Impressive Concrete Spans
In today's edition: taste beyond the tongue, bacterial second-skins, trashlessness, hero dentists, and failed architecture.
***The Real Future Fair is coming to San Francisco, November 6-7. We are happy to announce that our Saturday night Future of Sound live show will feature Hrishikesh Hirway's SONG EXPLODER. He'll be interviewing an awesome but secret-for-now musical guest for his brilliant podcast. GO BUY TICKETS! Enter the discount code AMIGOS, and you'll get a 2 for 1 deal. From now until the Fair, I'm giving a couple tickets to the Friday conference away each time I send a newsletter. This round, all you have to do is reply to this email with your name and your favorite sound, and I'll pick some winners.***
"Back in the dingy chaos of his lab, Spence pointed out a boxful of unlabelled beverage cans, of all different sizes and shapes. A graduate student had spent the morning in the soundproof booth, recording the slightly different whoosh that each can made as she pulled the tab and popped it open. The cans had been supplied by Crown Holdings, an American company that produces one of every five beverage cans in the world; the recordings are to be used in a series of pre-trials to determine whether altering the particular pitch and tonal quality of a can’s opening hiss can make its contents seem fizzier or flatter, warmer or colder. If the student finds an effect, then the experiment will move to in-person testing, and then, if possible, to a large-scale proof under 'ecologically valid' conditions, such as a bar or a restaurant."
2. The latest from Tangible Media Group’s Radical Atoms project.
"bioLogic seeks a harmonious perspective, where biological and engineering approaches flow in sync. These animate cells are harvested in a bio lab, assembled by a micron-resolution bio-printing system, and transformed into responsive fashion, a 'Second Skin.' We can now observe the self-transforming biological skin activated by living bacteria. The synthetic bio-skin reacts to body heat and sweat, causing flaps around heat zones to open, enabling sweat to evaporate and cool down the body through an organic material flux. In collaboration with New Balance, bioLogic is bringing what once may have lived in the realm of fantasies into the world of sportswear."
"I had to get creative. When a restaurant furnished a napkin-wrapped fork and knife, I asked the server to exchange them for cutlery without the napkin. I’d remember to say 'No straw!' after asking for water and to make sure the veggie burger I ordered didn’t come with a wooden pick holding it together. I tried to think ahead. I carried a fork, a spoon, a plate and a bowl everywhere I went, just in case a student event served food but provided only plastic to eat with. I did what I had to, and sometimes it was awkward. At a house party (where the red Solo cup is king), I’d saunter into the kitchen, use a glass from the cupboard, and then rinse it and put it back when I was done. Five months into the experiment, after some initial reservations, I gave up toilet paper. Now I do things the way hundreds of millions (including my extended family) in India do — with water and my left hand."
4. The real heroes of the Cold War.
"Dentists in Worcester and, for that matter, all 49 states (Hawaii was still a territory), did, however, taste public acclaim in September 1959, when the American Dental Association, including my father, gathered at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel for their 100th annual convention. According to Peter Carlson, author of that road movie of a book, K Blows Top, it was the largest assemblage of dentists in history, more than 30,000 strong. As the convention convened, the ADA’s president received letters from New York mayor Robert Wagner and State Department chief of protocol Wiley T. Buchanan demanding that the dentists give up the Grand Ballroom on the 17th so that Wagner could host a luncheon for Khrushchev. The ADA’s president was defiant and Wagner and Buchanan caved. Khrushchev's hosts moved the luncheon to the nearby Commodore Hotel and the dentists emerged as Cold War heroes."
"Inside the quiet Ponta Gea district of Beira, Mozambique sits the Grande Hotel. A relic of luxury marking the cosmopolitan era of 1960s Portuguese colony, it now stands as another of the country’s concrete modernist ruins. Architecturally, the building was notable for its impressive concrete spans, its fluidity, and its overall size, marking out the ingenuity and idealism of the young architects emerging from the 1948 CIAM congress. All this, however, has been overshadowed by an unexpected use that has been found for the hotel. The once grand building now hosts one of the largest communities of squatters in the country."
On Fusion: How VR could help you conquer your fears.
1. newyorker.com 2. tangible.media.mit.edu 3. washingtonpost.com 4. wigpen.blogspot.com 5. failedarchitecture.com | @naf_asi
Impressive Concrete Spans