Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Ebro river talking, Ebro river talking....anybody listening

The talking island at Expo Zaragoza 2008 Ebro river nearby its left bank is a landscape installation created by Eva Lootz which will be an island-ear or ear-land. Well, in fact, instead of listening, as commonly ears are supposed to do, it will be spreading sounds, the voice of the river…

Eva Lootz, Austrian artist living in has been living and working in Valencia, Spain, since the Seventies Spain explains that we are living in a society that invites us to life in “adosados” (ie. construction of unifamiliar houses which is a recent urbanistic boom development in Spain) paid as gold and that builds golf courses in the middle of desserts such as in Murcia….

Herself, she is currently working on visiting the artistic side of garbage. In this context, she says "work with garbage implies to do with the left obres of today´s hyper-consumption society, the obscure side of our society". Food for though...

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Oikos outdoor pavilion at Expo Zaragoza 2008

O-ikos means “the house” in Greek. Situated in the Ebro plaza, near the river aquarium the “Oikos”: Water and Energy Plaza” will showcase different sources of energy and devices to capture it such as solar panels, windmills, etc:

-The Sun. in a 6-metre diameter room with a dome-shaped roof the Sun is presented as the cause of meteorological phenomena, the day, night and our seasons.

-The wind. The visitor learns about the origins and characteristics of this meteorological phenomenon using three great tubes which, coming from the bottom with cold air, go through a module culminating in three chimneys. Surrounding the tubes there is a spinning hoop that represents a mill in motion.

-The house and water. The installation explains the importance of hydroelectric power using a mechanism composed of wind pump that extracts water from a well. This falls like rain on a dam, whose water then goes through a turbine to generate electricity. Finally it goes into an installation like a home where there visitor can see the many applications of water in the house.

-Climate control. The public goes through two “chambers”, one cold and the other hot, to point out the importance of insulation as a fundamental aspect of good climate control. If you want to know more on how you control climate change click at LINK

Lastly, in the final module, with the title “The possible house”, the application of all the alternative techniques viewed throughout the plaza is shown to reduce consumption of fossil fuels.

The above themes are very much in line with Aragon renewables potentialities. According to a GreenPeace report Aragon's solar potential would make it possible by 2050 to meet thirty-two times the projected total energy demand for this Community in 2050 (47.2TWh/year) and its wind potential would generate 5 times demand.

The pavilion itself has an exposition surface of 845 m2 and a budget of 3,4 million euros. Authors are Domingo Guinea, from CSIC as technical adviser and the german Roland Olbeter, who is an engineer by training and an artist (see his curious fontain in a previous post) who worked, among others, in the inauguration ceremony of the Olimpic Games of Barcelona 1992.

Monday, June 04, 2007

Music water artefact at Expo Zaragoza 2008

This “yellow and black¨ecosystem-machine will bring water from the micro-lake in the basement till the 8 metres high top and back again…with the help of the public…and creating "music" in the process. I am sure kids will love it.

The author is the German Roland Olbeter who lives and works in Barcelona since 1988. He is a multidisciplinary character, mix of a trained musician (concert violinist) and naval constructor. So no doubt why he likes to create impossible artifacts. For example, he worked together with La Fura dels Baus to design the main pieces of Naumón ship which is...well i kind of theather-ship...