Stephanie Rothenberg invites you to divine… almost anything
Posted on June 14, 2008
Filed Under DIY reportage, Department of Prediction, SP Guest Lecturer Series | Leave a Comment
On April 25th, Stephanie Rothenberg (www.pan-o-matic.com) introduced an audience at the SP Weather Station Base to the basics of divination, also known as dowsing.
The lecture and hands-on workshop gave attendees a point of entry into a a practice which continues to be widely practiced in numerous forms around the world.
The practice of divination, like the operation of a Personal Weather Station, is a way that individuals can take direct action in monitoring their immediate environment.
Despite a lack of scientific evidence for its efficacy, dowsing is likely the more widespread practice; while currently over 8,500 Personal Weather Stations upload data to Weather Underground from within the US and over 3,000 from other countries, one article estimates roughly 10,000 active dowsers in Germany alone.
Global Warming Opera
Posted on May 30, 2008
Filed Under art-exhibit/artist, global warming | Leave a Comment
Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth is going to be staged as an opera! The Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli has been commissioned to produce an opera on Gore’s international multiformat hit, for the 2011 season at the Milan opera house, La Scala.
The Guardian, Huffington Post, TruthDig, all over the place.
Art Exhibit RE: Waves
Posted on May 30, 2008
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Waves - The Art of the Electromagnetic Society
Phoenix Halle Dortmund, May 10-June 29 2008
Wireless communication is, in this day and age, a given in all realms of society. Yet what manner of artistic potential is presented by the electromagnetic waves perpetually enveloping us today? And how might these influence our psyche?
Waves presents nearly 30 (media) artworks that regard electromagnetic waves not only as carriers of information but moreover as artistic material. The exhibition treats electromagnetic waves as the medium connecting people, nature, and technology – giving rise today to entirely new electromagnetic landscapes. [more]
TODAY!
Posted on May 25, 2008
Filed Under Department of Prediction, SP Guest Lecturer Series | Leave a Comment
Stephanie Rothenberg: Introduction to Basic Divination
3 pm at SP Weather Station
http://tinyurl.com/3wbt6f
croquet and hanging out to follow
(watch out for the 7 train)
Travel alert!
Posted on May 24, 2008
Filed Under Department of Prediction, SP Guest Lecturer Series | Leave a Comment
If you are coming to the SP Weather Station Guest Lecture tomorrow, Sunday at 3pm, please note that the 7 train is not running between Manhattan and Queensboro Plaza! The best way to get to the lecture will be to take the G or E to court square and walk west on 46th avenue, almost to the water. this googlemap shows where the side entrance is for our building - we’ll have a sign up & the door will be open (but ignore the street address as there are no street numbers on the building): http://tinyurl.com/3wbt6f
Introduction to Basic Divination Guest Lecture 5/25/08
Posted on May 20, 2008
Filed Under Department of Prediction, SP Guest Lecturer Series | Leave a Comment
S.P. Weather Station Guest Lecture Series presents:
A workshop by Stephanie Rothenberg
(free and open to the public)
About the Workshop:
Divining, or dowsing as it is often times called, is the ultimate sustainable battery-free technology for getting the latest information. It is an ancient practice that was used by many cultures and continues to be used today. In the workshop, participants will be given an overview of basic divining and learn how to make their own divining rods from wire hangers and drinking straws. Stephanie has presented Divination Workshops at 16 Beaver Group, NYC and the Center for Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA.
Stephanie Rothenberg, a New York-based artist and educator, is the founder of Pan-O-matic (www.pan-o-matic.com), which brings together a diverse group of individuals interested in investigating our inter-personal relationship with new technologies. Since the rise of mass systemized culture in the early 20th century, the Western world has become increasingly dependent on technology to physically act for us and psychologically live for us. As our perception becomes increasingly subsumed by handheld devices telling us the where, when, what and how, Pan-O-matic strives to recalibrate our bodies and minds, attuning human perception to the mutable environment. Through the investigation of alternative tools and recombinant methodologies Pan-O-matic works at enabling us to regain our senses, or rather our own “sense-ability.”
a different kind of “weather” map
Posted on May 19, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
WikipediaVision is a visualization of edits to the English (and the German, French, Spanish, Swedish) Wikipedia, almost the same time as they happen. The idea came after seeing flickervision and twittervision, both created by Dave Troy. WikipediaVision, however, was designed and implemented by László Kozma.
http://www.lkozma.net/wpv/index.html
Iceberg Song
Posted on April 18, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized, icebergs | Leave a Comment
From Discovery News:
April 18, 2008 — The grinding together of vast Antarctic icebergs in the Ross Sea creates a growling subsonic song that seismologists compare to the ringing of a wine glass.
The newly discovered iceberg song has been detected traveling through the ground and oceans.
The discovery began when seismologists at ocean listening stations as far north as French Polynesia stumbled onto an unexplained, high-frequency tremor signal that lasted anywhere from two minutes to three hours.
“They range from harmonic to chaotic,” said geophysicist Rick Aster of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Aster spoke about the discovery Wednesday at the meeting of the Seismological Society of America in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
By combining the data with satellite images, the researchers quickly found the apparent source: a king-sized iceberg called C16.
If the iceberg was in fact making the sounds, the seismologists had three questions: 1) Is the entire iceberg vibrating to make the sound, like a violin? 2) Is the sound caused by fluids surging through cracks or tunnels in the iceberg, like air blown in a flute? 3) Is it something else entirely?
To find out, a team led by seismologist Emil Okal of Northwestern University undertook what he and colleagues called Project Southberg, to plant some seismometers on the iceberg and listen in.
The signals from the iceberg seismometers were much stronger, Aster said. Some had remarkably clear harmonics. Applying the same techniques used to locate earthquakes epicenters, the researchers located the spot where the sounds was being made — right where the Jamaica-sized iceberg B15 was grinding against C16.
“We got very lucky,” said Aster. “One station was within two kilometers (1.2 miles) of the source.”
The clearer signals and the source location made it clear that the icebergs were being played like fiddles — by rapid slipping and sticking in the collision zone where the icebergs were sawing back and forth.
“It’s tens of thousands of small ice quakes,” Aster said. That iceberg song, then, is similar to what a violin bow does on a string. The sound propagates through the water, from the water to the seafloor, and onward through the ground, Aster explained.
Okal later compared the vibrations to those of a finger “ringing” a wine glass — also a slip and stick process — and found them to be very similar.
“It’s a spectacular signal,” agreed seismologist Greg Berozaof Stanford University, who was among the audience for the presentation.
Haruspication
Posted on April 10, 2008
Filed Under Department of Prediction, Haruspication | Leave a Comment
Haruspication: fortune telling (e.g. weather forecasting) using animal innards
From environmentalgraffitti.com:
Paul Smokov, an 84 year old cattle rancher from Steele, N.D., claims that he has forecasted the weather with 85% accuracy by observing the shape of pig spleens. The National Weather Service, with their millions in high tech equipment, is about 60% accurate.
Smokov may be the last pig spleen weather forecaster left in North America. The editor of the Old Farmer’s Almanac said the only other spleen reader she had come in contact with had died in Saskatchewan, Canada last year.
Smokov learned the subtle art of spleen reading from his parents, Ukranian immigrants who arrived in the US in the early 20th century. With weather being so important to farmers, and a decades long lack of electricity at the family ranch denying radio forecasts, the family kept the practice of spleen forecasting alive.
Milky-white rain in New Mexico
Posted on April 6, 2008
Filed Under weird weather | Leave a Comment
On January 7, 2008 in southwestern New Mexico, the rainstorm was weirdly white.
“I don’t know what it was, but it left a milky, white residue on all the vehicles in town,” said Lt. Eddie Ortiz, 48, of the Grant County Sheriff’s Department, talking about the unusual Jan. 7 rainstorm.
“It was like someone spilled milk on your windshield and it dried up,” Ortiz said. [link]
The State of New Mexico Environment Department later found no health threat, and theorized that strong winds may have suspended sediment from upwind playa basins and mixed it with the precipitation.
keep looking »