Soft Robotics & Explosive Chambers

Harvard's silicone based "soft robotics" research has produced some fascinating results; here's a soft-body robot designed with elastic chambers containing a methane / oxygen mix which combusts provided an electric charge. The combustion within the body of the robot causes a violent but reasonably controlled spasm, launching the robot into the air. Sweet.

The Beat-en Path

A Documentary Film:

If you find yourself in a world that fits like a shoe that was made for someone else, with rules that serve some ancient paradigm, if you wake up every morning because you hope to make a difference, if you have that inconsolable drive, the one that stirs and yearns and abuses you endlessly, if you scour the earth for meaning, and you'll never settle, don't give up, you aren't alone.

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Here's the concept:

Our mission this summer is to travel around the country meeting everyday people who just want to make a difference. On this journey, we believe we'll discover a world full of people using their lives as a canvas to create beauty and innovation. If we can prove this theory, then perhaps this world won't feel as lonely, perhaps we won't feel so hopeless, perhaps the war that we should be fighting is the war on apathy.

On Challenging Reality: An Uphill Battle

The Role of Psychedelic Imagery in Music

Do you think it's a universal correlation that music goes hand in hand with trippy visuals? Do you think Mozart envisioned the exhibition of his symphonies alongside something akin to a laser show or the last 30 minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey? Do you think we've collectively changed as artists?

Kid Cudi - Pursuit of Happiness (Universal Motown Records)

Videos like this one used to freak me out. Halfway through, I actually had to turn this one off the first time I watched it.

日本の昔々

Japan, the 1800s; lifestyle and photographic presentation.

Our Relationship with the Written Word

Written word is one of the earliest forms of phenomenological design, a means to affect the presence of another person within the mind of the reader. It's a powerful and emotional phenomenon when executed by a skilled author, weaving engaging narratives and endearing, rich characters all from the simple context of a common written language.

Techniques in written word have been evolving since the advent of written language and technologies for the distribution of written word have matured over the ages to reach the mass market, but written word has always maintained a single fundamental feature: that the reader's copy of the material is static, non-interactive despite its faculty for delivering emotional depth. Even a written letter has a static nature, despite its purpose in demanding a response.

Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements

The most momentous and glorious discovery I have ever made on the internet.

Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements is an online compendium of technical diagrams (even animations!) for five hundred and seven mechanical movements used in simple machines.

Fascinating and hypnotizing, it's a testament to the quintessential human faculty for engineering.

One look is enough to make you want to drop everything and make like Michel Gondry. Anyone else ridiculously excited about Mood Indigo (L'écume des Jours) by the way?

Maria Montez

This post comes to us from artist and aestheticist satellite contributor Christopher Richmond, who keeps his own fascinating research blog, Something, Something, Hill of Bees.