Onkalo

Here's the trailer to what sounds like a very interesting feature documentary, Into Eternity, about the world's first permanent nuclear waste repository, Onkalo, which means “hiding place.” Located in Finland, the underground facility must last 100,000 years.

Once the waste has been deposited and the repository is full, the facility is to be sealed off and never opened again. Or so we hope, but can we ensure that? And how is it possible to warn our descendants of the deadly waste we left behind? How do we prevent them from thinking they have found the pyramids of our time, mystical burial grounds, hidden treasures? Which languages and signs will they understand? And if they understand, will they respect our instructions? While gigantic monster machines dig deeper and deeper into the dark, experts above ground strive to find solutions to this crucially important radioactive waste issue to secure mankind and all species on planet Earth now and in the near and very distant future.

For the above questions, we have some ideas here and here.

(Via AA Inter 3.)

Subterranean Aeolian Farm

(A detail from Containing Uncertainty, an installation by Jamie Kruse and Elizabeth Ellsworth, of Smudge Studio, for Landscapes of Quarantine at Storefront for Art and Architecture, 2010.)

A disused gold mine might soon provide geothermal energy for the city of Yellowknife in Canada's Northwest Territories, reports CBC.ca.

Yellowknifers have long thought about drawing geothermal heat from the abandoned mine, as former miners have reported temperatures exceeding 30 C when they were underground.

If the project goes ahead, a network of distribution pipes would have to be built to deliver heat from the mine to various downtown buildings.

Oil would still be used under the proposed geothermal plan, but would make up five per cent of the energy used. Still, Yellowknife could save 7.6 million litres of oil and lower greenhouse gas emissions by 17,000 tonnes a year under the proposed plan.

To quickly change to a related or unrelated subject, we've often wondered if you can excavate a system of underground tunnels wherein differentials in atmospheric pressure (or some other laws of physics unknown to us) create air movements at speeds fast and consistent enough to produce appreciable wind energy.

If you perforate a mountain (or an entire mountain range) that's buffeted by strong winds all the time from all sides and then populate it with burrowing giant helium balloons to keep the air moving when the Chinook or Katabic winds are at a standstill, how many homes can be powered? The entire downtown area or just the reclusive hamlet of a rogue Swiss tunnel digger?

Wind power and the cost-benefit headaches of such a multi-billion-dollar project aside, can you perforate a mountain simply to hum a tune, to turn it into a gigantic wind organ playing a melancholic song from deep geologic time? You won't be singing it to the mountain; the mountain will instead, to you.

The Earth Scything Its Way Across the Persian Landscape

The following images were part of an exhibition of Persian miniature paintings organized in 2005 by the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Dating from as early as the 14th century to the 17th century, during the Timurid and Safavid eras, they illustrate scenes not only from the Qur'an and One Thousand and One Nights but also from the Persian literary masterpiece The King's Chronicles by Ferdowsi and the poems of Saadi.

All the miniatures, nearly 300 in total, were available for viewing online during and after the exhibition. Unfortunately, they're now offline, a kind of redaction that we can't help but relate to the total erasure of our entire image archive. With (almost) full restoration of our pretty decorations, we thought we'd post some of the firewalled paintings as a complementary resurrection.

Today being 10/10/10, we're posting 10+10+10.



With so many to choose from, we had to limit our picks to miniatures containing our favorite detail: the highly stylized representation of geology. In many of these paintings, they look like earth-tsunamis scything across the landscape, ferrying invading armies towards their enemies or laying siege on cities like weaponized mountains. Seemingly solid walls quiver in anticipation of these incoming tactical landslides.

Frothy with rocks and boulders, sinuous and frenetic like the flames of a campfire, they provide shelter for game from royal hunters. Fantastical beasts inhabit its restless land-waves, and within its calmer precincts, sleeping heroes and quarantined sages, all the while organizing the spatial and temporal structure of the narrative.

Interspersed between these images are a couple of beautiful portraits, some interior scenes and a lion-eating horse. And there are a few more here.

Enjoy!

























































(All images courtesy of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.)

Dissipation

Our Flickr account was just unceremoniously terminated due to an NOI. You'll therefore be noticing our beautiful decorations disappear one by one as they get purged out of the system. Fortunately, most of the earliest posts will be unaffected, since their images are on Blogger's server.

We'll try to regroup as fast as we can, but in the (very very extended) meantime, please pardon the mess (or the lack of it).


(Olmsted, our mascot who's been residing on our Flickr Profile page for the past 5 years, bids adieu to Flickr.)


POSTSCRIPT #1: All done! (1 Oct 2010)

Half-Lido/Half-Turrell Antechamber for Observing and Measuring Hydrology

(Possible other. Photo by Elise Razaiarisoa; used with permission. Source. Via @laperiferia.)

Kickstart Foodprint LA

Sarah Rich and Nicola Twilley are taking The Foodprint Project to Los Angeles. And they need your help.

Rich and Twilley:

As with the last two events, we'll host an afternoon of panels on numerous topics, including school lunch, city food policy, restaurant entrepreneurship, community meals as public art, and the future of urban farming and food distribution.

For Foodprint LA we're also adding some exciting social and interactive events, including an urban food map walking tour and a VIP party for supporters of the project.

To raise money for these upcoming events, the co-founders started a campaign on the online crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter. They're more than halfway towards their goal of $5000, but as with every Kickstarter project, Foodprint LA will only be funded if they reach that target.

Any amount will definitely bring them closer to their goal. You can contribute as little as $1, though you'll get some goodies if you donate more. Whatever amount you decide to give, just be sure to make your pledge before Thursday, August 26, which is only 11 days away!

In the Archives:
Foodprint Toronto

Prunings LIX

(A cortege of vultures heralds the coming climax of a green burial in Tibet. Might there be a design ideas competition organized around this low energy, ultra rapid atomization? WARNING: The photos are not for the squeamish! Also, the website may have NSFW ads. Photographer unknown. Via Pharyngula.)

1) Go check out BIG's beautiful proposal for a forest crematorium at the famed Woodland Cemetery in Stockholm. (Via eVolo.)

2) Also go check out what InfraNet Lab has been up to this summer. You'll find out that Bracket #1 will be available this October and that the call for submissions for #2 is imminent. The grapevine earlier told us what the chosen theme is for the next issue, and it is awesome. Repeat: AWESOME!

3) Chicago Magazine takes an illustrated look back at an interesting civic project: “Mid-19th-century Chicago was an emerging titan of agribusiness, a burgeoning transit hub, a potential star of the Midwest—and a disease-infested swamp in danger of being reclaimed by Lake Michigan. By 1855, with roads knee deep in sludge, city hall faced a massive undertaking: hoisting Chicago out of the muck by raising the streets and structures as much as 14 feet.” You can read more about the raising of Chicago here. (Cf. Galveston in quasi-flight.)

4) “Paris is fast becoming the urban beekeeping capital of the world,” reports the BBC.

5) “Parasite is an independent projection-system that can be attached to subways and other trains with suction pads. Parasite projects films inside a tunnel. These tunnels bear something mystic – most people usually have never made a step inside any of those tunnels. Confusing the routine of your train-travelling-journey, your habits and perception the projections parallel worlds – making use of parasite – allow you a glimpse into a different world full of surrealist imagery.” (Via @loudpaper.)