11.6.10

Enormous Microsocopic Evening L.A.




On November 6th the Hammer Museum hosted an Enormous Microscopic Evening, which demonstrated the range of equipment people are using to explore the invisible, from state of the art futuristic equipment to home made one-of-a-kind technologies. The clarity of the images, range of instruments and enthusiasm of both presenters and visitors created an air of extended awe in the glowing room.

Soon we will live in a world with over a billion connected microscopes, and Enormous Microscopic Evening captured a brief glimpse of what cheap and powerful networked devices might start to reveal. There were lots of portable platforms on display and demonstrations of the way that 'social microscopy' is being used  in medicine, mapping and environmental safety. The day before the event Machine Project hosted a Microscopy Hacking workshop, in which Rich Pell taught how to transform a cheap USB camera into a powerful optical microscope and Phil Ross demonstrated how to make the original glass bead Leeuwenhoek device.

Entering the museum one first encountered a performance of miniature pianos scored by John Cage.
Images from the event can be found here and here. 


Including:

Big Screen Microscopy with a RED One Camera

Richard Weinberg  USC School of Cinematic Arts


The CellScope: Telemicroscopy for Disease Diagnosis

The Fletcher Lab UC Berkeley’s Fletcher Lab


Cheek Cell Portraits

Caitlin Johnson The Exploratorium


DIY Microscope Bar

Maria Mortati SF Mobile Museum.


D-Rev One-Micron Pocket Field Scope

Entomoproboscopy

Joshua Myers The Exploratorium.


How To Look At Insects: Field to Lab Entomology

Lila Higgins Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County


Instant Social Microscopy

Richard Pell  Center For PostNatural History

Philip Ross CRITTER


Mobile Field Scope

Denise King The Exploratorium.


Nikon Small World Gallery

Open Source ScanningTunneling Microscope

Sacha d’Angeli Pumping House: One, ChemHacker

The Rosetta Project

Dr. Laura Welcher The Long Now Foundation.

Single Molecule Perception

Stephen Quake the Quake Lab, Stanford University.


Victorian Micro-Art


 

Micro Sounds

Toy Piano Concerts in the Lobby:
Chris Kallmyer and  Danny Holt

Ambient Life Room:
Phil Ross, Lauren Allen, Zota
   
Special Dressing



 



19.4.10

Scott Wallace

On April 24th Scott Wallace presented his journeys through the land of an uncontacted tribe in the Brazilian Amazon, and other accounts from his upcoming book The People of the Arrow, which will be published by Harmony Books (Crown).
Scott Wallace has worked as a writer, photographer and television journalist on the frontlines and the “edge of contact” between competing worlds and coexisting cultures. He started his career in the 1980s covering the civil war in El Salvador, the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua, and the other “low-intensity conflicts” in Central America. He serves as an editor and senior writer at National Geographic Magazine, and is currently focused on the struggles along the world’s final wilderness frontiers, where indigenous peoples find themselves and their homelands under mounting assault by a globalized economy hungry for resources and markets.
Scott blew everyone's minds, with tales of near death, ongoing encounters between hunter gatherers and 'civilization', and the strange presence of knowing but not seeing.

www.scottwallace.com

17.3.10

Eat Bug Eat Redux: Machine Project!!

On Friday, March 12 CRITTER went south for Eat Bug Eat Redux: Machine Project Style!!
So many people came to try our tasty fried (and live) bugs in San Francisco, we just knew our friends at Machine would be up for the challenge. And were they ever. Thousands of insects were consumed in a mere 2 hours.


Delicious Mealworms: these were the favorite of the live-bug eaters.


Two fisted mealworm style!


The personal favorite of CRITTER: wax-moth larvae. They taste like bacon!


This time around, we even featured Oaxacan style chapulines


We had a fabulous group of LA-based volunteers who helped us prepare the insects before they were devoured.

More photos from the LA Times here.

30.1.10

Mother Cultural Exchange




On Saturday, February 20th, CRITTER invited people to come and participate in a Mother Cultural Exchange. Mother cultures are used to make delicious edibles and this event featured living samples of yogurt, cheese, kefir, kombucha, sourdough, champapple, miso and various fungi. Hooray for exo-digestion!!!

Lots of different cultivators brought their micro-critters for showing, sharing and tasting. Everyone who came was encouraged to bring home samples to start growing daughter colonies of their own. More images here.
Special thanks to Mikey Sgamballone, Diane Whitmore, Eli Brown, Eric Smillie and the Merritt College Mycological Society for all of their help and participation.

Guthrie Allen was there playing his hypnotic bass loops through the event, helping to propagate waves of growth into the future.