of this session, which we’re really pleased they’re going to be leading.

Filed under Reading Loop

Reading Loop, 8/6/2011

June 3, 2011 by PlastiCités Leave a Comment

The next reading loop will take place on Wednesday June 8th, 6pm, at the Red Lion pub, 109 Charles St, Sheffield, S1 2ND. For a map, please click here.

The texts (by Rasheed Araeen and Richard Sennett) have been chosen by Eve Michelaki and Christos Christodoulopoulos, who will lead the session. If you would like copies, please email sheffieldseminars@gmail.com

The session will develop our current interrogation of the relationship between art and politics, which we hope will lead to a publication in the not-too-distant future.

via Reading Loop « occursus.

LATHOS Installation

S1 Artspace, Sheffield,  June 2011

Blueprints

HOW TO BUILD AN OPEN SOURCE SOLAR WATER DISTILLATION HOME SYSTEM

“Water has been identified as one of the most important natural resources and somewhat different from the rest, because it is viewed as a key to prosperity and natural wealth.”[1]

In nature clean water is produced simply through the evaporation of the oceans and the rain cycle.

Contrary to this simplicity, countries with water scarcity problems often build big desalination plants that use very sophisticated technology to purify the water. This technology is heavily patented and usually developed by industries based in the developed world.

LATHOS  collective in dialogue with scientists from the fields of engineering and chemistry, is attempting to put the natural cycle  of water production  in a box and to create a network for developing this idea using an open source approach to information and technology.

Anyone can produce clean water from the simplest of means.

There are many ways to construct a small scale water distillation machine for domestic use. The machines can be built with simple materials that are locally sourced. The designs can be easily adapted according to the needs of the makers/users.

LATHOS uses the opportunity of this show to unveil a laboratory for the development of three different prototypes, all based on the same simple principle[2]. Each one is at a different stage of development.  Work on them will continue over the next few years. Testing and research for the drinking quality of the produced  water and the identification of the safest available materials, has already started.

If you are interested in being part of this project’s network and making your own desalinator, please take a free handout with instructions on how to build your own machine.

In  https://dialoguetechnologies.wordpress.com   you can find more details.

Feel free to post your own designs, and ideas and take part in the conversations that ensue.

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[1] Alfred Marshall, Water as an Element of National Wealth, 1879. [One of the most influential English economists of late 19^th cent. A professor at Cambridge. John Keynes was amongst his students]

[2] For the purposes of this show, the dirty water came from rain water collected from the roof of the gallery, and  (due to low rainfall !!) also water from the  local river. The produced clean water is used to feed the plants in the gallery.

Genius loci

Architecture belongs to poetry, and its purpose is to help man to dwell. But architecture is a difficult art. To make practical towns and buildings is not enough. Architecture comes into being when a “total environment” is made visible……

In general, this means to concretize the genius loci. This is done by means of buildings which gather the properties of the place and bring them close to man. The basic act of architecture is therefore to understand the “vocation” of the place. In this way we protect the earth and become ourselves part of a comprehensive totality.

What is here advocated is not some kind of “environmental determinism”. We only recognize the fact that man is an integral part of the environment, and that it can only lead to human alienation and environmental disruption if he forgets that. To belong to a place means to have an existential foothold, in a concrete everyday sense.

Christian Norberg – Schulz

Genius Loci – Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture

        

       

Leonardo Da Vinci water machine