AVATAR

http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/otherhostedsites/avatar/intro.html

The Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research Laboratory was founded in September 2004 at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. By 2004 many teachers and students at the Bartlett were working with some aspects of virtuality but the full scope of the research was often contained within the hermetic unit system. AVATAR is conceived as a cross unit research group and agenda that explores all manner of digital and visceral terrain, its augmentation and symbiosis. AVATAR also has a dedicated Masters Programme for students. Over recent years AVATAR has grown into an international research collaborative centre. It attracts students from around the world and a critical mix of cultural, aesthetic and social agendas are encouraged.

AVATAR is fundamentally interested in research concerning the impact of advanced technology on architectural design, however it also contributes to discussion on issues such as aesthetics, philosophy and cybernetics.

Technologically, AVATAR concerns itself with virtuality (exploring fully immersed, mixed and augmented environments); Time based new media (film, video and film theory), Nano and bio technology (micro landscapes and architecture, ethics, sustainability and ecology) including reflexive environments and cybernetic systems.

Philosophically and artistically, AVATAR is convinced that the new technologies prompt a re-evaluation of Surrealist spatial protocols and tactics. Also it believes that Alfred Jarry's proto- surrealist poetic pseudo science of 'Pataphysics and its idea of the 'Clinamen"- the swerve (chance) has great import on what we do. The choreography of digitally enabled chance allows us to create architecture of blossoming possibility where events are fleeting, exceptional and particular.

Neil Spiller:
http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/otherhostedsites/avatar/spiller.html

Rachel Armstrong:
http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/people/A_armstrong_rachel.htm

next nature

http://www.nextnature.net/

rachel armstrong

Rachel is currently collaborating with international scientists and architects to explore cutting-edge, sustainable technologies by developing metabolic materials in an experimental setting. These materials possess some of the properties of living systems and couple artificial structures to natural ones in the anticipation that our buildings will undergo an 'origins of life' style transition from inert to living matter and become part of the biosphere. By generating metabolic materials it is hoped that cities will be able to replace the energy they draw from the environment, respond to the needs of their populations and eventually become regarded as alive in the same way that we think about parks or gardens. Since metabolic materials are made from terrestrial chemistry they are not exclusive to First World countries and have the potential to transform urban environments worldwide.

http://www.rachelarmstrong.me/

BHH // The Broken Heart House

A house-robot
with an electronic skin
a broken heart
a heartbeat
a broken machine

an artificial heart

Doris Taylor, a cardiac researcher, director at the Center for Cardiovascular Repair, may very well be the first scientist in the world to have ever built an artificial heart. Using only organic rat cells, she was able to make a dead heart beat and grow again, all in a bioreactor at the University of Minnesota. Though she did that in late 2005, it was only recently that she published her findings in the Nature Medicine journal.

he process of reviving the heart was "fairly" simple. Taylor took a heart from a dead rat and meticulously cleaned all the cells off it, by using a special detergent. Then, all she was left with was a heart skeleton, made up of stronger tissue, similar to see-through paper. On this hallow heart, she injected cells from newly-born baby rats and placed the entire mix in a bioreactor at the University.


http://news.softpedia.com/news/First-Artificial-Organic-Heart-Created-95860.shtml

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e-skin

New electronic skin could give robots human-like touch
A new type of electronic skin whose sense of touch rivals that of humans could allow robots to identify an object by the way it feels.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0914/New-electronic-skin-could-give-robots-human-like-touch

When covered with the electronic skin, or "e-skin" as the researchers call it, robots would be able to touch and move objects with the appropriate force. For example, the e-skin would allow the robot to sense the difference between an egg and a frying pan and adjust the force of its grip accordingly.

So far the researchers have made a prototype device and shown that the material can detect a wide range of pressures – 0 to 15 kilopascals, which accounts for typical daily activities.

Macrophage engulfing pathogens

Macrophage engulfing pathogens

macrophage engulfing pathogens from hybrid medical animation on Vimeo.

dreamscapes

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