MEDEA Talk on ‘Visualizing Sustainability’

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Arlene Birt presenting at MEDEA in Malmö, Sweden on Dec.10 (15:00-17:00 Central European time).

Arlene will present two projects that she’s done as artist-in-residence at MEDEA and a behind-the-scenes view on her work on how to visualize ‘background stories’. One project is a visual mapping of the sustainability-oriented systems at work within the Västra Hamnen area of the city through a collaboration with Unsworn Industries to show this information using the parascope technology they’ve developed. Another project visually communicates the benefits of bicycling – in terms of CO2 saved, money saved and calories burned.

Details on the talk here. There will also be a live-stream of the talk.

Artist Residency to Visualize Impacts in Malmö, Sweden

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Arlene has begun an artist residency at interactive center for new media MEDEA, where she will develop work to visualize the impacts/benefits of bicycling for the Västra Hamnen area of Malmö in order to encourage and celebrate a culture of bicycling.

More on the progress of the project, which will run Oct-Dec 2010, is posted on the MEDEA site.

sketch of visualizing sustainaiblity in bicycling

WORK-IN-PROGRESS

TraceProduct.Info exhibiting at the Spark Festival

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TraceProduct.info is a prototype for an in-store, retail-wide system for displaying information on grocery product backgrounds at point-of-sale.

Exhibiting Sept. 29-Oct.2 at the Spark Festival.

Straw Bale Installation at MN Landscape Arboretum

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A straw-bale bench and accompanying info-graphic is on exhibit all summer at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. As part of the Powerhouse Plants exhibit showcasing the super-human powers of plants.

finished straw-bale bench

Straw Bale bench with information graphic

Entitled ‘Waves of [Multifunctional] Grain,’ this graphic installation shows the life-cycle of grain crops like wheat, barley and rye – and how the waste product from the production of these food-grains (the straw) can be used as a local and sustainable building material.
With the information graphic, we wanted to communicate the potential for a closed-loop system inherent within this plant’s life-cycle: We grow a crop, eat the grain, and can use the waste straw for building and insluation. A perfect cycle.

Information graphic design on the back of a straw bale bench

INFO-GRAPHIC SHOWS THE PROCESS AND BENEFITS

Grocery Project at Art-A-Whirl

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A work-in-progress of the Grocery project is showing at Art-A-Whirl May 14-16.

Artist on the Verge exhibit: works-in-progress at Art-A-Whirl

WORKS-IN-PROGRESS FLIER

The installation will display a prototype of a system to trace the origins of grocery purchases at the point-of-sale.

Preview:

New Media project in-progress at Art-A-Whirl

Grocery tracking project-in-progress installation

Close up of interface design for grocery project

Tracing a lunchtime grocery store purhase

In Development: And in-store tracking system that will map a customer’s produce, meat and dairy purchases. An accompanying online portal will allow deeper browsing into the background of the product’s origin.

“Designing Our Way Out” at MCAD

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Arlene Birt will present April 22 at Pecha Kucha night in a joint MCAD/American Swedish Institute event on Earth Day.

Bush Fellowship Finalist

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Arlene Birt is named as a finalist for the 2010 Bush Fellowship.

Water Rights Exhibition

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The ‘Drinking Water Cycle’ glasses are on part of the ‘Water Rights’ exhibition at MCAD gallery 215 now through March 21. The glasses are part of ‘The Water Project’.

Measuring & Communicating Life Cycle course online

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Registration is open for Sustainability: Measuring and Communicating Life Cycle online course through MCAD’s Sustainability program – taught by Arlene Birt.

Sustainability: Measuring & communicating life cycle course flyer

This course teaches methods of communicating sustainability to consumers in an engaging, visual way – in order to help people understand the sustainability (or lack thereof) of products, and establish a personal connection to products’ environmental impacts.

More information on Minneapolis College of Art and Design’s website.

Older News

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2009

9.Dec.09 Arlene Birt named Artist in Residence at MEDEA in Malmö, Sweden for Fall 2010.

22.Dec.09 Arlene Birt selected for the 2010 Art(ists) on the Verge fellowship for a project on Visualizing Grocery Impacts.

22.Oct.09 short presentation for Packaging Sustainability: Tools, Systems and Strategies for Innovative Package Design launch party at MCAD.

07.Oct.09 "Water Cycle for Life" design selected for production by Felissimo and Design 21.

22.July.09 presenting at Give & Take.

Arlene presented 18 – 20 June.09 at Data Designed for Decisions. A joint OECD and International Institute for Information Design conference in Paris.

Arlene presented ‘Background Stories’ at New Media Meeting 4 in Norrköping, Sweden May.09.

Arlene collaborating with the Interactive Institute (Sweden).

On shelves now: Arlene contributed to Packaging Sustainability: Tools, Systems and Strategies for Innovative Package Design.

Dec.08 – May.09 Background Stories on view in the exhibit, Tourism: Spaces of Fiction, at the Barcelona Design Museum.

Arlene presented ‘Designing for Sustainability’ on Earth Day, April.09 at AIGA Minnesota’s Sustainability Retreat.