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geekgirl (r)osiex aka the metal cupcake publishing about interesting things for a really long time!
The Tesla sports car http://www.teslamotors.com/ is a beautiful piece of engineering, but while the company plans to sell up to 10,000 such units from 2009 the car is too expensive for the average Joe because it literally uses computer laptop batteries as the power source. Mitsubishi in contrast, is building an entire battery factory to fuel their upcoming 2010 electric vehicle, and are apprarently planning a first run of 200,000 battery packs — and that is just a trial run…
In its original usage during the emergence of the bourgeois public sphere, the term ‘publicity’ described a general public-ness, a state of being public – publicly known, publicly owned or publicly available. Only later, with the development of reproductive technologies and systems of mass dissemination, did it come to refer to the mechanisms of marketing and promotion, and to denote strategies for the use of such media for the formation and communication of identity. With this etymology in mind, Artspace presents the work of five artists whose practices traverse performance, installation, video, archiving and action research to explore the role that art, considered as creative and aesthetic experience, can play in the construction of a ‘public’. It seeks to raise questions of agency and autonomy in a culture of media saturation, and to posit the studio and the gallery not as hermetic spaces but as discursive fields, sites of social transaction, public spaces that are, as with the public itself, constantly under negotiation.
Publicity BRIDGET CURRIE, ASTRA HOWARD, LUCAS IHLEIN, ASH KEATING, MATTHEW TUMBERS Curator: Reuben Keehan
http://www.artspace.org.au/gallery/gallery_exhibition.php?e=68
In what looks like an example of modern-day alchemy, scientists at Purdue University in Indiana have come up with a way of turning water in hydrogen using an aluminum alloy. If the process is replicable on a large scale, it could have a massive impact on the market for hydrogen fuel cell-powered cars, which could use the technology as a source of onboard hydrogen generation.
The process relies on the use of aluminum pellets, which are mixed into liquid gallium (a metal that liquefies at just over room temperature) to produce a liquid aluminum-gallium. When water is added to the compound, the aluminum reacts with the oxygen to form a gel along with free-standing hydrogen, which can be collected and used to power a fuel cell. According to EDN, an Indiana-based start-up already has a license to commercialize the technology.
Many of the major automakers, including Honda, and General Motors, have invested heavily in developing fuel cell-powered cars. However, to date hydrogen has faced significant obstacles to becoming a viable alternative to gasoline, principally the expensive (and often carbon-fueled) process of isolating it, and the lack of a fueling infrastructure. The Purdue development has the potential to address both of these issues.
The Purdue announcement is the latest development in the race to create sustainable, on-demand sources of hydrogen. Earlier this year, a start-up company called Ecotality announced that it had enlisted the help of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop an advanced hydrogen-production process using magnesium and water.
The Fremantle Arts Centre is calling for proposals relating to the life and legacy of the Australian lead singer of AC/DC, Bon Scott, to go with a statue of Scott that is to be erected in Fremantle in 2008.
The Centre is open to gallery-based, off-site and online proposals for the Bon Scott project, which will encompass radio, the web, exhibitions and an LED billboard. It welcomes proposals from groups and individuals of organisations, curators and artists of all kinds,
Aussie rock legend Bon Scott is to be immortalised in a series of art projects as well as those that engender local, national and international exchange.
For more information, please email FAC’s curator/exhibitions manager at jasminS@fremantle.wa.gov.au or visit www.fac.org.au/exhibition_proposals
Two events exploring the question: What makes films by women unique?
These two upcoming events organised by Women in Film and Television (Victoria):
Melbourne International Animation Festival – Friday 22 June 2007 at ACMI – Screening of women’s animation from around the world
Victorian Women’s Short Film Showcase – Thursday 14 June 2007 at ACMI
For more information about either of these events or to arrange an interview, please contact WIFT(Vic) President Sue Marriot Ph: 0412 363 137 or Aenea Himbury Ph: 0408 377 044.