Stuart Wood, Florian Ortkrass and Hannes Koc: The MOMA Rain Room
What if we could control the weather? The thought has more than crossed the minds of Stuart Wood, Florian Ortkrass and Hannes Koch, the three founders of the London-based art studio Random International. In their latest installation, Rain Room, now at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the artists have created an indoor downpour that detects passers-through and actually adjusts, to keep them dry.
Biochar – a key technology for the planet by Hans-Peter Schmidt
The current imbalance in the world’s carbon and nitrogen cycle is not just the main cause of climate change, but also a direct threat to ecosystems through eutrophication, desertification and a decline in biodiversity. Re-balancing through regularly recycling organic material with its carbon, nitrogen and phosphor content is needed. Biochar has the potential to play a key role, as it not only converts the carbon found in a wide range of biomasses into a stable form, but also binds volatile nutrients from biomass residues, thereby recycling them for agricultural use. Though still “early days” for biochar, the prospects for its use are good, whether in crop or livestock farming or in industry. Link: ithaka-journal.net
