Hasta La Gadget!

If you happen to be in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park (right next to the historic Flatiron Building) at night, you might catch a glimpse of artist, MIT grad, and self-described “nerd” Jim Campbell’s latest public art project “Scattered Light.”

The work is a three-dimensional, 80ft x 16 x 16 array of 1,600 hanging light bulbs. Up close, the project presents itself as a swarm of shimmying lights. But when taken in
from afar, the viewer is able to make out shadowy figures walking across the
project (the actual video used in the piece consists of footage of people
walking through NYC’s Grand Central Station).

Every bulb in the project is fitted with an LED which is hooked into a central computer and syncs the whole project together. Each bulb acts as a pixel in, what is essentially, a huge television screen that has exploded into three-dimensional space.

The work appears with two other
multimedia works by Campell in the park: “Broken Window,” which is a
large wall of glass tubes that also plays with the concept of
low-resolution images, and “Voices in the Subway Station” which embeds
20 glass panels in the park lawn that light up in synch with audio
recorded inside a New York City subway station.

The works will be
on display through February 2011.

Video after the jump.

via
switched

This is the view from the last drops of your water bottle. And here are 44 more brilliantly conceptualized photos from this week’s Shooting Challenge: More »

Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.

This week scientists took a step towards unlocking the holy grail of alternative energy as they unleashed a one megajoule test blast from the world’s largest laser. We were also excited to see the DOI give the green light for the first solar-thermal power tower in the United States, and we saw big things brewing beneath West Virginia as a project funded by Google discovered massive geothermal vents that could double the state’s energy generation capacity. Not to be outdone, Oregon announced plans for a 845 megawatt wind farm that stands to be the largest in the world.

We also watched the world of architecture heat up – literally – as Soltech unveiled a set of glimmering glass roof tiles that can capture solar energy to heat your home. We also checked in on the development of Masdar, the world’s first carbon neutral zero-waste city, and we were shocked and appalled by the recently completed largest and most expensive house in the world.

In other news, this week we showcased a dazzling array of energy-efficient lights – from an amazing animated LED pillar to a set of liquid lights made from recycled faucets to a chandelier decked out with luminous dandelions. We also kicked up our heels for a vending machine that dispenses biodegradable shoes and we saw a set of ghetto-fabulous boom boxes made from old suitcases hit the streets. Finally, we rounded up a gaggle of our favorite smartphone games that are perfect for keeping kids entertained!

Inhabitat’s Week in Green: the world’s largest laser fired, icy roof tiles admired, faucet lamps inspired originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 17 Oct 2010 20:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This sculpture shows just what you can do with 5,000 aluminum tubes and a single light source: create a sense of futuristic brilliance. It’s called Sitooterie II, it’s in Essex, U.K., and up close it looks like Tron-inspired skyscrapers: More »