It’s an alpha prototype kit for LED wheel displays that will visually broadcast geolocative data – such as traffic fatalities at each intersection and block, updating as you ride; or economic statistics, like the extent of student debt, in the form of “occu-pie” charts – thereby enabling you to transform your bike into a moving civic media display.

And unlike paid advertisement displayed in public transit, this indicator, and the ones to follow, are in the interests of the rider and in all our interests.

Knowing, in situ, localized economic data, or aggregated pedestrian, cyclist, motorbike or other deaths have occurred at a site is a transformative model; and the first of a series of indicators in development for this Newsmotion Bike Messenger display.

What are the health benefits to one/all of us if we reduce the particulate matter in urban air?

How can we measurably improve air quality inexpensively and immediately?

The Drawing in Air Clinical Trial responds to these questions by using the greenhouse effect to address the greenhouse effect; Sequestering where it counts while measuring what we can sequester as a visible participatory response to the failure of negotiations in a particular location. It is an inexpensive, scalable, participatory method to improve urban air quality: create a passive solar chimney to capture black carbon and create a captured-carbon-pencil, the length of the which corresponds to the amount of grime pulled out of the air.

NoPark returns “no parking zone” — mostly those associated fire hydrant placement — to low growth mosses and grasses. These micro engineered green spaces prevent storm water run off, use foliage to stabilize the soil, and to provide a durable low maintenance surface cover. These microparks continue to provide emergency parking space for fire trucks and exasperated Fresh-direct delivery persons. But the other 99.9% of the time they now do something more. For all the same rationales that apply to green roofs, greening the no-standing zones is a good thing. Practically, noPARKS capture more water than green roofs (not being limited to carrying capacity of the 2″, 4″ or 6″ of soil that roofs require). These no parking/standing zones are often situated where water collects, capturing the oily runoff from the road before it runs into the river. noPARKs recharge and replenish soil moisture on the block important to trees — even yards away — to help them dilute the gallons of uric acid poured on city trees plots each day by friendly neighborhood dogs. Less water puddling decreases pedestrian slipping hazards. Lastly, the noPark reduces the number of standing water pools that are left for days, which are the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. In this way, the noPark may reduce the need for widespread fumigation to combat West Nile virus in New York City.

noPARK is prescribed by the xCLINIC.SITES: view a map of noPARK sites.

* MOSS (150 Greene Street, NY: SoHo)

Moss is a Moss is a Moss @ Moss: borrowing the Moss brand to highlight the exquisite design of mosses capacity to capture and hyperaccumulate roadborne heavy metals, inparticular Cadmium.. NB This is an existing Luna Moth Breeding Site.

* Greenpoint (Brownfield)

Brown-nosing Brownfields: exploring the environmental services provided by brownfield with a selection of self-appointed remediators

* Iris and Fern

The Hudson River School 2.0: Iris and Fern filtering System to prevent hydrocarbon waste from entering the aquatic ecosystem.

* xCLINIC (34 Stuyvesant Street, NYC) NoPark engineered micro-landscape

The Butterfly Truckstop: habitat provisioning for native pollinating butterfly workers.

This USS is the first prototype at ~40% of the “real one” designed by Natalie Jeremijenko (NYU) and Angel Borrego (OSS), performed by Cesar Harada (RCA).

You will find complete documentation about the open source project at urbanspacestation.org and at NYU’s xDesign project hub

Crowd of sperm at high magnification.

The 1/2 life Ratio compares the value human reproductive tissue, specifically the market value of sperm to the market value of Ova. While the market demand for each type of tissue remains largely equivalent–approximately 30% of infertility is attributable to men, 30% to women, and the rest is unknown–the current divergence is just under $40000 per viable reproductive cell. That is, it ‘costs’ ova donors about that much per viable ova, while sperm donors come out in front(by about 0.006 cents per viable cell). The ratio uses quantitative risk analysis to compare the short term, longterm and unknown health risks, in addition to the risk of future ligtigation.Cost benefit and fixed effects analysis are also applied to account for the differences in the tissue perishability; the mass in grams; the labor costs (time spent); the window of opportunity and opportunity costs; the presence, or absence, and results of psychological tests and interviews (used primarily with ova donors), in addition to other variables. This indicator shows that new ART (Assistive Reproductive Technology) technologies, can reproduce very familiar gender inequities.

OOZ, Inc. (…for the birds) is a 1,000 square-foot garden including architect-designed bird housing projects (multi-family dwellings), water systems, and other amenities to improve the quality of life for urban birds. The installation creates conditions to observe birds’ adaptation to human-engineered technologies, testing formal and ecological theorems for high-density lifestyles, sustainable resource sharing among urban organisms, and the play of public/private division in cross-species interaction.

Date: September 2006 – October 2006
Medium: installation, experiment
Dimensions: 10,000 square-feet
Location: Postmasters Gallery rooftop @ 459 West 19th Street (at 10th Avenue) NYC