orpheus x at the american repertory theater in cambridge (ma) is remarkably entertaining: the dynamic lead vocal (who wrote the opera) plays orpheus as a rock star and euridice is a minor poet who was run over by his taxi cab. aside from the angrogenous persephone/music agent character, the 90-minute opera was energetic and beautiful: a strong polyrhythmic rock band drove the lyrics while video projections played against the minimalist backdrop.
via jeff lieberman
while inflatable buildings have been around for a while, they rarely take advantage of the natural dynamism of pneumatics. since festo’s original pneumatic building (top), inflatable building members have been used for dynamic structures such as muscle (middle, via interactivearchitecture) and the proposed whowhatwhenair (bottom) which is being fabricated for the mit campus as we speak – with the construction process documented here.
my old mit perception ta josh mcdermott and mark hauser propose that humans evolved to prefer consonant sounds over dissonant sounds. the way they show it is by placing monkeys in a V-shaped maze with musical chords playing at one end and cacophonous tones at the other. while monkeys prefer soft sounds to loud ones and happy sounds to sad ones, they have no preference between chords and dissonant notes. they checked by putting five harvard undergraduates in a room with two speakers and told them to wait five minutes, during which everyone went to the harmonious side of the room.
for the first time 3.5 million italian expatriates are voting in this election – here is a web page dedicated to videos of berlusconi and his party’s most fascist moments (some are in english).
via walter nicolino
now that we can touch and feed our pets remotely, we may not even have to – recent findings suggest that robot pets confer some of the same health benefits as real ones. the paro seal type mental commit robot pictured is designed for just that – this video of him playing with japanese senior home residents should convince anyone.
in 2004 the us armed forces switched to new camouflage patterns designed according by computers using fractal-based algorithms that create large and small-scale textures using only four colors of dye. these have a 40% lower chance of being detected from 200 meters away that traditional olive drab. guy cramer “designed” these patterns for hyperstealth, they also explain in detail the advantages of digital vs. analog camo – but hurry! each of the 102 patterns on the website is up for exclusive licensing (except for the 100 confidential 3rd generation patterns available only to US and Canadian military command.)
after reading about how a blue stripe on the walls of prison cells could promote truthfulness, i tried to find out about the elusive field of color psychology. it turns out that there is very little direct connection between color and emotion: it seems to vary widely between cultures and individuals. for example, the color blue can evoke sadness as well as peace. in a study of three offices painted different colors, there was no effect on the psychology of people within. on the other hand, subjects bathed in colored light were much more anxious under red or yellow than blue light. like many things in psychology, there is a little bit of science behind it: doctors have successfully used blue light to treat jaundiced infants . in a study, severely handicapped and mentally disordered children were measurably calmed by the substitution of yellow and blue for orange, white, beige and brown and replacing fluorescent lights with full-spectrum ones. one good review of the state of the science is hiroshi sasaki’s color psychology, and the most interesting study about emotional association with color involves using stroop lists to see what colors and emotional words are most easily associated as in the table above. genov, schnall and laird describe how traditional emotional associations hold true, but individual preferences overwhelm any general rules.
gaetano pesce designed the UP chairs in 1969 – they are made of polyurethane foam upholstered in fabric, shipped vacuum-packed in flat boxes (left bottom) that self-inflate when you take them out.