Metropolis II: Chris Burden’s Amazing, Frenetic Mini-City

in Animation, Science, Technology | July 20th, 2011

In his 2007 New York­er essay on per­for­mance artist Chris Bur­den, the crit­ic Peter Schjel­dahl wrote that most of Bur­den’s oeu­vre con­sist­ed of “pow­er­ful works that deal inge­nious­ly with aes­thet­ics and ethics of pow­er.”

Schjeld­hal added that “you needn’t like them to be impressed,” and then described some of Bur­den’s more infa­mous pieces:

He spent five days in a small lock­er, with a bot­tle of water above and a bot­tle for urine below; slith­ered, near­ly naked and with his hands held behind him, across fifty feet of bro­ken glass in a park­ing lot; had his hands nailed to the roof of a Volk­swa­gen; was kicked down a flight of stairs; and, on dif­fer­ent occa­sions, incurred appar­ent risks of burn­ing, drown­ing, and elec­tro­cu­tion.

Bur­den’s more recent â€śMetrop­o­lis II,” which might seem tame by com­par­i­son, fea­tures over 1,100 mini­cars careen­ing through a maze of inter­con­nect­ed free­ways. It’s still pret­ty chal­leng­ing, even in dilut­ed video form:  The noise and con­stant motion seem cal­cu­lat­ed to wreck your nerves, and accord­ing to this brief seg­ment on the piece, at least one car spins off the tracks every hour. The city may be sur­re­al, but the stress feels as famil­iar as your last bad rush hour.

You can find a fas­ci­nat­ing on-stage inter­view with the artist in LAC­MA’s Direc­tor’s Series, as well as a wealth of infor­ma­tion about Bur­den’s life and work on the muse­um’s web­site.

H/T Fast­CoDe­sign

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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125 Science Videos: Our Greatest Hits

in Science, Video - Science | July 13th, 2011

We reached deep into our archives and pulled out a list of our great­est hits — our favorite sci­ence videos from the past five years. 125 videos in total, and the list will grow from here. Right now, it cov­ers every­thing from Astron­o­my and Space Trav­el, to Physics and Biol­o­gy, and then Psy­chol­o­gy and Neu­ro­science. Our rec­om­men­da­tion? Just jump right in here. But if you want a lit­tle pre­view, then let’s start you off with ten slam-dunk videos from the col­lec­tion:

(Note: In the future, you can access this col­lec­tion by click­ing the “Great Sci­ence Videos” link under “Essen­tials.” Top of the cen­ter col­umn.)

  • Earth­rise in HD – Video — In Novem­ber 2007, Japan’s Kaguya space­craft orbit­ed the moon and cap­tured the first HD footage of an “earth­rise” and “earth­set.”
  • Tour­ing the Earth from Space (in HD) – Video — Give NASA 7 min­utes, and they’ll show you the Earth’s most impres­sive land­scapes — as seen from space.
  • “First Orbit”: Cel­e­brat­ing 50th Anniver­sary of Yuri Gagaran’s Space Flight - Video — 99-minute doc­u­men­tary recre­ates the Sovi­et cos­mo­naut’s his­toric launch into space on April 12, 1961.
  • Arthur C. Clarke Presents the Col­ors of Infin­i­ty – Video – The futur­ist brings us inside Mandelbrot’s world of frac­tal geom­e­try.
  • Physics from Hell: How Dante’s Infer­no Inspired Galileo’s Physics – Video – Fas­ci­nat­ing pre­sen­ta­tion by Mark Peter­son, physics pro­fes­sor at Mount Holyoke Col­lege.
  • Lawrence Krauss: Every Atom in Your Body Comes From a Star- Video – The­o­ret­i­cal physi­cist talks about his work at the World Eco­nom­ic Forum in Davos.
  • What It Feels Like To Have a Stroke - Video — Har­vard neu­roanatomist Jill Bolte Tay­lor recounts her expe­ri­ence hav­ing a stroke. One of the most pop­u­lar TED Talks of all time.
  • Nature by Num­bers - Video — Well-known geo­met­ri­cal and math­e­mat­i­cal for­mu­las (The Fibonac­ci Series and Spi­ral, The Gold­en and Angle Ratios, The Delauney Tri­an­gu­la­tion and Voronoi Tes­sel­la­tions) present them­selves in nature.
  • Tsuna­mi Rip­ples Across Globe: Ani­mat­ed Video — Video — The Nation­al Ocean­ic and Atmos­pher­ic Admin­is­tra­tion shows Japan­ese tsuna­mi rip­pling across the Pacif­ic.
  • Daniel Pink: The Sur­pris­ing Truth About What Moti­vates Us - Video — Research reveals what real­ly, tru­ly moti­vates us. And it’s all shown with ani­ma­tion.

Find the full list of Sci­ence Videos here…

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Baba Brinkman: The Rap Guide to Evolution

in Music, Science, TED Talks | July 7th, 2011

Cana­di­an “geek rap­per” Baba Brinkman first gar­nered pop­u­lar atten­tion with a well-received, well-reviewed rap adap­ta­tion of Chaucer’s Can­ter­bury Tales at the Edin­burgh Fringe Fes­ti­val. (To get a sense of the project, check out this brief scene from “The Par­don­er’s Tale.”) And we also pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured his bril­liant work on Macmil­lan’s What’s Your Eng­lish? cam­paign.

Brinkman has brought his fol­low-up show, a fas­ci­nat­ing homage to Charles Dar­win called “The Rap Guide to Evo­lu­tion,” to New York City, where it’s get­ting rave reviews. In the video above, he explains how he went about putting the project togeth­er, and how evo­lu­tion­ary sci­ence enriched his under­stand­ing of the vio­lence and anger so preva­lent in the music he loves. The whole talk is great, but if you want to start off with a taste of the rap itself, skip for­ward to minute 9:03.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hayak vs. Keynes Rap

The Cli­mate Sci­en­tist Rap (Warn­ing: Offen­sive Lan­guage)

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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William Shatner Narrates Space Shuttle Documentary

in Astronomy, History, Science, Television, Video - Science | July 4th, 2011

After 30 years and 134 flights, Amer­i­ca’s space shut­tle pro­gram draws to a close. And it feels pitch per­fect to wind things down with a doc­u­men­tary nar­rat­ed by William Shat­ner. Of course, you know him as Cap­tain Kirk from Star Trek, the icon­ic sci-fi TV show that ran from 1966 to 1969, smack in the mid­dle of NASA’s hey­day. (Note: Star Trek has just been added to Net­flix’s stream­ing cat­a­logue.)

The 80 minute doc­u­men­tary takes you through the his­to­ry of the Space Shut­tle pro­gram, which first got under­way dur­ing the Nixon admin­is­tra­tion. The film spends ample time look­ing at the design chal­lenges NASA engi­neers faced in try­ing to cre­ate a reusable shut­tle, while also show­ing ear­ly pro­to­types. Once the design phase was com­plete, con­struc­tion began on the first orbiter in June, 1974 and wrapped up two years lat­er. NASA called its first craft Space Shut­tle Enter­prise, pay­ing homage to the fic­tion­al Star­ship Enter­prise. Next, it was time to bold­ly go where no one had gone before.

The doc is now added to our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Best of NASA Space Shut­tle Videos (1981–2010)

Endeavour’s Launch Viewed from Boost­er Cam­eras

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Darwin’s Personal Library Goes Digital: 330 Books Online

in Literature, Science, Video - Science | June 24th, 2011

When Charles Dar­win fin­ished read­ing Charles Lyel­l’s Prin­ci­ples of Geol­o­gy, a book sug­gest­ing that there are clear lim­its to the vari­a­tion of species, he wrote in the mar­gins: “If this were true adios the­o­ry.” It’s a great piece of mar­gin­a­lia. And it’s just one of many com­ments that adorn books in Dar­win’s per­son­al library, and help illu­mi­nate his intel­lec­tu­al path to writ­ing On The Ori­gin Of Species (1859).

Thanks to Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty library and sev­er­al part­ners, 330 of Dar­win’s most heav­i­ly anno­tat­ed texts have now been dig­i­tized and made avail­able online at the web­site of the Bio­di­ver­si­ty Her­itage Library. More will come in due time. You can begin your tour here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dar­win’s Dan­ger­ous Idea

Dar­win’s Lega­cy

via Cam­bridge News (with thanks to Kirstin But­ler and Brain­Pick­er)

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Anatomy of a Computer Virus: A 3.5 Minute Primer

in Science, Technology, TED Talks | June 21st, 2011

Last week, Cit­i­group admit­ted that hack­ers exposed the pri­vate finan­cial data of more than 360,000 cus­tomer accounts. Mean­while, in an unre­lat­ed attack, Lulz Secu­ri­ty man­aged to bring down the CIA web­site, and this week they’ve declared war on gov­ern­ment agen­cies around the world.

Now might be a good time to beef up on your knowl­edge of mal­ware, cyber­crime, and cyber­war­fare, start­ing with Stuxnet, a com­put­er virus that was launched against Iran­ian nuclear infra­struc­tures in 2010 (most like­ly by the U.S.). For a quick primer on Stuxnet, check out Anato­my of a Com­put­er Virus. It’s only three and a half min­utes long, but you’ll learn enough to decide whether or not to set your lap­top on fire, sell every­thing you own, and run scream­ing for the Yukon.

For a more detailed explo­ration of the virus, watch Crack­ing Stuxnet, A 21st-Cen­tu­ry Cyber Weapon, a TED talk by cyber-secu­ri­ty expert Ralph Langn­er. Dis­claimer: It won’t nec­es­sar­i­ly put you at ease — the pre­sen­ter clos­es by thank­ing Mr. Langn­er for “scar­ing the liv­ing day­lights out of us.”

Via PopTech and Hun­gry Beast

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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A Video Illusion: Can You Spot the Change?

in Science, Video - Science | June 10th, 2011

We’re a bit embar­rassed to admit that it took us three times to spot the change in this fas­ci­nat­ing video illu­sion at New Sci­en­tist, even after read­ing about the research behind the video. The test was devel­oped by Kevin O’Re­gan and his team at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Paris Descartes as part of their work on per­cep­tion. O’Re­gan is best known for his work on change blind­ness, our rel­a­tive inabil­i­ty to per­ceive grad­ual change, and our ten­den­cy to focus sole­ly on what we per­ceive to be the most dynam­ic or inter­est­ing ele­ment of a scene.

If this video isn’t enough to con­vince of you of O’Re­gan’s the­o­ries, he’s post­ed a whole slew of demon­stra­tions at his web­site. Bet­ter yet, you can dis­pel any remain­ing doubts (or self-esteem) by tak­ing this aware­ness test, which is even more dra­mat­ic. It bowled us over. Let us know in the com­ments if it did the same for you.

via Kirstin But­ler

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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X‑Men: Science Can Build Them, But Is It Ethical?

in Film, Sci Fi, Science | June 1st, 2011

Ever since Jack Kir­by and Stan Lee cre­at­ed the very first install­ment of the The Uncan­ny X‑Men for Mar­vel in 1963, the beloved team of mutant super­heroes known as the X‑Men have con­quered almost every medi­um in pop­u­lar cul­ture from tele­vi­sion to video games, to movies and of course com­ic books. Their endur­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty isn’t hard to under­stand: What Amer­i­can teenag­er (redun­dant, we know, since all Amer­i­cans are basi­cal­ly teenagers) could ever say no to an angsty band of telegenic out­siders who are per­pet­u­al­ly reviled and per­se­cut­ed for the very attrib­ut­es that make them supe­ri­or?

But there’s more than nar­cis­sism at play. The core of the X‑Men myth — genet­ic muta­tion — is some­thing sci­en­tists have been learn­ing how to manip­u­late for decades, and now it’s just a mat­ter of time before we know how to build X‑Men of our own. But just as in the case of nuclear bombs, killer virus­es and 3‑D action movies, the fact that we can make them does­n’t mean we should. In the above video from Emory Uni­ver­si­ty, Bioethics pro­fes­sor Paul Root Wolpe explores this moral dilem­ma via the lat­est iter­a­tion of the beloved mutants’ saga: X‑Men: First Class (In the­aters June 3rd, and, praise be to Mendel, NOT in 3‑D).

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

 

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