ideas research movies instruments
Today I had a talk at the Plexwerk Tagung 'transfer' in Basel, where I presented some ideas about hackerspaces between digital- and biotechnology.
the slides can be downloaded dusjagr_plexwerk_hackerspaces_draft_2
I also wanted to show this movie about design of cellular patterns...
A first prototype for the diplay at dock18 ist finally finshed. we used an arduino to control 2 daisy chained TLC5940 16 channel PWM LED drivers. From the 5V circuit we control the 220V lamps using a TRIAC. The prototype shown above is a matrix of yellow LEDs which are behind a paper screen.
i am currently working on displaying genetic data using 4 different symbols to represent the nucleotides of the genome. It should kinda play with the idea of digital vs. genetic data. in addition to the the large amount of genetic data in an individual human genome, issues are touched such as genetic privacy, open access and visualisation.
While at the moment the display shows a random DNA sequences generated by the atmega microcontroller, further developments could use the one and only downloadable complete genome sequence of a human individual (of course by craig venter). instead of using advanced visualisation tools such as the HuRef Genome Browser, displaying it on a 5x4 pixel screen turns it into a completely ridiculous lighting scheme. calculating the number of basepairs (3.2 billion bp) in a human genome displayed with a reasonable frame rate would render a single complete sequence to last around 100 years 
I have just been doing more experiments using fluorescent dyes. Yesterday at the OpenLab, by SGMK, we messed around with solution of fluorescein. Was great fun. Thinking about ideas to use it for displays. only sometimes it looks almost too cheesy, to much goaparty-style. but with the right context, it might perfectly fit in. Fluorescence is in the end one of the key tools for doing biology and nanosciences.
I did some more experiments with lasers the last few days. lasers rock! during the Dynamic Days at Dynamo, Markus has been playing around with some kids and lasers, they are loving it.
Laser microscope viewing a tardigrade from dusjagr on Vimeo.
In addition I was continuing to experiment with the laser micro-projections... By combining a 50mW greenlaser with a lens of webcam i made a ultra simple microscopic projection unit. above the lense i place a sample of tardigrades which cast a projected shadow onto the screen. although there is a large amount of scattering and diffraction, the motion and shape of the tardigrade can clearly be detected. more on hackteria.org.
and I found a cool supplier of "Golden" lasers in china. I bloody need one....
I am finally coming around to update this blog once again.... since I arrived in Hong Kong lots of things and happend.
.
First of all, during my trips to asia I found a lot of great electronic gadgets, cheap supplier store and most useful I bought a couple of small gas-powered soldering irons. With the hope of reducing the weight of my travelling lab luggage i finally got together a complete hackteria mobile mini lab that should fit into the 20k limit. The only thing i am missing is the golden breadboard...
Hopefully we will be able to get some awesome Hong Kong or Taiwan mailorders soon, and we can finally reduce our newly introduced pricing list in the open MechArtLab.
After Hong Kong I surprised a lot of my friends with my 18 hours stay in zürich, cos i spent the whole day in the casablanca drinking coffee and beer and meeting them. Everybody thought I was somewhere between Kirgistan and Feuerland, but in fact I had a short stop-over in Zürich before leaving to Bergen, Norway. for the piksel09 festival. See the link on our hackteria site for more information. And by the way, it is a true fact that Bergen is the most rainy place in europe.... check my "map".
After another trip around the world to Taiwan for the PlayAround09 - TechNomads workshop I finally got back to Hagen. But instead of chilling and mentally finally processing my experiences... we made a great new years party, with Phillip H and some folks from berlin together with my friends. And then... after lasershows, mystical walks through the forest wearing aluminium hats, prosecco and wine, those who stayed another night were rewarded by the most beautiful beginning of a new year one can imagine.
funded by:
KulturRaum Stadt und Kanton Schaffhausen
Migros Kuturprozent
Comments on: