Project Proposal

Thesis argument: Objects are symbols of human history. This history can get lost as they physically erode, rust, break, and disappear. Additionally, the nature of objects is changing: physical objects are being translated into immaterial software that is housed in high-tech hardware. Immaterial software and high-tech objects cannot be vessels of sentiment/nostalgia in the same ...

Howard Odum’s Ecological Modeling

Howard Odum's Ecological Modeling
Adam Curtis’ documentary series “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace” mentioned the work of Howard Odum.  Odum was an ecologist who is known for making analogies between ecosystems and electrical, mechanical, acoustical, magnetic and electronic systems.   I’m interested in the analogy Odum made between ecosystems and Ohm’s law. Odum set up analogies between ...

Flow

This is a project that embodies a lot of the things I’ve been researching: mechanical energy, low-tech materials, environmental sensing, and online data aggregation. Here’s a description from the website: “~Flow, by Owl Project and Ed Carter, was a tidemill – a floating building on the River Tyne that generated its own power using a ...

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (2/3)

I’ve been watching these Adam Curtis documentaries for inspiration. They’ve been really thought provoking and given me an interesting perspective on the relationship between humans an machines throughout history. I didn’t take notes during the first episode, but I started jotting things down during the second one. See below: Adam Curtis – All Watched Over ...