Leopoldau Gasworks Site

Impressions from Vienna's periphery. Gasworks Leopoldau and their use as stage within the 'Wiener Festwochen' 2010.

 

 

As a temporary use, cultural happenings bring the place to life. An interimistic strategy for urbanism which should avoid to become mere gentrification but to create sustaining opporuntities for cultural life in a future urban development.

Artwork on the ground for the open-space play 'Hass' within the 'Wiener Festwochen' 2010. The play was an adaptation of the french film 'La Haine', elaborating on precarious living conditions and perspectivelessness of young people with migrant backgrounds. 
The play's content appears now more important than ever before. Especially for Austria the question is: Why do people not appreciate cultural diversity and see people coming as migrants with a welcoming eye? New friends, neighbours and citizens as a chance to connect to places, cultures and opportunities outside Austria's small box. CELEBRATE DIVERSITY!

Returning to the play 'Hass'. I very much enjoyed the performance. Thanks to the new space company! Find below some impressions about how the new space company transformed the ambience of the gasworks into a more banlieue-like (?!) environment as a backdrop for the play. 

 

 

the event

'McCollum conducted his fulgurite experiments in cooperation with the University of Florida’s International Center for Lightning Research and Testing and their base of operations was at the Camp Blanding national guard base near Starke, Florida. During what was referred to as The Event, lightning was attracted by way of small rockets launched two to three thousand feet into overhead storm clouds – with each rocket spooling out an ultra-thin copper wire that kept it grounded and directed any provoked lightning. Ben Franklin would be proud!'

sidewalk fulgurite

when a powerline hits prefab concrete on the ground, the material can melt and form some kind of fulgurite, or lechatelierite.

from: http://www.celestialmonochord.org/2006/05/sidewalk_fulgar.html

and see the exact site on google maps, even to identify on streetview. 

life in the desert

life in the uncanny deep

le mars

how mars was visited by NASA's Phoenix mission in 2008. this gave us some amazing pictures.



two pictures from the phoenix-mission homepage at university of arizona:

frozen in the morning

hi-res martian landscape

Electric Mobility in Austria

The Tesla Roadster is the sexy icon of electric mobility.

What is going on in terms of electric mobility in Austria and the CENTROPE region? Several aspects are of interest: initiatives for social integration of e-mobility, technological as well as scientific advances regarding e-mobility, and, policy as well as economic concepts for the advancement and integration of e-mobility .

'Regarding e-mobility, The Mobility House considers first and foremost a modification of human mobility patterns in urban agglomerations as indispensable. The majority of the driven distances are short and can even at this point in time, be easily covered with e-vehicles. As a consecutive step The Mobility House envisions the merging of urban agglomerations and regions as a chance of applying e-mobility supra-regionally.'
from: http://www.mobilityhouse.at/en/electric-mobility/vision.html

'The future belongs to mobility with electric vehicles.' Walther-werke offer a complete kit for charging car and smart grid.

See a video about the future of energy supply in smart grids on the Siemens homepage. A smart grid will be able to balance temporary fluctiations in the availability of renewable energy supply. Smart grids will be an important future infrastructure to allow a diverse and renewable energy generation to power our society in a clean way.

Mobility is more if you are moving with less, like a scooter or a bike, due to lower entropy factors. e-scooters or e-bikes for long distances or rainy and lazy days.

Yet, I still don't see so many e-scooters on the street in vienna.
So get your supplies for example at: scooterman.at webshop

btw., in china e-scooters sales are soaring.



And e-bikes in Vienna:
As resident of vienna you can get 30% (max of 300€) back from the cities subsidy. 'Antragsformular für mein Elektrofahrrad'

Image showing Viennas city counselor Ulli Sima on a tesla-like electric bike. :)

E-mobility in Graz: The Magna 'BionX' is frequently represented in Austria. Magnas BionX motor is a future bestseller of this company.
photo: Stadt Graz / Foto Fischer

Nonwithstanding, walking and biking - mechanical forms of mobility (m-mobility) - are still the most efficient in keeping our environments alive.

LiJiang, Yunnan, China