De Montfort wins Green Gown award for Greenview App

We're delighted to announce that we won the Green ICT category in the EAUC Green Gown Awards last night. It was a fantastic evening and we were thrilled to share it with many familiar faces from the last few years alongside our colleagues from DMU's Square Mile Project that also won in the Social Responsibility category and the International Social Responsibility category. Particularly poignant for me as the event was held in the beautiful Great Hall at the University of Birmingham.

There were  key people without whom which this project would never have happened. Firstly - our sponsors/funders, JISC - Rob Bristow at the Greening ICT group at JISC has supported us tirelessly and without JISC funding this project, and its predecessor, DUALL. could never have happened. Second, the team behind the Greenview app from IOCT and IESD - Richard Bull, Dave Everitt, Gareth Howell, Graeme Stuart and Martin Rieser. Thirdly, the sustainability team at DMU are amazing - Karl Letten and Paul Fleming in particular. Finally, the IESD and the Faculty of Technology at DMU have been incredibly supportive of our, at times, slightly unorthodox ideas about energy visualisation.

Oh, and last but not least, thank you to to the EAUC for the award. We're very grateful.

ISEA 2012

ISEA12 Albuquerque

ISEA2012 Machine Wilderness

As contradictory as it sounds to hold a conference/exhibition on ecology in a remote location among the fragile sands of New Mexico,  ISEA12 had an ecological theme "Machine Wilderness". The associated air miles and car use were the unfortunate overheads. Outstanding works included François Quévillon's Derive (video) which visualised weather data embedded in the drawing of a reactive 3D graphic landscape. It was remarkable in its subtle rendering and potential for showing data in intuitive ways.

Other top works included The Hand of Man in Taos, 

The Hand of Man-Christian Ristow

A gigantic hydraulic hand driven by a data glove which was capable of lifting and crushing cards bodily. "The Hand of Man" moving sculpture by Christian Ristow, September 27 through to  30th , in Kit Carson Park is an interactive kinetic sculpture that you can operate. People were able to work with the artist and crew by slipping theirr hand into the sculpture's operation glove - a system that enables the giant sculpture to mimic your movements.  You can pick up cars that will be part of the exhibit, lift them 25 feet up, turn them about, and drop them to the ground! The Hand was designed and built by Ristow, a renowned artist in the field of animatronics. Ristow has been living and working in Taos since 2005, and built The Hand in 2008.  

Teri Rueb, Carmelita Topaha &  Larry Phan: No Places with Names: A Critical Acoustic Archaeology locative wilderness walk has already been blogged here, but Charles Lindsay: CARBONX  Dome piece also at Sante Fe, was another overwhelming experience.

The Sante Fe day included a visit to SITE whose More Real? Art in the Age of Truthiness show was a knock out-albeit not particularly electronic ( In collaboration with the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The exhibit will be on display until January 6th, 2013.)

Eve Sussman video still from "89 Seconds at Alcázar"Los Meninas

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For me the out standing works were artist Inigo Manglano-Ovalle's replica of the chemical-weapon-baring trucks Colin Powell recollected from Iraq. And others focused more heavily on the technological advancements that blurred the line between documentation and reappropriation, such as Eve Sussman's video installation that recreates the scene of Diego Velazquez's "Las Meninas."

50/50 Native Artists in Sa

50/50: Fifty Artists, Fifty Years presented by Museum of Contemporary Native Arts was an overwhelmingly sad experience , with every work reflecting confusion , anger and despair at the native dispossion and the tainting of Indian lands with radioactive fall out from Nuclear tests.

This exposed the contradictory nature of the whole event: sensitive eco-friendly projects addressing the despoiling of the wilderness by man's careless interventions, at the same time endorsing low rider and car-centered cultures in the region, and very little said about the grab for oil, the arctic sea ice melting the move away from nuclear and the terrifying future that global warming will bring. It was not complacent, but seemed far from the European consciousness about the global climate crisis and tthe radical changes needed. 

Steve Storz  Kanobis Amplifier Research Facility

On Taos day the sinister shed by Steve Storz  Kanobis Amplifier Research Facility (KARF) Phase II at the  UNM Klauer Campus in Taos NM, was an outdoor electronic sculpture installation that underlined the complicity of scientists in despoiling this pristine landscape in the name of 'freedom'.

However the focus on building DIY adobe shacks at Taos seemed nice and hippyish, but is not a realistic long-term solution. Engaging with Los Alamos was also a nice idea, but the attitudes revealed at the Sante Fe conference by the artistic director, implied a massive misunderstanding of the role of art:  seeing it only as a way of illustrating existing scientific materials more effectively, rather than as a radical way of completely rethinking methodologies.

The small contribution we made as a team ( Nina Yankowitz, Barry Holden , Martin Rieser, Rasmus Vuiori) was an interactive questionnaire using QR codes to probe the contradictions in people's attitudes to Eco issues. The resulting web database will be used to drive future online interventions using avatar humour to engage a thoughtful response to the crisis.

The main exhibition for ISEA2012 was displayed at a total of seven venues. It is based at both The Albuquerque Museum of Art & History and 516 ARTS, with off-site projects at the following five Anderson-Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum, the New Mexico Museum of Natural History, the Rainosek Gallery at the UNM School of Architecture & Planning, Richard Levy Gallery and the Alvarado Urban Farm. The exhibition features work that combines art, science and technology, demonstrating the role art can play in re-envisioning the world. The over 100 artists are from 16 countries: Austria, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Korea, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, the U.K. and the USA. The exhibition was juried and curated through an international call for proposals, which drew close to 1,500 submissions from artists and presenters around the globe. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by the acclaimed Radius Books, which will be distributed internationally. 

It was a massive attempt to integrate electronic arts and the ecologic movement and as such deserves praise for both ambition and achievement. 

Posted 11 hours ago by Martin Rieser

Labels: New Technology Workshop/conference Exhibition Public Art Interactive art Interactive Narrative installation GPS Mapping New Interfaces locative psychogeography

GoGreen Week and IOCT

Online totaliser day view for GoGreen week

Well...inspite of our major contribution to the new Greenview App,  the University GoGreen week ( http://gogreenweek.dmu.ac.uk/) passed unevenly, with IOCT down in the energy league tables because of its relatively small size-where any small discrepancy in use was magnified disproportionately-hence the turning off of a few items on standby leading to a 28% saving for the day. Hence this tweet!

"@greenviewdmu Greenview

Also huge congratulations to @ioct_dmu who, after a visit by dmu energy team, reduced consumption by 28%!! @ahugill #dmugogreen"

The Vice Chancellor writes as follows:

Staff and students cut electricity use by 12.3 per cent in one week.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone at DMU for doing their bit to make Go Green Week such a success.

The final figure shows we managed to reduce our electricity consumption by 12.3 per cent across the campus, which was a huge saving of 30,871kWh – all in the space of seven days.

To put it into context, the energy saved would be enough to power nine homes for a year, or toast more than a million slices of bread! We also saved more than 16 tonnes of carbon dioxide!

It was a fantastic effort which shows the big savings that can be achieved by following a few simple steps to make sure computers, lighting and other electrical equipment are switched off when we are not using them.

I don’t think any institution of our size has ever attempted such a campaign and it reflects the importance DMU puts on environmental issues and sustainability.

It was also a fitting tribute to our 14 Japanese students from Tohoku University, who were visiting De Montfort University (DMU) for a week’s holiday as they continued to rebuild their lives following the earthquake and tsunami in March this year.

When I invited them to stay at DMU I wanted to do something to show our solidarity with the Japanese victims of the earthquake. Reducing electricity consumption seemed a simple but effective thing to do and help us remember how they are  having to cope with drastically cutting energy use after major power plants were destroyed.

We have learned a lot from Go Green Week – but please remember our drive to save energy does not stop here.

We all have a part to play in reducing electricity consumption and cutting carbon emissions on campus.

There are lots of opportunities to do this, including taking part in the Green Impact project which is a competition between departments and teams to see who can be the greenest. For more information on Green Impact please contact me  kletten@dmu.ac.uk

For more information about the green initiatives happening at DMU please visit www.dmu.ac.uk/sustainability

Thank you again - and let’s keep saving energy.

Professor Dominic Shellard

Vice-Chancellor of DMU

Greenview Bid Success

Greenview

A £40,000 joint bid between IESD and IOCT  to JISC for energy use visualisation through mobile phones and augmented reality has been successful

Overview

Greenview aims to follow on and build on the successful DUALL project, funded by phase 1 of JISC's Greening ICT call. DUALL utilised a socio-technical solution to the design of a simple web based information-feedback tool that could report electrical consumption of ICT equipment back to users. Greenview aims to refine the ICT tool further into a more sophisticated smart phone application that connects staff and students in De Montfort to the energy consumption of their buildings.

 

Aims and objectives

Aim: To design a leading edge smart phone and web based application enabling building users to understand the energy consumption of the buildings across DMU.
Objectives:

1. To design and launch a campus wide ICT tool connecting building users to the energy consumption of buildings and the ICT infrastructure.
2. To help the extent building users impact the performance of the environment they are in.
3. To understand the potential of augmented reality tools to engage individuals in behaviour change initiatives. 
4. To engage the creative and developer community at DMU in sustainability issues

Project methodology

The project will gather the information from sub-meters across the campus which monitor half-hourly electricity, gas and water.
Software will incorporate the design of major interface components, including collaborative gaming elements, display alternatives, (adaption of map-based and Augmented reality systems for mobile platforms using GPS) using streamed data sets from intelligent metering and its required interpretive software.
Technology such as social media, augmented reality, GPS technology, and wiki or crowd-sourcing knowledge approaches to engage with the public in what we would term "hybrid " city environments.
This ability to reach out and map layers of information onto the cityscape will form the foundation for further developments to support this bid. Pilot interface tests will occur in situ with a variety of controlled groups for evaluation in set scenarios of components: display overlays, collaborative elements etc.
Finally, the tool will be launched across the campus and a rigorous analysis undertaken based on the evidence of any changes to consumption (as shown in the meter readings) and interviews.

Anticipated outputs and outcomes

We anticipate that the outcomes of the project will form an institutional exemplar project that places sustainability at the core of DMU's CSR agenda, and connects into the aim of the JISC Institutional Innovation Programme to provide "improved leadership to the sector in the role that technology can play in developing effective institutional strategies."
Specifically there will be a campus wide ICT tool (using augmented reality) connecting building users to the energy consumption of buildings and the ICT infrastructure. This will be open source and available for download by other HEIs.

Project Staff

Project Manager: Dr Richard Bull IESD (DMU)

Project Team:

Professor Martin Rieser
Institute of Creative Technologies (DMU)


Dave Everitt
Institute of Creative Technologies (DMU)


Gareth Howell
Institute of Creative Technologies (DMU)


Farhan Faruk
IESD (DMU)