Yuri's Night World Party at NASA/Ames Research Center: April 12, 2008, Part 6 http://www.ynba.org/2008/
Written by Dennis Gonzales.
Photography by Jim Taylor, John Schultz, Kyle Cavallaro & Paul Langston.
Interview with S. Pete Worden by Dennis Gonzales.
Art and Science (Continued)
Inform Art/Gary Air presented "Share a Ride and Sustain the Earth." The centerpiece of the presentation was a Cessna single-engine piston airplane outfitted with state-of-the-art air taxi avionics, which allows ride-sharing by air.
Paul Eastham brought his RV-9A aircraft, built and designed by Van's Aircraft Corporation, to the tarmac for display. The RV-9A aircraft is all about efficiency; its mileage can approach that of some hybrid cars. The aircraft is faster than most of the light airplanes in production, and boasts energy-efficient innovations such as high-brightness LED-based external lighting.
Frank Pietronigro and other members of the Zero Gravity Arts Consortium (ZGAC) returned to YNBA with "360 Degrees," a video tribute to Chiori Santiago (an in-flight Journalist who passed away during the first of NASA's Ames' YNBA events, in 2007). The video work shows a painter's creative experience as one story celebrating human space exploration. Ms. Santiago is featured floating throughout "360 Degrees" as part of the Texas Space Grantís NASA Reduced Gravity Student Flight Program, which was flown in collaboration with the California Space Grant Consortium and the San Francisco Art Institute. (See video below)
The NASA Research Park (NRP) presented a lecture entitled "SkyTran: A Transportation Strategy for the 21st Century" which featured Unimodal Systemsí Christopher Perkins and John Cole. Their portion of the presentation discussed the next-generation sustainable "people mover." Unimodel, Inc. had already built prototypes of "Sky Tran" at its facilities inside NASA Ames Research Park. "Sky Tran" is from the "Personal Rapid Transit" (PRT) is a futuristic idea that's been around for 30 years, but now that technology has caught up, PRT systems are being considered for being considered for Santa Cruz, Marin County and San Jose airport. The system could also come to Mountain Viewís outskirts. Discussions are underway about installing a PRT system at the 73-acre NASA Ames Research Park when the area is redeveloped as a research hub for private companies and universities. Further to this concept, the company JPods displayed a people mover on the tarmac for visitors to try out. JPods are computerized robotic networks that move people and cargo at the electrical equivalent of 200-400 miles per gallon.
NRP tenant Photozig hosted an exhibit during which their CEO, Bruno Kajiyama, and his team produced a real-time Internet slideshow montage of Yuri's Night. Photozig also provided Web Albums live that evening. Another part of their display was a booth that captured images of visitors posing in Yuri Gagarin's flight suit and in his Vostok Spacecraft. The images could later be downloaded off their website. The following images are me, co-workers - John Woebcke and Cheryse Triano.
Dennis Gonzales as Yuri.
John Woebcke in the Vostok 3KA-3.
Cheryse Triano floating with the ISS.
Ecliptic Enterprises Corp's CEO Rex Ridenoure presented a video compilation of "RocketCamís Greatest Hits," which showed a sampling of onboard launch-to-orbit video footage from 30 space projects (including NASA shuttle launches).
The Ames Amateur Radio Club demonstrated live television transmissions, satellite spectral displays, and radio communications for Yuri's Night fans. Check out images and a review from the club here.
NASA Ames intern, Drew Wohlenhaus, explained the science behind biomethane refinement.
Lili Smith exhibited light installations that reflected the repetitions in life experience and stages in human society in, "Eat Drink Sleep and other works".
The MonkeyLectric LED light system invented by Instructables.com co-founder Dan Goldwater turned spinning bike wheels into a psychedelic experience with the Art Bikes and the Bike Culture.
Owen Valis & Jordan Hochenbaum, undergraduate students at the California Institute for the Arts, offered their Brick table as an interactive installation for people to come and play with (See video below). Brick is a multi-touch & tangible user interface table created as part of an entry into a new performance interface competition sponsored by Create Digital Music. The idea for Brick arose from a conversation between Jordan and Owen, both musicians, about how to sonify data in a way that was both musical and meaningful for the user. The conversation also led to the creation of "Weather Report," the first piece of custom software written to interface with Brick.
