wet dreams. living machines

Another link people may be interested in, to do with body augmentation on a more superficial not science-y level.

Hey

I found these links and thought people might be interested in it especially Philippa.

http://www.superuse.org/

and the very cute Air Bear: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0dF5aTn7WM&feature=related

Enjoy!

ps. i put my baby basil outside to catch some rays and left them there overnight, only to devoured by BIG FAT SLUGS! I estimate the death toll to stand at 20 and 1 survivor, he shall be called Miracle.

So this past week i have been tending to the growing herbs and thing of ways to grow them in a wall, hanging or bench top garden.
I made a little sketchy model using modeling clay with little pockets to house the plant and drainage holes that flow down to the one below.

Other ideas are systems that hang over a sink, moss covered backing to absorb excess water, hanging pots… Its just a matter of sketching, and playing around with different designs.

here are some photos of the seedlings; the ones in normal agar have gone the best, sugar ones overcome with mold and the ‘aquasol’ ones a little dead looking. I’m keeping the basil and alfalfa alive to put into the finished design and hopefully create a working model…. so they better live until then!

Here is a photo of my seeds growing… well the set up of them anyway.

Ok, so I’m looking into the foody/plant side of where is elective can take me.

I’m interested in this whole thing of “micro herbs“. It seams to be pretty big in the culinary world with the top restaurants, whose menu’s revolve around small servings thats all about experimenting with flavor and texture, and charging a lot but it is fine dining.

I just find it fascinating that things are made miniature by us selectively breeding or growing them. A strange one is the munchkin cat, a breed that has emerged in the last 20 years. While its not really invasive GM is selectively breeding of the cat to get short legs.

Anyway so i’ve started trying to grow things on my kitchen bench top again. After my last sprouting effort, where everything started going slimy i thought i would try a more controlled method. I have separated each type of seed into containers and am trying to grow them on cotton wool (like the popular primary school exercise). I found more Alfalfa, Barley and Mungbeans at home, and bought Basil and Broccoli from Bunnings. The alfalfa is made for sprouting, and i have sprouted Mungbeans before but I’m not sure about the Barley. I read that before sprouting Barley it must be soaked for 12hrs, same as the alfalfa and mungbeans.

The Basil and Broccoli are just sprinkled on top of the damp cotton wool so hopefully they start showing sings of life soon.

I think what went wrong last time was i over crowded the seeds, so drainage of water may have been poor, and it was during that hot spell, and being covered they may have been a bit hot and steamy. So we shall see how this method varies and hopefully i wont have stinking seeds again. I might also get a spray bottle to mist the seeds rather than making them too wet by pouring water in.

I wanted to try and grow some in agar but haven’t had any luck buying any yet (Please help Boo, both Asian supermarkets i went to said they didn’t have it). I’m not sure if i would put the seeds on top, in the arag or wait til they are sprouted with little roots before putting them into agar using it like soil. Maybe i’ll experiment with each method.

As to where this can take me… I have been looking at hydroponic and bench top garden units that are currently available.
the AeroGarden is a pretty slicked up growing device that doesn’t come cheap and has many brand name accessories to go with it.
I also found the http://www.sundanceind.com/vertical_gardens.php more directed to growing wheat grass but it features a neat system of rotating the trays as you use the final product and grow more.
And the Grow Indoor, with a site so American its scary.

I also had a look at mer sophisticated hydroponic versions such as this “Omega Garden” that rotates around the light making it look like something from the film Sunshine where oxygen is harvested from growing plants.

ALSO i found this cute little design of a living business card. Tying in on the idea of miniature gardens and growing plants in a confined space its an interesting little piece.

So from all this I think my BRIEF will revolve around designing or speculating on compact little gardens for harvesting. I would like to see how small we can make things and maybe pushing these bench top gardens to be a bit messier, they all seam so clinical and neat but any one who gardens will tell you its about getting in there and dirty, so why are these little gardens so clean and refined? Perhaps leaving more to chance, incorporating natural cycles such as insects and microbes…. who knows.

AGAIN… I’m not so sure as to the final direction i want to take with this elective.

I like Biomimicry and its definitely the area i want to look into more but as to what i will produce at the end is a mystery.

Sorry this isn’t very deep, i’m not feeling the best.

BUT i was thinking about a toilet bowl with that lotus leaf coating on it. We could eliminate those annoying “duck” cleaning product ads forever….

Sorry i’ll try harder to think about it more seriously in the next few days.

ps. All links posted by James were great. thank you.

Now don’t get me wrong I don’t think the direction GM is going is good but you have to consider the positives of it all too.

By genetically modifying some crops a lot of problems associated with agriculture could be addressed. By making certain plants more drought hardy and using less water for total yield, could be a great thing really. Also GMing plants to be resistant to insect destruction which means less pesticides and even could help with the eradication of introduced species, if there are introduced bugs that are bad…locusts?

The problem of course it that these companies don’t always want to do these “better” GMing things, and lack of CONTROL. There are always good ideas out there but it’s hard to speculate what they could ultimately be used for because people don’t always act in the way that is best for as many people and places as possible. And when should certain things not be grown here just cos its plain stupid, like RICE… in arid Australia!! sorry but I get a bit agro about that

ANOTHER little fact from me:
On the weekend I was in Lake Bolac at the Eel Festival. Its a big event, especially for a town of 100people, with local acts and indigenous culture. Anyway this woman, Christine Jones, Was really interesting. She got up in front of farmers who have been there for generations, and spoke about the need for change in the farming practices. All about growing perennial grasses between crops, and building back the top soil. Just though people might find it interesting, now to start thinking about this weeks work…

Considering our environment, the world around us, it seems only natural that we observe nature and draw upon it for inspiration to invent. Since Leonardo da Vinci and his early flying machines which were an engineering representation of birds wings humans have been looking at aspects of nature that we don’t possess and trying to develop them to aid us.

Biomimicking in objects has been performed for many years, some examples include Velcro emulating the way burrs cling to animal fur and Cat’s Eye lenses. Julian Vincent developed a type of clothing that draws upon the mechanics of a pine cone, “I wanted a nonliving system which would respond to changes in moisture by changing shape”, and so developed a material that opens when hot and closes to trap heat when cold.

An example of biomimicking in production that I came across is the self repair of an object. A self repairing rubber and self repairing clear coat paint have been developed to maintain a structure or surface much like animal’s skin or a tree’s bark might regenerate after damage. In the case of the rubber when it is cut and pressed together new bonds form to produce a similar piece as was started with. With the clear paint developed by Nissan, it can fill small scratches to the surface to stop further damage being caused to layers of paint or metal beneath.

Having just read Rainer’s post I thought back to a paint that is self cleaning. The method of self cleaning came from mimicking the surface of a lotus plants leaves and how water on them slides off in pearls. Maybe this could eliminate the need for the dishwasher/draw if our plates were self-cleaning, heightening laziness to a new degree also…hrm. Perhaps a detachment or lack of responsibility for objects would be a result of them being self repairing and self cleaning, and is it really needed? Maybe if it saves water and other resources it is but if it is purely to simplify our lives and make more of that all important “time” then we should be thinking about what we are developing.
. . . . .

At the moment i have started growing some alfalfa.

i found a multi layered tray in the back of a cupboard at home that has little filters to let the water slowly drip through. I thought it would be a ok place to start by growing something on my kitchen bench, seeing if i can keep it alive and not get slimy (in the hot weather this could be a hard task). After soaking the seeds overnight they go into one layer and are meant to be rinsed twice a day with fresh water, or three times a day when its hot. i spose this stops them all being stuck together and getting slimy. And if you look closely they are starting to SPROUT! It says on the seed packet they sprout well in a dark place, but don’t you want them to be green? and for that don’t they need light? On my bench they get a nice amount of light with no direct light, so we’ll see how that goes.

And this is their little home

Its been good reading through everyone else’s posts (Ti your procrastination sites are EVIL! i think now i’ll get very little work done) as now i have a little idea of what could be done in this class. I spose like Ti i was thinking along the lines of growing things in places or situations they aren’t usually grown, like in petri dishes. So i started with the alfalfa, and maybe will try growing herbs in the other layer to try and grow micro-herbs, kinda like what these people do.

The idea of engineering plants and nature around us to fit into our lifestyle, be more accessible, fulfill something thats missing… Like Bonsais, maybe. Growing a tree that is meant to be meters high and making it centimeters tall to fit inside. we may not live in a forest but can have one on our desk, all thats needed is tiny creatures to live in it….

Looking at the bonsai also makes me think of living art, because really the skill in making a true bonsai is an art form.

AND i’m also interested in the foody side of it all. Over the holidays a friend gave me a sourdough starter, which is basically a living mix of yeast and yoghurty stuff thats is used to make sourdough bread. Each time you take from it to make bread your meant to replenish it with water and flour or something so it can keep growing and doing its thing. I couldn’t quite grasp the level of care evolved in rearing it to the full adult/bread making stage and so it died the next day.

I’m Georgie, by the way, a 3rd year ID student.