The theme of this year's festival is "Metropolis- Civilisation in the Desert".
Three weeks ago I was grinning from ear to ear and in a bit of a whirl after being invited to create a piece for one of the 6 large art plots at the Burn. I had energy sources on the brain after a friend asked...."well what's on your mind at the moment? "...and the answer was "lightbulbs". I'd seen an article about streetlights in Toulouse powered by pedestrians and went from there to discover more and more examples of people-powered regenerative energy that blew me away.
So my question became
WHAT IF..... there were a metropolis where
walking on the pavement powered the streetlights,
the roads gathered power from passing traffic,
cellphones were powered by conversation,
the energy of dancers provided enough electricity to run the lightshow at gigs,
your shoes turned your own energy output into electricity....
Sounds like sci-fi? Check out the links at the bottom of this page.
Inspired by these ideas, i created "Piezo", an interactive, animated, sound and particle-generating 3D visualisation of all that potential people-power. (I should probably say...I'm no scientist!)
This is how "Piezo" works:
Take the teleport below to the virtual playa, make it midnight and turn up your sound.
Then click the sign when you arrive to get your Free Piezo-Power-wearables.
CLICK on your clothes to power them up.
There are 3 levels, with Piezo Fireballs, Flowerballs and Seedballs.
Click EVERYWHERE!
See and hear what happens as your energy is harnessed.
BURN2 opens on Saturday 16th October at Noon SLT. There are 6 sims filled with great builds. (5 other large art plots with installations by Bryn Oh, Soror Nishi, Madcow Cosmos + Lorin Tone, AM Radio and Corvaire Wind. There's huge array of creative theme camps and smaller art plots PLUS The Hot Stilt Bitches of Burning Life have been at it again and have produced an amazing Flying Circus!)
**BURN2 sims will be open for another week after the 24th***
TELEPORT to "Piezo" directly from here
Many thanks to everyone at BURN2 for inviting me, to all the volunteer staff who work so incredibly hard to make this such a great event and to super-scripter Simon Kline for his help in creating Piezo.
Thank you all and Burn on!
**Burn2 is an official Regional Burn for the Burning Man Festival in Nevada.
The Piezo-information that got me fired up:
1-"Kohei Hayamizu has a bold vision for the future: a city that is in itself an electric power station. A place where all roads, bridges and sidewalks generate electricity from the vibrations produced by the cars and people that move over them" :
http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/lets_generate_electricity_by_walking/
2- Piezoelectricity : simply put, certain materials produce electricity when squeezed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectric
3 -Tiny generators that harvest the kinetic energy going on around us in our daily lives
http://inhabitat.com/2010/03/24/mini-generators-use-vibrations-from-traffic-movement-to-create-electricity/
4- Cellphones powered by conversation:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39155886/ns/technology_and_science-science/
5-Pedestrian power
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/13/pavement-power-toulouse-streets
6- Power-generating SHOES
http://inhabitat.com/2010/04/27/shoe-generator-harvests-power-from-walking/
7-Piezoelectric road:
http://green.autoblog.com/2008/12/12/power-generating-piezoelectric-road-will-be-tested-next-month-in/
8- Wearable energy systems:
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/03/piezo-rubber-creates-potential-for-wearable-energy-system.ars
9- I couldn't leave out my old friend , bike-power. See the Magnificent Revolution "Projects" tab for pedal-powered sound systems and cinema
http://www.magnificentrevolution.org/
10- I was also very taken with this Californian gym that has the cardio-machines hooked up to power the lights!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDU72PD3vIs
